Watercolor birth certificate for Ann Lippincott, The New Jersey Artist Burlington County, New Jersey, dated 1797

Watercolor and ink on paper

Recto, ink: Ann Lippincott/ Daughter of Arney Lippincott & Lydia his wife/ Was born September the 28^th Anno Domini, 1797 / Great God is this our certain Doom./ And are we yet secure / Still walking downward to the Tomb / And yet prepar'd no more

Philip Cowan, Phoenibyville, Pennsylvania
Walter G. Himmelreich, Ronks, Pennsylvania
Pennypacker-Andrews Auction Centre, Reading, Pennsylvania "Pennsylvania Dutch Folk Art: The Outstanding Collection of Walter Himmelreich, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania," October 4, 1971, lot 266

"Every Picture Tells a Story: Word and Image in American Folk Art," American Folk Art Museum, 1994-1995

Kogan, Lee, and Barbara Cate, Treasures of Folk Art: Museum of American Folk Art, New York: Abbeville Press in association with the American Folk Art Museum, 1994, p. 113
American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum, p. 269, fig. 228

Some losses around the edges; minor discoloration.
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Decorated family records occasionally transcended their utilitarian purpose by exhibiting exceptional pictorial decoration and handlettered text in well-balanced compositions. Such is the case with the birth certificate for Ann Lippincott, one in an important group of about twelve eighteenth-century decorated birth certificates from the area of Burlington, New Jersey. This set of works is characterized by English lettering in a format of three horizontal tiers, reminiscent of those in needlework samplers, and a pictorial section incorporating figures, flowers, and foliage. Using sepia-toned ink, the creator-identified only as the New Jersey Artist-recorded the relevant vital statistics. Religious concerns about death and ideas prevalent in literature from the 1600s through the 1800s are reflected in the verse. The certificate has a painted border that includes narrow banding within a border that resembles decorative wood beading. A pictorial scene features a central urn, often a symbol for the tree of life. The fashionable couple wears clothing of the republic-the man is in a walking suit, a black frock coat, long pantaloons, and a beaver hat, while the woman wears a loose afternoon dress with short sleeves and her hair in a topknot, fairly short and soft around her face. Born in Burlington, Ann Lippincott was descended from Richard and Abigail Lippincott, who emigrated from Devonshire, England, around 1639 or 1640. The Lippincotts were associated with early colonists of Massachusetts Bay and were among the wealthiest citizens. Ann's father, Arney Lippincott, a farmer by trade, was born in Hanover or New Hanover Township, Burlington County. Lydia Shinn, his third wife, bore him several children, and in his will he granted the girls Lydia, Sarah, Lavinia, Ann, and Rebekah-a total of two plantations and 500 pounds each, with the estate to be administered by their brothers William, James, and Arney Jr. On December 14, 1822, Ann married William Wood Stockton, a merchant in Vincentown. She came to the marriage with a handsome dowry from her father. Stockton was highly thought of in his community and was listed as county assessor in 1826.¹The Lippincotts, the Shinns, and the Stocktons were important in the history of Burlington County and, more broadly, New Jersey. While previous data puts Ann and her family in Philadelphia, genealogical research firmly places her in Burlington. This discrepancy is not so strange, however, since many upper-middle-class Philadelphia residents maintained country houses and properties in Burlington County. According to the inscription on her tombstone in Vincentown Friends Cemetery, Ann Lippincott died on July 30, 1826, at the age of twenty-nine; her husband died on October 10, 1836, at age forty-four, and is buried in the same cemetery. - L.K.

¹ Major E.M. Woodward, History of Burlington County of New Jersey with Biographical Sketches
(Philadelphia: Everts and Peck, 188}). p. 184.