Rare Needlework Sampler, Naby Dane (b. 1777), Sarah Fiske Stivours School, Salem, Massachusetts, Dated 1789

Worked in silk and twisted silk threads with crinkled silk floss on linen in eyelet, satin, outline, chain and cross-stitches.  Inscribed: Naby Dane her Sam/pler Wrought June/The 27 1789 Bo/rn July The 19 1777 Next Unto God Dear/Parents I Address M/ySelf To you In Hu/mble Thankfulness/For All your Care/And Charge On me. 16 by 12 inches. (22 threads to the inch).

A sale at Sotheby's; October 21, 1982, sale number 4938, lot 11.

Somewhat darkened.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Exhibited and Literature: LACMA, p. 32, fig. 4

NABY DANE   

Naby Dane has inscribed the date of her birth on her sampler:  July 19, 1777. She was the daughter of Captain Joseph Dane and Mary Welcome (Wellman), who were married in Danvers, Massachusetts, on January 12, 1777, but did not long remain together.  As family genealogists were notoriously reluctant to discuss family problems, the lack of information about the young couple implies that they may never have lived together as man and wife. According to The Wellman Genealogy, Joseph Dane died soon before 1814, yet when Naby was baptised on March 12, 1786, she was shown to be the "daughter of the widow Mary Dane."  Mother and child may have made their home with her mother, Mary Henderson Wellman, for in 1785, William Bentley noted in his diary, "Widow Welman has seven children living in her family, five of them girls."¹⁰ In 1803, Naby Dane married her first cousin, Captain Joseph Phippen (b. 1779). They had five children. In 1813, Joseph sailed aboard the sloop Wasp and was lost at sea; the ship is believed to have been a victim of a fierce hurricane in 1814.¹¹ Naby Dane Phippen died on April 1, 1834.¹²   

 

SARAH FISKE STIVOURS  

The schoolmistress of these two young women was Sarah Fiske Stivours (1742-1819), the daughter of Reverend Samuel Fiske and Anna Gerrish, and one of five children. In 1766, her only surviving brother, John, married Lydia Phippen, first cousin to Polly Phippen and Joseph Phippen (who was later to become Naby Dane’s husband), firmly uniting teacher to pupils through family ties. ¹³ Sarah Fiske married Jacob Stivers (Stivours), a Dutch baker, in 1771. She became an exceptional embroidery teacher and kept a  school for girls in Salem from at least 1778 to 1798.¹⁴  Her schoolroom may have been located "in Essex street above  Elm, opposite the pumps at Neptune and Vine," where she is  known to have been living when she died about the age of seventy-six. ¹⁵      

 

10. Vital Records of Salem, vols. 1: 231 and 3: 275.  See also Rev. Joshua W. Wellman, Descendants of Thomas Wellman of Lynn, Massachusetts (Boston, MA:  Arthur Holbrook Wellman, 1918), 167, 168.   

11. Vital Records of Salem, vols. 3: 275 and 6: 137, 138. See also Wellman, Descendants, 168, and William Armstrong Fairburn, Merchant Sail, vol. 2 (Center Lovell, ME: Fairburn Marine Educational Foundation, 1945-1955), 790,791.   

12. Vital Records of Salem, vol. 6: 138.   

13. Frederick Clifton Pierce, Fiske and Fisk Family (Chicago: published by the author, 1896), 80, 81, 82.   

14. Pierce, Fiske and Fisk Family, 82. See also Vital Records of Salem, vol. 4: 351. See also Ring, American Needlework Treasures, 8.   

15. Bentley Diary, vol. 19: 179. See also Vital Records of Salem, vol. 6: 251.