Rokeby MuseumQuaker Samplers from the Rokeby Collection
The Vermont Sampler Initiative, in cooperation with the National Sampler Archive, has been documenting Vermont 19th-century schoolgirl samplers since November 2022. To date, nearly 800 such samplers have been located and documented, among which Rokeby can claim 8 beautiful and well-preserved samplers in our collection. One of these will be on display in the museum for the 2025 season; the others are on display in our Virtual Exhibit. The 2025 Vermont Sampler Driving Tour (May–October, 2025), coincides with the statewide celebration of our nation’s 250th year. Rokeby Museum, along with 19 other sites from Bennington to Brownington, is a stop exhibiting examples of the needlework created by women who are the progeny of the Revolutionary War generation.
In early American history, samplers were a part of a girl’s education, with most worked in a school setting. Embroidery was one of the skills taught to all young girls, practical for social reasons as well as domestic production. Linens were among the most valuable items in pre-industrial age households and “marked” with the family initials and a number as a tool of inventory control. Similarly, a “marking sampler” usually shows a series of alphabets and numbers; some will include a signature or initials of the maker or a border.
These eight samplers, from the collection of Rokeby Museum, are the work of five Quaker women. All but one of these women were members of the Byrd-Stevens family who, by blood or by marriage, are linked to the Robinsons of Rokeby. Creating a marking sampler was a way for a young girl to practice her stitches and demonstrate her skill and knowledge. Quaker marking samplers are unique in that they illustrate Quaker values of utility, simplicity, and literacy. They are usually worked in a single dark color, such as black, navy, or brown, and most have a simple border.
Quaker marking samplers are unique in that they illustrate Quaker values of utility, simplicity, and literacy.
These families are representative of the wave of immigration to Vermont after its admittance to the Union in 1791. Rachel Fish Byrd and her older sister Mary were daughters of Thomas Byrd and Susannah Fish, an English immigrant and a Rhode Island native, respectively, who moved to Vergennes sometime before Mary’s birth in 1800. Mary Stevens and her sister Ann were the daughters of Rachel Fish Byrd and Stephen Foster Stevens, whose family had lived in Montpelier since 1792. Ann Stevens would later grow up to marry Rowland E. Robinson and move to Rokeby in 1870, bringing these family samplers with her. Jane Tew is the one creator who remains a mystery as to her relation to the Byrd, Stevens, or Robinson families.
The girls who created these samplers were not simply Vermont schoolgirls but the children and grandchildren of Revolutionary War veterans. Stephen Foster Stevens was the son of Huldah Foster and Clark Stevens. When Clark came of age in 1782, he was drafted as a soldier in the Massachusetts militia. By serving, he was following in the footsteps of his own father, Prince Stevens, who enlisted voluntarily in 1776. Following independence, he moved to Montpelier in 1792, becoming one of its earliest freeholders and helping to organize the town. He briefly moved back to Massachusetts for a time, where he married Huldah, before returning to his Montpelier farm with his new family. In 1793, he built the first meetinghouse for the Society of Friends in Montpelier, where he was recognized as a minister. Rachel’s grandfather, David Fish, didn’t fight in the Revolution, possibly due to his Quaker pacifism. However, he served his nation in another fashion. He volunteered as a nurse at a smallpox hospital in Newport, treating civilians and soldiers alike, until he perished from the same disease sometime before 1781. The values and ideals that pushed these men to risk their lives for their family, country, and way of life can yet be seen in the work of their descendants.
Mary Byrd
This sampler from Mary Byrd is the earliest one we have and is an excellent example of a Quaker marking sampler. It repeats the alphabet five times, four times in uppercase, demonstrating several styles and fonts. A numerical series from 1–9 complements the first alphabet. The initials M.B. and the date 1811 are included unobtrusively within the sampler, and a neat border surrounds the work. The use of a single color and the inclusion of several alphabets are similar to other samplers made by Quaker girls of this period. The alphabets are in cross stitch; Mary’s initials and the side borders use four-sided stitch; Algerian eye and long-arm cross stitch are used for the upper and lower borders, respectively. The sampler is stitched on a homespun linen ground. Mary was 11 when she made this sampler.
Rachel F. Byrd
The first Rachel F. Byrd sampler is undated, and likely the first of the two made by Rachel. It is worked entirely in a cross stitch on a homespun linen. The details have mostly faded, but the outlines show three alphabets, two in uppercase, surrounded by a simple border. It’s similar in structure to Mary’s and possibly unfinished.
The second sampler by Rachel features another signature, now accompanied by the date of creation, along with the location and age of the creator. “Fecit” (Latin for “he/she made it”) is a flourish that demonstrates her learning. The sampler lacks a border but contains two eye-catching geometric designs, both worked in fly stitch rather than the more common cross stitch.
There are many interesting details in Rachel’s sampler. The sampler is dated “6th of 2nd Mo. AD 1825,” a style of date that was unique to Quakers who did not use the names of the month. As the following “A 21” signifies, Rachel was 21 years old at the time she stitched this, indicating this was not a schoolgirl exercise, but more likely a practice piece for the geometric motifs, or perhaps the fly stitch, which she used in the two medallions.
Also worthy of note is that the 6th of 2nd Mo is February 6th, which was also Rachel’s birthday.
Jane Tew
Jane Tew’s sampler is an outlier in the Robinson collection. It is likely that this is a fragment of a larger work and features a verse on Hope, followed by a signature and date. The second mystery is the identity of “Jane Tew,” a name that seemingly has no connection to the Robinson, Stevens, or Byrd family.
The inscription reads “Hope the balm of life soothes us under every misfortune.” The moral of this verse is clear, an instruction not to lose faith in the face of difficulties. The source is more obscure. Research has found that the line is used as an example in several 19th-century texts, specifically textbooks on English grammar. This verse has also been found on other examples of Quaker needlework, such as an 1846 “Friendship Quilt” and a sampler stitched in 1801. It appears to have been a common line used in samplers.
Mary Stevens
Mary Stevens’ first sampler demonstrates the typical features in marking samplers, such as multiple alphabets and a numerical series from 1-10. She included her name, age, hometown, and the year. An exterior border surrounds the stitching, as well as a border for each line. Each line border has a slightly different design, and a geometric symbol appears to have been attempted under the third alphabet. Mary’s sampler stands out with its use of different colored threads, alternating every two letters. It is a unique creative choice that is not repeated in our other samplers.
Mary’s second sampler was created only one year later. Mary included the standard alphabet and numerical series, as well as her initials, but moved beyond the plain marking sampler to include botanical and geometric motifs that might be used to decorate clothing or linens. The border surrounding the work clearly delineates each section.
The inclusion of “America” and “Tolerance” is straightforward and reflects the social norms a religious New England Education would instill in a young girl. Along the bottom are initials that represent a short genealogy of Mary’s family: Ann Stevens (A.S.), her sister, bordered on either side by her father, Stephen Foster Stevens (S.F.S.), and mother, Rachel Byrd Stevens (R.B.S.). The verse “The only Amaranthine flower on earth is virtue. The only lasting treasure truth,” is a line from William Cowper’s 1785 poem “The Task.” In this verse, Cowper asserts that truth and virtue are the only things that do not succumb to age and decay. By placing his words next to the image of a tree, a contrast is made between the transient natural world and the eternal spiritual one.
Ann Stevens
Our last contributor, Ann Stevens, created the most recent samplers we have. Much like her older sister Mary, Ann’s first sampler is a respectable exhibition of skill. It has the expected alphabet recitals and numerical series, though this time ending in a “0” rather than a “10.” A border cleanly surrounds and separates each line. The date (1852), Ann’s name, and her age are signed.
Compare this early attempt to our final sampler, created only two years later, and the difference is striking. Ann has created Rokeby’s most complex, eye-catching sampler. It is worked in silk thread on paper ground using cross, satin, straight, and tent stitches. The alphabet and numerical series are neat and ordered and placed in a box at the top of the sampler. Her name, age, location, and the year are clearly written. Note how “Montpelier” has become “East Montpelier,” a result of the 1848 division of Montpelier by the State Legislature.
This sampler is an early indication of Ann’s artistic talent, which would only grow over the years. Ann’s later artwork is featured in Rokeby Museum’s newest exhibit, Inspired by Nature: The Women Artists of Rokeby.
A series of images adorn the bottom half of the sampler, a mix of decoration and rebus puzzles. The images convey a closeness to nature and religious faith, marked by the various flowers, the ivy-covered arrow, two ivy-covered crosses, and the words “Holy Bible.” The large two-story red building, and the tree it obscures, is clearly an image familiar and beloved to Ann. Possibly it was her home, though no record today remains of what the Stevens house may have looked like.
Finally, there are the three images accompanied by words. Two are rebus puzzles, of a sort. One reads “Strike the” with the image of a lyre. There are many potential explanations for this allusion. Calls for Apollo to “strike his/the lyre” appear in classical works, which may have been used in Ann’s education. Alternatively, one translation of Psalm 81:2 instructs a musician to “play the sweet-sounding harp and lyre” in honor of God. The second image is more straightforward: substituting the word for the image, it reads “Hope is an anchor to the soul.” It’s a quote from Hebrews 6:19, wherein the author refers to God swearing upon himself to bless Abraham’s descendants and calls this oath “a hope we have as an anchor to the soul.” This connects to the verse in Jane Tew’s sampler, where Hope serves as a way for the faithful to withstand misfortune.
The third image is not a rebus puzzle but rather a reference. The image is a book with the legend “Truth Triumphant” beneath. While this has become a phrase used by Christians of many denominations, the presence of the book hints that it may be a reference to the biography of Scottish Quaker Robert Barclays, an early convert and defender of the faith. After he died, a collection of his writings was published in 1692, under the title Truth Triumphant. These three images form the strongest and most direct example of Quaker influence in both Ann’s sampler and her education as the young daughter of a well-situated New England Quaker.
