Among the many samplers on display at Mather Homestead, one stands out for its detail, exceptional needlework, choice of verse, and its age.
It has a flower and vine border, a design of flowers, trees, bird, butterflies, and cat, around a 20-line verse. The work has an embroidered signature and date: Hannah Stuniken /December 20, 1794.
In a 2017 appraisal of the contents of the Homestead, the appraiser concluded that the sampler’s provenance was “Unknown” and that the sampler itself was “American Schoolgirl Needlework.”
In fact, the provenance can be established and Hannah Stuniken was British, not American, and never set foot on American soil.
An earlier blog (“A Petticoat…) identified a handkerchief belonging to Dorothea Stuniken, Stephen Mather’s great grandmother.
Dorothea Stuniken was the daughter of Daniel Stuniken and Hannah Warren. Two years younger than Dorothea, her sister Hannah was born in 1780. Hannah was fourteen years old when she made this sampler.
Hannah married Timothy Claxton in 1812 in London. Unlike Dorothea who emigrated in 1858, Hannah lived in England her entire life, dying in Somerset in 1867. In all likelihood, the sampler came to America with Dorothea or Dorothea’s daughter, Sophie Walker, Stephen Mather’s maternal grandmother.
A sampler that has not only traveled across the ocean, but through 230 years of time, now welcomingly rests on view just inside the front door of the Mather Homestead. Come see.
Comments