Jane Frazier's 1857 Minnesota Territory sampler
date: label: date made
content: 1857
notes: label: Description
content: Sampler - Minnesota Territory; 1857, Jane Frazier, "The Prairie is My Home," village of Wheatland, Rice County, Minnesota Territory.
label: Description
content: This is a small, simple marking sampler, stitched in wool threads on a loose basket-weave ground cloth (the sampler is framed so the fiber content of the ground is not known). Measuring 5 7/8 x 8 7/8 inches by sight, it is mounted in an old frame, probably later than the sampler. It consists of an ABC set, the inscription “Jane Frazier, Village of Wheatland, Territory of Minnesota” and the phrase, "The prairie is my home" at bottom. This small sampler was created just before admission of Minnesota to the Union, which occurred on 5/11/1858. Rice County was formed by the MN Territorial Legislature on 3/5/1853. There were about 70 settlers living in Wheatland, also called the “Scotch Settlement,” by 1858. The Scots and Czechs appear to have been the first settlers, followed by French-Canadian and Irish.
label: Description
content: Preliminary genealogical research has not yet identified the maker. Joseph J. Frazier (also Frazer), one of the earliest settlers of Rice County, Minnesota Territory who arrived there in 1855 but did not file a land claim until January 1857, is identified in early histories of the county as a “half-breed” with a Scots father. His wife’s name was Jane, but according to one source they did not marry until 1861, at which date Joseph was in his late 50s. The date, when examined, does not appear to have been reworked at all – it is original to the rest of the stitching. It is possible that Jane Frazier was indeed Joseph’s wife, and stitched the year that she arrived in Wheatland County and not the year she completed the sampler, but this is supposition, and apparently there were other Scots settlers in the county, so there may have been more than one Jane Frazier. Joseph died 23 Feb 1869; his wife remarried, to one Eli Clouthier (also Cloutier), whose brother John also settled in Rice County between 1856 and 1857.
label: Description
content: Territory samplers are uncommon. The Minnesota Historical Society possesses a very small sampler collection; the ones actually stitched in Minnesota all post-date the Civil War.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Minnesota, Wheatland
topic: label: Subject
content: Needlework
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Textiles
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Vendor: Neverbird Antiques
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2016.0181.01
label: accession number
content: 2016.0181
label: catalog number
content: 2016.0181.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: sampler
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wool (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: cross stitch (overall production method/technique)
label: Measurements
content: image: 5 3/4 in x 8 3/4 in; 14.6304 cm x 22.2504 cm