Elizabeth Pitman's Sampler
date: label: date made
content: 1802
name: label: maker
content: Pitman, Elizabeth
notes: label: Description
content: The lettering on Elizabeth’s sampler is in black silk, and the whole sampler is framed by vines with leaves and flowers worked in various pulled thread patterns. She included the inscription:
label: Description
content: <br>"Elizabeth Pitman in<br>her 12th year 1802<br>And am I born to die, to lay this body down<br>And mu<i>f</i>[s]t my trembling <i>f</i>[s]pirit fly into a world<br>unknown"<br>
label: Description
content: (Most of the verse had disappeared; however it is a standard verse on samplers of the period, <i>Hymns for Children</i> (1763) by Charles Wesley.) Charles Wesley wrote over two thousand hymns during his lifetime, and Elizabeth Pitman chose one that was often used on samplers on the imminence of death. The sampler is stitched with silk embroidery thread on a linen ground with a thread count of warp 44, weft 44/in. The stitches used are cross, rice, Algerian eye, eyelet, outline, stem, and pulled thread. Elizabeth’s sampler came to the Smithsonian in very poor condition, but is important for research because of the pulled thread work on it and because it is a rare Southern sampler.
label: Description
content: Elizabeth Pitman was born on November 30, 1790, to Andrew and Francis Frankey Pitman in Harrisonburg, Virginia. She married Isaac Mytinger on July 16, 1807, and sometime after his death on May 26, 1814, she married Anthony Huffman (1784-1861). They had seven children - David (1815-), Frances C. (1816-), John Morgan (1821-), Caroline Matilda (1825-), Edward (1828-), Ann Elizabeth (1830-), and Asburina Cornelia (1833-). She died on September 3, 1870.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Textiles
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content: Samplers
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content: Textiles
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Mrs. Eleanor Goodnight Morrison
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: TE.T12180
label: catalog number
content: T12180
label: accession number
content: 233455
objectType: label: Object Name
content: embroidery, sampler
label: Object Name
content: sampler
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: cotton (ground material)
label: Physical Description
content: silk (embroidery thread material)
label: Physical Description
content: linen (embroidery thread material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 15 in x 12 3/8 in; 38.1 cm x 31.4325 cm