Mary Marston

Samplers worked on green linsey-woolsey fabric offer enormous aesthetic appeal and the graphic composition of this particular sampler renders it even more engaging than most. Signed, “Wrought by Mary Marston at Bath August 1820,” it also features three aphorisms: “Virtue Piety and truth I wish to Practis in my youth,” “May we rejoice no wanderer lost A family in Heaven,” and “Go seek that treasure seldom found May Peace and love with me abound.”

Bath is the county seat of Sagadahoc County and has been an important town for seafaring and ship building for centuries. The Marston name has been integral to the area for many generations. The Marston Genealogy in Two Parts by Nathan Washington Marston, Esq of Lubec, Maine, published in 1888 chronicles the Marston family, beginning with Thomas Marston (1617- 1690) of Yorkshire, England. He arrived in Salem Massachusetts with his father in 1634. His grandson, John Marston (b. 1680) began the family’s history in Maine with a land grant of 36 acres in Falmouth in 1729. Three generations later, George Marston (1782-1864) and his wife, Miriam (Hanson) Marston, settled in Bath, where he, “was a merchant and kept a large store of general merchandise, and owned considerable real estate.” Mary was born in 1809, the third of their eight children. She would have been approximately 11 years old when she attended school and made this sampler. 

On May 30, 1833, Mary married Rev. Daniel Cox (1801-1875), a Methodist minister who served various posts in Maine for 47 years. New England Cox Families A Series of Genealogical Papers by Rev. John H. Cox (Lexington, Massachusetts), indicates that Rev. Daniel Cox was highly respected by all who knew him. They had six children, one of whom, Charles Augustus Cox (1839-1885) was noted for the fact that he “accumulated a small fortune in a single year,” because of his interest in the Lamson Cash System. This was a pneumatic tube system that transported cash within large department stores. Mary Marston Cox died in 1853 and is buried in Hillside-Norris Cemetery in Damariscotta, Maine. 

The sampler was worked in silk on green linsey-woolsey and is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted and is in a fine mahogany frame.