Sampler

This classic example of a Burlington County, New Jersey sampler, with its exuberant floral decoration, delightful landscape scene, and prominent family record, was made by Hannah Pharo (1809-1840). She was a member of the sixth generation of the Quaker Pharo family who first settled Burlington County in the seventeenth century. It is unusual for Quaker samplers to include family records, indicating that Hannah may have been particularly aware of her family’s lineage. In keeping with the Quaker tradition of educating both boys and girls, Hannah is recorded attending the Westtown School in Pennsylvania for a few months in 1827 when she was eighteen. However, it is likely that she had already received embroidery lessons before that at another Quaker school in Burlington County, since this sampler is not like those made at Westtown. It is interesting to note that the large four-storied building in her landscape has two doors on the first floor. Quaker public buildings traditionally had separate male and female entrances, so it is likely that this depicts a stylized version of a Quaker school building.


Hannah Pharo was the second of the nine children born to Samuel Pharo (1783-1835) and Phebe Collins Pharo (1780-?). She married Henry Leeds (1806-1861) at the Little Egg Harbor Monthly Quaker Meeting in 1833. An original parchment Marriage Certificate, signed by the bride and groom and many members of their friends and family accompanies the sampler. In 1840, when Hannah died at the age of thirty-one, it appears that she, her husband, and their two children had been living in newly settled Macon Township (established 1834) in Lenawee County, Michigan. But she may have died while visiting family back in Burlington County, since she is listed in Quaker records as dying and being buried there.