Eliza Speakman

The pictorial samplers made in East Goshen Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania in the 1820s and 1830s form a highly regarded group with distinctive and appealing characteristics. Many were made under the instruction of Elizabeth Passmore, whose students included girls from prominent Quaker families.  Eliza Speakman, who worked this excellent sampler in 1835, was either a student of Elizabeth Passmore or of a teacher who taught very much within the Passmore tradition. The notable features include the hillock with a carefully worked bullion-stitched sheep, this specific three-sided border with large blossom flowers worked in the satin stitch and on leafy vines, the paired birds with twigs and berries in their beaks, the strawberry plants that flank the hillock and the inclusion of many family initials.

Born on June 25, 1820, Eliza was the firstborn of millwright George Speakman (1793-1874) and Sidney (Baldwin) Speakman (1800-1859). They may have been members of the Bradford Meeting and are each buried in the Bradford Friends Burying Ground in West Chester. Initials on Eliza’s sampler include those of her maternal grandparents, Thomas and Jane Baldwin, her paternal grandparents, George and Mary Speakman, and many siblings: Margaret, George, Jane, Hayes, Baldwin, Thomas B., and Richard M. 

Eliza was 15 years old when she worked this sampler, and at age 28 married a carpenter, Humphrey Strode Marshall. They had at least one child, William T. Marshall, born in 1848. Eliza died in 1900 and is buried in the Bradford Cemetery. 

The sampler was worked in silk on linen and is in very good condition with some minor areas of weakness to the linen. The needlework is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted and is in its fine, original mahogany corner-block frame.