Betcy Tucker 1784

Description

Sarah Stivours taught needlework skills to girls around Salem, Massachusetts, from 1778 through 1794, and is known for teaching a particular technique sometimes called the “Salem long-stitch styler”, referring to the method of filling in the backgrounds of the scenes and borders of the samplers, being filled in with long, uncouched satin stitches of crinkled silk. Sarah was the first American schoolmistress to have her name included on a stylistically similar group of samplers. The example reproduced here from the collection of the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont, was made by pupil Betcy Tucker in 1784 who was born, along with her twin brother Andrew, in Salem on May 2, 1773, the children of John and Lydia Tucker. Since the sampler was worked in the twelfth year of her age it is very likely that Betcy was a pupil of Sarah Stivours. The verse stitched on her sampler is a favorite of the Stivours school:

Betcy Tucker is my name and with my
Needle I did the same and if my Skil had
ben better I would have mended every
Letter This I did in the 12 year of
Age 1784

In a letter to the Shelburne Museum dated 1973, Mrs. Betty Ring identifies the sampler as follows: “The Tucker sampler is, I feel certain, of Salem origin and is stylistically related to those made at Mrs. Stivours’ school that it was surely made there or with the school’s influence.”

Instructions and drawings for Betcy Tucker can now be purchased. The Betcy Tucker stamped reproduction sampler kit is no longer available.