Two Needlework Samplers: Barbara Hunsicker (1805-1840), Skippack Pennsylvania, Dated 1831, and Abigail Passmore Yarnall (1804-1882), Edgemont, Pennsylvania, Dated 1817

The first worked with silk threads on linen in herringbone, queen and cross-stitches. Inscribed: BARBARA HUN/SICKER WAS/BORN THE 26/JUNE 18 AND FIVE/1805/THIS/IS/MADE FOR/THEM TO/SEE/THAT/LIVETH/AFTER/ME BDH 1831. 19 by 22 3/4  inches. (34 threads to the inch). The second needlework sampler by Abigail Passmore Yarnall (1804-1882), Edgemont, Pennsylvania, dated 1817; worked with silk, twisted silk threads and crinkled silk floss on linen in satin, outline, bullion, eyelet, queen and cross-stitches. Inscribed: Yet to thee my soul shall raise/Grateful vows and solemn praise/And when evr'y blesing's flown/Love thee for thyself alone/My parents/George Yarnall/Mary Yarnall/Naomi Yarnall/Ruth Yarnall/Abigail Yarnall/William Yarnall Abigail Passmore Yarnalls/Work 1817. Some losses, darkening of linen and stain. 17 by 19 inches (58 threads to the inch).  2 pieces.

(Abigail Passmore Yarnall) Mrs. Mary Lee Taylor, Los Angeles, California, May 1981

Barbara Hunsicker: with some fading. Abigail Passmore Yarnall: with some darkening.
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: Barbara Hunsicker, p. 108, fig. 49; Abigail Passmore Yarnell, p. 123, fig. 58

In 1724, Valentine Hunsicker, Barbara's grandfather, built the first meeting house in Skippack, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, essentially a German-Mennonite community. The building was also frequently in use as a schoolroom for both boys and girls. The earliest specific reference to teaching in the community is in 1725, when the wife of Jacob Dubbs gathered the neighbors' children into her kitchen in the afternoon to teach them to read and write.¹ Christopher Dock, a pious Mennonite schoolmaster and writer, indicated that he accepted girls at his school. When receiving a new pupil, he wrote, "If it is a girl, I ask the girls, who among them will take care of this new child and teach it."² The scattered format of Barbara Hunsicker's embroidery more truly a sampler-was purposely designed to display, step by step, the method of stitching specific motifs. Incomplete designs worked at random across the linen clearly suggest that the stitcher was influenced by patterns prevalent in Pennsylvania-German needlework of the period. For instance, the castle in the upper left, with its tower, flying banner, and battlement, may be found in similar buildings embroidered on northern European samplers of the late eighteenth century.³ The wreath, enclosing the maker's initials and date, a custom prevalent in Quaker samplers, is also seen in Pennsylvania Fraktur and on embroidered towels and samplers stitched by the children of the closely knit Pennsylvania- German communities. The arrangement of the heart motifs originated in traditional German embroidery.⁴ Identical plant motifs decorate a Pennsylvania sampler of 1813 worked by Elizabeth Coward.⁵ Barbara Hunsicker was twenty-six years of age when she worked this needlework sampler. And, while her work is atypical of the most prevalent form of Pennsylvania schoolgirl embroidery (for example, it is unstructured and lacks an ornamental border), it is nevertheless possible that even at that age she was still enrolled in needlework classes and may have been attending a boarding school.⁶ The second of eight children, Barbara Hunsicker was born in Skippack on June 18, 1805, to Isaac Hunsicker and Magdalena Cassel. Isaac, a farmer, accumulated valuable property in Perkioming and Skippack townships. Barbara, who remained unmarried, died on March 11, 1840, at the age of thirty-two.⁷ 

 

1. Henry A. Hunsicker, A Genealogical History of the Hunsicker Family (Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1911), 17, 18. Hunsicker attests that the family was Mennonite even though many settlers joined the Quaker society. See also Woody, History of Women's Education, vol. 1: 210, 213. 

2. Woody, History of Women's Education, vol. 1: 213.

3. M. G. A. Schipper-van Lottum, Over Merklappen Gesproken (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek, 1980), 107. 

4. Gehert, This Is the Way I Pass My Time, 171. 

5. The Coward sampler is in a private collection; see Skinner catalogue, Hark Away, PA, Hark Away, the Estate of Elisabeth T Babcock, 1100, November 15, 16, 1985, lot 146. See also The Pennsyvlania Germans: a Celebration of Their Arts: 1683-1850 (Philadelphia, PA: Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Henry Francis Dupont Winterthur Museum, 1982), ills. 104, 105. I must take issue with the caption that accompanies these illustrations in which it is stated that "women learned sewing skills at home from their mothers or other relatives." Certainly there'must have been many instances in which young girls were instructed in needlework within the home; however, overwhelming evidence indicates that only occasionally were educational studies limited to these circumstances. Far more documentation exists to support the fact that young girls were taught outside the home in all phases of their academic education, as well as the primary branch of needlework. Most certainly those families belonging to the Mennonite or Quaker societies, with their early emphasis on education for young women, have been seen to rely on preceptresses within the boarding school for more than the most elementary assignments for their daughters. 

6. Ring, Let Virtue Be a Guide to Thee, 186,203,218. Ring quotes from Mary Remington's letter of 1813 wherein, at the age of twenty, she wrote she "was not adverse to the thought of attending school." 

7. Hunsicker, Hunsicker Family, 20, 300. See also Hannah Benner Roach, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania F amities, vol. G-M (Hannah Benner Roach Collection, Archives of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, no date). In this document, Barbara's date of birth is given as October 24, 1807. Embroidered sampler dates are accepted as genealogically accurate. The Family Record Archives, Family History Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City, UT, also give the October date. See also Federal Census, Skippack, Pennsylvania, 1850.  

 

 

Abigail Yarnall's sampler, worked on a sheer linen, or tiffany, is characteristic of Quaker schoolgirl needlework and displays many of the Society's traditional motifs. Most evident is the pale beige silk alphabet, stitched across the top: While lacking the letter J, the tail of the letter Q falls below the baseline in the traditional manner. The chevron-like flowers above the grazing sheep are also found on the sampler worked by Sarah Elwell (fig. 57), who attended a Quaker school in Philadelphia. Inscribed upon the fabric are the names of Abigail's parents, her sisters, and her brother. Closing her verse with "Love thee for thyself alone," she paraphrased Quaker ideology by emphasizing the importance of family and one's inner light. Abigail Passmore Yarnall was born on Christmas Day, 1804, in Edgemont, Pennsylvania, one hundred years after her ancestors arrived in Delaware Bay aboard the Bristol Comfort. She was the third daughter of four children born to George Yarnall and Mary Howard.¹ The family may have lived in the gray fieldstone house still standing along Crum Creek, with its shimmering windowpanes, five bays across, built in 1720 by Philip Yarnall, Jr. Abigail Yarnall married William Cox (b. 1805), a wealthy farmer, in 1841. She died childless at the age of seventy-seven on December 15, 1882.² 

 

1. Harry H. Yarnell and Ruth Brookman Yarnell, A Partial Genealogy of the Name Yarnall-Yarnell, 1683-1970 (privately published, no date) 1,2,370. The land ownership map (p. 5) shows the exact location of the Yarnall homestead. It was typical of the Quakers to build with stone rather than "English brick" or the local wood. Arriving in the New World, Francis Yarnall was obliged to pay three shillings as duty for "1 Y4 cwt. [hundredweight] shot; 3 dozen wool stockings; 40 ells English linen [an English ell measures approximately three feet, nine inches] and Y4 cwt. of gunpowder." Such evidence indicates the importance of textiles in the life of the early settlers. 

2. Yarnell, Partial Genealogy of the Name YarnallYarnell, 389. For additional genealogical information see Family Record Archives, Family History Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City, UT. See also Rev. Henry Miller Cox, The Cox Family in America (New York, NY, 1912),244.