This needlework sampler was stitched by Lucretia Fithian (1765-1815), probably between 1770 and 1780. Lucretia was one of nine children born to Capt. David Fithian (1723-1805) and Esther Conkling Fithian (1728-1800).
Samplers began as a way for embroiderers to keep a reference for their designs and stitches. Today they are more known for the purpose to which they evolved: a way for girls to practice their sewing and embroidery skills while learning the alphabet. The sampler came to typify the work of becoming a lady that the daughters of the upper and middle classes performed.
This sampler was likely made while Lucretia was young and still living with her parents, as stitching a sampler was typically done by younger female children. Additionally, Lucretia used her maiden name to sign the work, indicating the sampler was done before her marriage in 1789.
Born 11 years before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, Lucretia, part of a landowning family in East Hampton, was on both sides a direct descendant of two of East Hampton’s earliest colonists. The town she grew up in was one on the brink of war, but conversely also a quiet farming village.
Lucretia’s father served as a captain of the Fourth Company of the Suffolk County First Regiment of Militia. Captain Fithian served under Col. Josiah Smith in the Battle of Brooklyn. Following that American loss in the summer of 1776, many Long Islanders fled north to Connecticut to escape the British occupation of Long Island.
The Fithians, however, stayed in East Hampton. As a result of this, Lucretia’s world was occupied by British troops for almost a decade.
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Moriah Moore is a librarian and archivist in the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.
