Family register sampler
Dorcas A. Kelly, American1830
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
New York, United States
An arched framework with an incomplete family register. The top of the arch reads Keep Sacred the Memory Of. The field within the arch is divided in three registers: the top, titled Ancestors, gives the birth and marriage dates of David Kelly and Amy Comstock; the middle register includes a tree with the names and dates of their children; and the lower register has a verse within a leafy border:ReligionBeyond the narrow vale of timeWhere bright celestial ages rollTo scenes eternal scenes sublimeShe points the way and leads the soulFollowed by the inscription. A border of roses in an octagon framework terminating with rose sprays at upper corners gives the effect of a trellis.
- Title: Family register sampler
- Creator: Dorcas A. Kelly, American
- Creator Lifespan: 1818/1881
- Date Created: 1830
- Type: Family register sampler
- Rights: Bequest of Mrs. Henry E. Coe
- Medium: Medium: silk embroidery on linen foundation Technique: embroidered in cross, satin and stem stitches on plain weave foundation
- Viewing Notes: This family register sampler, ornamented with roses, a willow tree, and multi-hued leaves, was stitched by eleven-year-old Dorcas Arnold Kelly. The family's genealogical information is neatly organized and framed within an arched border, reflecting a neoclassical influence. One section records the marriage and birth dates of Dorcas's parents, and another is entitled "Their Children's Births, Deaths, and Marriages." The section for the three Kelly children was left partially blank for future recordings, but was never completed.Dorcas was the youngest child of David Kelly, a farmer, and his wife, Amy (née Comstock), of Mendon, Massachusetts. She never married and lived with her father and mother until their deaths in 1860 and 1861, respectively. Dorcas's sister, Eliza, wed in 1827 and had four children, two of whom died in infancy. Her brother, William, married in 1835, and he and his wife had at least one daughter. In 1839, Eliza died at the age of thirty, and, by 1850, her children were living with Dorcas and her parents (presumably after the death of Eliza's husband). After the deaths of her parents, Dorcas remained in her home county of Worcester and lived as a boarder in various households. Census data from 1880 reveals that she was "maimed, crippled, or otherwise disabled," indicating that her health may have been failing. Dorcas died the following year at the age of sixty-two.
- Provenance: By 1941, Mrs. Henry E. Coe (Eva Johnston Coe)1941, Museum for the Arts of Decoration of the Cooper Union
- Inscribed: Wrought by Dorcas A. K. Men. 1830. aged 11
- Dimensions: H x W: 49 x 47 cm (19 5/16 x 18 1/2 in.)
- Bibliography: Ethel Stanwood Bolton and Eva Johnston Coe, American Samplers (Boston: The Massachusetts Society of the Colonial Dames of America, 1921) 183.
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