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Sampler by Frances Leighton (1801-1889), silk on linen, 1813. This sampler made by Frances Leighton (1801-1889) from Eliot, Maine, in December 1813 resembles others from the Piscataqua River area. A basket containing alternating colored berries, twig-like and stepped trees, and birds facing each other bearing angular swags are among the motifs they have in common. The verse, "Frances Leighton is my name and america is my nation eliot is my / dwelling place and christ is my salvation," is recorded on many samplers. Frances Leighton was the daughter of Frances Usher Parsons (1778-1865) and General Samuel Leighton. Although she was born in Alfred, her parents had moved to Eliot by 1810. Frances may have attended school at nearby Berwick Academy, founded in 1791. She married Benjamin Emerson of Pittsfield, New Hampshire, in 1847. --Description excerpted from Agreeable Situations: Society, Commerce, and Art in Southern Maine, 1780-1830. Ed. by Laura Fecych Sprague (Northeastern University Press, 1987), pp 244-5. # # # |
