Embroidered Sampler

Betsey Alden’s sampler is organized into seven horizontal bands above a rural landscape. The final band has the inscription: “Cornish, June 16, 1826, Betsey Alden sampler.” Below that, Betsey embroidered a verse common to schoolgirl samplers that reflects the importance of educating young girls. Likely copied from a popular text, the verse is found on three other samplers in The Met’s collection for such differing places as Salem, Providence, and Nelson, New Hampshire. The design of the sampler relates to an earlier group of Portsmouth, New Hampshire samplers characterized as “House and Barn Samplers.” Although this similarity suggests a Portsmouth teacher may have moved from coastal New Hampshire across the state to Cornish, no documentation has yet been discovered to confirm this conjecture.

It is believed that maker of this sampler was Betsey Alden who was born on July 31, 1805, the daughter of Jesse and Sarah Rice Alden. Five years after she completed her sampler, on April 5, 1831, Betsey married Benjamin Ayers (b. 1803-1888) of Cornish. A year later, Betsey died on March 21, 1832, from complications of childbirth. Her infant daughter, Elizabeth (1832-1898) survived, and the following September, Benjamin Ayers married Betsey’s twin sister, Hannah Alden (1805-1836).