Bridget Walker her Sampler

Museum Textile Services has been conserving a selection of samplers from the New Hampshire Historical Society over the last few years.  Each one of these beauties will be featured on the blog.  First up is Bridget Walker’s 1795 sampler, so let’s dive in!

Before-treatment image of Bridget Walker's 1795 sampler. New Hampshire Historical Society, 2012.030.01. Donated by Klaudia S. Shepard.

Bridget, as she proudly states in her work, was 12 when this sampler was finished in 1795. Young Miss Walker was growing up as one of the first generation of Americans born after the revolution in her town of Concord New Hampshire.  In 1795 Concord was a bustling town, about to be named New Hampshire’s state capital. With industry, wealth and success in a city, education for children usually follows, and this sampler is a testament to educational values of the time.  

“Plain as this canvass was
as Plain we find Unlettered
Unadorned the female mind
No fine ideas fill the vacant
Soul No graceful coloring
animates the whole With
close attention carefully
Inwrought fair education
Paints the Pleasing thought
Inserts the curious line on
Proper ground Compleats
the work And scatters roses round”

We can see Bridget’s eye for color and form along with her alphabet, numbers, and a well-known sampler rhyme. The rhyme is slightly different in the groundbreaking 1921 compilation American Samplers by Ethel Stanwood Bolton and Eva Johnston Coe. As you can see from this excerpt, Bridget chose to alter the full rhyme to suit her taste and ideas of correct spelling in 1795 Concord.

Bridget Walker's sampler after humidification and blocking.

Sampler after mounting for storage and display.

Bridget’s fine sampler was stitched carefully on natural linen in silk thread, and then carefully saved through the generations. As you can see from the wrinkles and fading before conservation, it was in need of some skilled care. Museum Textile Services conservator Cara Jordan surface cleaned, humidified, and blocked the sampler before stitching it by hand to a fabric-covered archival board for storage and display. These conservation measures will improve the visual qualities for viewers and aid in the preservation of this beautiful sampler for generations to come.  

Check out more details on Bridget and her sampler at the New Hampshire Historical Society.

Megan Mary Creamer has a BFA in industrial design from Massachusetts College of Art, and is completing an ALM in museum studies at Harvard University Extension School. She joined MTS as an intern in 2014.