Sampler (Verse sampler)

Description

This is a linen verse sampler worked with silk threads in 1804 by Sarah Watson of Duck Creek (now Smyrna), Delaware, while attending the Southern Boarding School. There are only three known "Vine and Verse" samplers from this school dated 1804, and Sarah's is one of them. The verse includes four stanzas of a hymn by John Newton (1725-1807) who also wrote "Amazing Grace." The Southern Boarding School was on Mt. Vernon Street in Smyrna, Delaware. It had two buildings -- a school and a dormitory. The boarding school was closed in 1825, probably because the public education act for Delaware was passed that year. Samplers from this school are quite rare. Winterthur has Ruth Bower's sampler, dated 1802, which is also from the Southern Boarding School, however, her sampler has hexagonal shapes and sprigs of flowers as decoration, and no verse. Sarah signed her work: "Sarah Watsons Work daughter / of Robert & Mary Watson"