Sampler
Maker
Leah Conover
Period1826
MediumSilk thread on linen
DimensionsSight: 16.5 × 15.75 in. (41.9 × 40 cm)
SignedThe sampler is signed and dated "Leah Conover / August 1826."
ClassificationsNeedlework
Credit LineGift of Edward N. King, Jr., and Museum Purchase, 2018
Object number2018.1.1
DescriptionThis square sampler is worked in plied silk thread on a closely woven fine natural linen ground. The original thread colors appear to be light, medium, and dark blue, medium, light and olive green, pearl white, tan, and medium brown. The top two-thirds of the sampler contains a rectangular border enclosing an upper case alphabet worked in Algerian eyelet stitch, letters A through M running along the top of the rectangle. Immediately below is a small upper case alphabet A through X worked in box stitch. In the center of the rectangular panel is a scalloped oval worked in chain stitch, enclosing the inscription "LEAH CONOVER / August 1826 / Done under the tuition / of / M. A. JENKINS." Along the left of the rectangular border, running 90 degrees from horizontal, is the inscription "Middletown," and along the right "Academy." The sampler's verse is also worked 90 degrees from horizontal, flanking the center oval, with "Favour is deceitful and / beauty is vain but a wo- / man that feareth the LORD / she shall be Praised" to the left and "Give her of the fruit of / her hands and let her own / works praise her in the gates" at right. Along the bottom of the rectangular border runs the second portion of the large upper case alphabet, from N through U and W, X, and Y. The bottom third of the sampler includes a pictorial scene featuring an elaborate three-story building topped with a cupola, fronted by three broad white steps. The building is flanked by stylized floral sprays and smaller foliate elements. The sky in the pictorial scene is fully worked in heavy pearl white thread. A diamond chain border runs along all four sides of the sampler.Curatorial RemarksLeah Conover's sampler is unusual in several respects in that it includes both the name of Leah's instructor as well as the name of the school in which she was taught her impressive needlework skills. Research in the field of American samplers has uncovered the fact that these examples of a girl's sewing and embroidery talents were not casual productions of home tutelage but rather the result of formal structured educational settings either locally or away at one of the many boarding schools available to girls. Sewing skills were both expected and necessary, as most women were responsible for making clothing for family members as well as all the household linens including sheets and towels. Many families embraced the notion of providing education for their daughters, realizing that educated daughters would one day become suitable brides and would be able to create a well-run, literate household for their children. Monmouth County inhabitants were fortunate in the number of both day and boarding schools in and around the area. The origins of Middletown Academy, which was actually located in what is now Holmdel village, commenced about 1791 when Nehemiah Shumway (1761 - 1843) began private tutoring there for boys and girls. An exhibition for students was held as early as March of 1796, while Shumway was still teaching in the area. In that same spring, the Middletown Academy opened a large new building to accommodate one hundred students, with a hall for public speaking that held an audience of five hundred persons. Instructors changed frequently over the years. A New York City newspaper advertisement dated 28 April 1824 announced that the academy "is now under the care of Mr. John F. Jenkins . . ." John Flavel Jenkins (1796 - 1862), a native of Gloucester, Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard College, class of 1818. The following year he accepted a position as tutor of mathematics at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, where he also earned a master's degree in 1821. While there, he married on 14 March 1822 to Mary Ann Thayer Pike (1805 - 1887). Born in Rhode Island, she was a daughter of Zebulon M. Pike (1779 - 1813) and Clarissa Harlow Brown (1782 - 1847). Pike was an American brigadier general and western explorer for whom Pike's Peak in Colorado was named. The Jenkinses remained at the Middletown Academy for about four years before he accepted a new position in nearby Freehold. It was during that time that Mary Ann instructed Leah Conover in the making of her 1826 sampler, and also a second one dated 1826 by Emaline Longstreet that is owned privately. Emaline's sampler does not include the name of Middletown Academy, but many of the other details are virtually identical to Leah Conover's, including the instructor's name, the central building with its three broad white steps, the trees and shrubs, and the diamond border. The Conover sampler was listed by Ethel S. Bolton and Eva Johnston Coe in their massive 1921 study of American samplers sponsored by the Massachusetts Society of the Colonial Dames of America. The stately three story building in both samplers appears to be a somewhat simplified depiction of the main hall at Transylvania University, which would have been familiar to both John and Mary Ann Jenkins. It was erected in 1816, and burned in 1829. An engraved image of the imposing academic structure, however, was published in A Discourse on the Genius and Character of the Rev. Horace Holley, LL.D.: Late President of Transylvania University (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, Little and Wilkins, 1828). Features it shared with the building on the samplers included a five bay central pavilion flanked by two bays on each end, a half round window in the pediment above the entrance, a hipped roof with tall chimneys (exaggerated in height on the samplers), a railing above the cornice, and a large central cupola topped by a half dome. Needlework instructors often included images of schools they attended or with which they were familiar in their sampler designs. For another example, see accession number 2084.3. Worked in 1818 by Eleanor M. Page at the Cross Roads School in Burlington County, New Jersey, it depicts the Westtown School building near West Chester, Pennsylvania. The Jenkins family returned in 1830 to the Middletown Academy. An advertisement that ran that spring in the Monmouth Inquirer announced that "J. F. Jenkins, A. M., has taken charge of this institution and will commence the first quarter in March." After describing in detail the course of study, the ad continued, "Mrs. J. will also attend to the instruction of misses in marking and in fancy needlework on canvass and satin, on the usual terms." Again, the Jenkinses remained in Holmdel about four years. By 1835, John had become Principal of the Male Department of the Mechanics' Society School in New York City. He left there in 1840 to accept a position as head of the North Salem Academy in a very rural section of northeastern Westchester County in New York. He and his family of twelve children remained there until the end of his teaching career. According the the 1860 census, the Jenkinses had moved to White Plains. John died in that city on 12 September 1862 at the age of sixty-six. Mary Ann lived on there until her death on 27 May 1887 at eighty-one years. Both were interred in the Rural Cemetery at White Plains. A photograph of Mary Ann Pike Jenkins was taken very late in her life.NotesThis tightly structured and beautifully designed needlework sampler was made by fifteen-year-old Leah Conover. Born on 2 December 1810 in Holmdel, Monmouth County, New Jersey, Leah was the daughter of Cornelius Conover (1783 - 1817) and Sarah Stoutenborough (1786 - 1861). Leah married William H. Crawford (1809 - 1874) on 8 January 1834 in Middletown. The couple moved to her husband's family home, built by ancestor John Bowne in the early 1700s at Crawford's Corner in Holmdel. Leah and William had ten children: Holmes C. (1835 - 1882), William H. (1836 - 1883), John Bowne (1838 - 1904), Albro Benton (1840 - 1888), Charles Vanderveer (1843 - 1908), Mary Jane "Jennie" L. (1845 - 1904), Ann Rebecca (1836 - 1847), Jamesanna L. (1850 - 1924), Sarah Elizabeth, and Katharine Bibb (1854 - 1901). Leah Conover Crawford died on 28 June 1895 at the age of eighty-five. Her obituary described the dramatic details of her last days. After falling ill with appendicitis, she suffered what was most likely a stroke and slipped into a coma. On Sunday, 16 June, the family home caught fire and burned to the ground. Leah was carried to the front yard while the house burned, but never regained consciousness. Leah's needlework sampler descended to her unmarried daughter Jamesanna Lawrence Crawford.
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