Quaker Extract sampler: T.4-2018

Current Location: In storage

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Quaker Extract sampler

Maker(s)

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Sampler

Description

Woollen tammy cloth embroidered with black silk in cross, long armed cross, split or tiny chain stitch.

An oval embroidered border frames the inscription "Ackworth School", an upper case alphabet with 5 punctuation marks.

Beneath a narrow dividing line there is an Extract: "Fill'd with the praise of him who gives the light,/ And draws the sable curtain of the night/ Let placid slumbers sooth each weary mind/ At morn to wake more heavenly, more refin'd,/ So shall the labours of the day begin/More pure. more guarded. from the snares of sin".

Beneath a second dividing line there is a lower case alphabet, a series of ligatures, Elizabeth Gower, 1804.

The Extract is from "A Hymn to Evening" by Phillis Wheatley. Wheatley was the first published African American female poet. She was probably born c. 1753 in Gambia or Senegal, sold into slavery, bought by the Wheatley family of Boston and taught to read and write. She was freed after the publication in 1773 of her book, "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral". She married in 1778 and died in 1784.

Elizabeth Gower was the 4th child of Edmund & Hannah Gower, born on the 20th. October 1790 at Wramplinham, a village 4 miles north of Wymondham, Norfolk. She attended Ackworth School from 1800-1804, leaving on the 28th. May.