Mary Lewis

A very interesting and handsome sampler, this was made in 1785 by Mary Lewis, a Quaker girl living just outside of Philadelphia. She was the daughter of Abner and Margaret (Crukshank) Lewis and included the names of her parents inside the small squares with excellent little lions in the lower corners. The names of some of her siblings, Cisly, Alexander and David, and initials of others, were included as well. The composition centers on a wonderful band of pillared arcades and hillocks with little pine trees. Remarkably, we can track the source of the composition of Mary’s sampler as she was using her mother’s outstanding sampler as her inspiration. 

The 1755 sampler made in Philadelphia by Margaret Crukshank (1747/48 – 1821) is currently on exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts, “Painted With Silk: The Art of Early American Embroidery, through June 15. The samplers by mother and daughter are greatly similar; both pieces feature the wonderful arcaded hillocks, the band below that which is formed of links and centered on, “Love The Lord And He Will Be A Tender Father Unto Thee,” with family initials nestled into the register. Both samplermakers made use of the lovely blue sawtooth inner border and the classic Philadelphia regional tradition of using contrasting colored silk for the uppercase first letter of each word of a verse.

Margaret signed her sampler, “Margaret Crukshank Work This Sampler in the 7 year of her age,” and her daughter, Mary, signed her sampler, “Mary Lewis Work'd This In The 11 Year Of Her Age.” 

Margaret Crukshank married Abner Lewis (1736-1778) of Newtown Township, Delaware County (then Chester County) in 1768. Abner operated a tanyard and served as a private in a militia in the Revolutionary War. The Lewis family descended from William Lewis (1636-1708), a Welsh Quaker who emigrated to Pennsylvania and settled in Newtown Township by 1687.

Four generations later, Mary was born in 1774 and the family lived in Newtown Township when she made her sampler in 1785. On November 29, 1792, Mary married Joseph Thomas (1766-1828) in Philadelphia. They lived in Montgomery County where they had several children. Mary died in 1826, then a member of the Radnor Meeting. 

The sampler was worked in silk with some crewel wool on linen and is in excellent condition with a small separation to the linen along the vertical fold line. It has been stabilized and conservation mounted into a fine mahogany frame with line inlay.