Sarah Tyson,
Skippack, Montgomery Co., Pennsylvania,
1840

Sampler size:
17" x 17¾"
Framed size:
24" x 24¾"

Price: $4200

Enlarged and Printer Version

Cornelius Tyson, born in 1652 in Crefeld on the Rhine, Germany, emigrated to Philadelphia and is patriarch of the Tyson family in America, according to information published in Colonial Families of Philadelphia by John W. Jordan, 1911. As was often the case, men would have several occupations and Cornelius was known as a weaver, lawyer and surveyor; he died in 1711 and is buried in one of the earliest burial grounds in Germantown, just outside of Philadelphia. Future generations settled in nearby Skippack, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania where Sarah Tyson, as she inscribed on her sampler, "was born the 16 day of febuary in the year of our lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty two." Sarah's father was a tanner and justice of the peace, Benjamin Tyson (1777-1842), her mother was Elizabeth (Ziegler) Tyson and they were members of the Lower Skippack Mennonite Church.

Sarah made this splendid sampler when she was 18 years old. She included an assortment of classic Pennsylvania German motifs such as the stylized geometric flowers in baskets, pairs of birds and a table set with a bowl and a pair of pitchers. The composition centers on a blue edged rectangle and is framed by borders that are paired top and bottom and side to side.

A publication of the Historical Society of Montgomery County of Pennsylvania from 1957 documents further information regarding this family. Sarah married Christian Hunsicker some time between the death of her father in 1842 and that of her mother in 1845. Christian Hunsicker, a farmer, was a descendant of Valentine Hunsicker, patriarch of another important Montgomery County family. Sarah and Christian had two children, Catherine and Garrett and they remained on the original Hunsicker family homestead. Sarah died in 1899.

Worked in silk on linen, the sampler is in excellent condition and has been conservation mounted into its outstanding original mahogany frame.

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