“The Friar of Orders Gray” needlework picture

Susanna Rowson’s Academy, active from 1797-1822, was one of the most important and well-known girls’ schools of the early nineteenth century. The needlework pictures made at her school are notable for their fine quality embroidery and for the wide range of design sources from literature and history used there. Mrs. Rowson believed in providing her students with engraved prints, that she also used to teach lessons. In this case, in 1806, in addition to completing the needlework picture depicting the poem "The Friar of Orders Gray", Narcissa Sewall (1791-1886) also wrote the entire poem, in impeccably beautiful handwriting, on the paper that backs the needlework’s frame. She was probably required to memorize and recite it as well. The poem is from a popular volume of ballads published in 1765 by Thomas Percy (1729-1811) called Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: Consisting of Old Heroic Ballads, Songs, and other Pieces of our earlier Poets, which helped re-introduce the ballad verse form.

Mrs. Rowson was an extraordinary woman even before she became a beloved teacher—born and raised in England, after her husband’s hardware business went bankrupt, the family went on stage, eventually traveling to America to perform in Philadelphia, and then settling in Boston. Several of the plays she starred in were written by Mrs. Rowson herself. An accomplished writer, she penned many popular novels of the period, as well as poetry, songs, and textbooks after she became a school mistress.

Narcissa Sewall was born on September 15, 1791 in present-day York, Maine, when it was still part of Massachusetts. She was the daughter of Daniel Sewall (1755-1845) and Dorcas Bartlett Sewall (1759-1843), and one of only 6 of their 16 children who lived to adulthood. She is listed as a member of the First Congregational Church of Bangor, Maine from 1811 to 1856. In October of 1846, when Narcissa was 56, she became the fourth wife of Benjamin Bourne (1787-1852) and the stepmother to his four surviving children. Bourne had fought in the War of 1812 with Lt. Oliver Walker’s Massachusetts company in June of 1814.

Her husband died in Bangor in October of 1852 and Narcissa moved to Kennebunk. In 1862, her youngest stepson, George Franklin Bourne, a Lieutenant in the American Civil War, lost his life in the Battle of Fredericksburg at the age of 25. In 1877, Narcissa moved to Winthrop, Maine to live with her sister Matilda Sewall. Outliving her husband by thirty-four years, Narcissa died on July 13, 1886 at the age of 94. In her Will she bequeathed $1,000 to her niece Matilda B. Snow, wife of Dr. Albin P. Snow; $1,000 each to Bowdoin College; and the Bangor Theological Seminary. The remainder of her property she left to the Maine Missionary Society. There is no record who received her sampler. She is interred at Mount Hope Cemetery, Bangor, Maine near her husband.