Coat of Arms

Embroidered coats of arms were only produced in New England in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Those made in Boston, replete with gold and silver thread, are the most richly worked American needlework. This type of embroidery was created by only quite well-to-do girls from the Boston area, since while three months of schooling to learn how to make one cost six pounds, the embroidery threads, made with real precious metals, could cost over thirty pounds (the equivalent of about $9000 today). Their personalized design, production, and heraldic references combine to reflect not only women’s education at the time, but also the role young women played in perpetuating their family histories and social status. Combining emblems to represent her father’s Duncan lineage and her mother’s American and English descent in the Phillips and Lemmon families—Sarah Duncan’s coat of arms is a visual representation of her roots.

The pattern of Sarah’s coat of arms was drawn for her by the Boston heraldic designer, Samuel Gore (1750-1831), a Boston coach and heraldic painter in business with his father, John Gore (1718-1796). Pen and ink with watercolor illustrations of Sarah’s Phillips and Lemmon arms appear in the The Gore Roll, a record book of the coat of arms John Gore designed for his American and British clients.

For Sarah’s embroidery the shield is divided into three sections. The left side is divided in half: at the top is the Duncan arms, a chevron between a bugle-horn and two flowers while at the bottom is the Phillips arms described in Roll of Arms as a “Silver lion sable with a collar gules and from it a chain passing over the back and ending in a ring gold.” On right side is Lemmon arms, which according to the Roll of Arms was first used by Joseph Lemon (1692-1750) of Charlestown in 1717. The Lemmon arms are described as “a fess between three dolphins.” Above the shield is an “Esquire Helmet” surmounted by a ship under full sail. A silver motto ribbon flows below the shield. The helmet and flurry of curled acanthus leaves to either side of the shield is characteristic of all the Gore arms patterns. As was the American tradition, Sarah’s finished coat of arms would have been framed and hung in her parents’ home, a symbol of her elite education, the family’s social distinction, and as a document of her ancestry.

It is interesting to note that Sarah Duncan’s coat of arms was created following the conclusion of the American Revolution. Although rooted in the British system of heraldry, needlework arms regained popularity in post-Revolutionary America, and were made until around 1805. In Sarah’s case, her maternal grandmother, Mary Lemmon (1717-1798), had produced a quillwork (paper filigree) family coat of arms of the Lemmon and Phillips families in 1735 using a design created for her parents in 1717 that is now in the collection New England Historic Genealogical Society (R0008). Sarah likely admired her grandmother’s quillwork throughout her young life and understood the family’s pride in their English ancestry.

Sarah Duncan was born on January 31, 1775 in Worcester, Massachusetts, the daughter of Sarah Lynde Duncan (1743/4-1835) and Scottish-born Andrew Annese Duncan (1735-1800). She and her three brothers were born between 1770 and 1777 at the time of the buildup to and beginning of the American Revolution. This was a troubling time for her father, a Royalist who had immigrated to American in 1768. He was a merchant in partnership with another Scotsman, William Campbell; the sailing ship at the top of the helmet in the coat of arms may refer to his trade. When the war broke out, the two men encountered business difficulties brought about by Worcester’s active Revolutionary groups. While Duncan’s partner, like many Loyalists, moved to Nova Scotia in British-held Canada, Duncan remained in Worcester. He died by drowning when out fishing in 1787, leaving his wife to care for their four children.

A decade after her father’s death, Sarah Duncan married Dr. Oliver Fiske (1762/3-1836/7), also of Worcester, on June 9, 1796. Fiske was a member of the Harvard University Class of 1787 and practiced medicine in Worcester where their three children, Robert Treat Paine Fiske (1799-1866), Andrew William Duncan Fiske and Sarah Duncan Fiske (d. 1873) were born. Dr. Fiske had a distinguished and active career. He was instrumental in the founding of the Worcester Medical Society in 1794, serving as its first secretary, and later the Society’s president. He was a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and The American Antiquarian Society. The Columbian Centinel newspaper documents that throughout the 1820s Sarah submitted examples for her woven wool flannel to the Worcester Cattle Show (perhaps alongside the sheep who had been sheared for the wool that became the flannel), often receiving a premium accommodation for “best flannel.” The Fiske’s son, Robert, followed his father and practiced medicine.

After the death of her husband in 1836, Sarah never remarried and died nineteen years later on April 22, 1855. She is interred in the Worcester Rural Cemetery along with her husband and their daughter Sarah and her husband Otis Pierce.