Fatima Cushing

We first owned this very handsome Cushing sampler in 1995 and are delighted to have it once again. It is a handsome example of a genre of sampler documenting family information that became popular in New England in the early years of the 19th century. 

The Cushing family is one of the oldest and most prominent in Massachusetts, well documented in The Genealogy of the Cushing Family by Lemuel Cushing (Lovell Printing and Publishing Company, 1877). Beginning with the English ancestor and continuing to Matthew Cushing who was born in Hingham, Norfolk, England in 1589 and embarked on the ship, Diligent, sailing from Gravesend, England on April 26, 1638 and arriving in Boston on August 10 of the same year.  

Members of the next generation of the Cushing family removed to Hingham, south of Boston. Six generations later, the maker of this sampler, Fatima Cushing, was born, the daughter of Hon. Captain Charles Whiting Cushing and Deborah (Jacobs) Cushing, who married in 1795. Fatima was given the name of a recently deceased infant daughter of the family, as was often the tradition. The Cushing family had ties to nearby Scituate as well. Fatima remained single and died in 1847 in Hingham. 

The sampler is signed just after the alphabet, “Fatima Cushing’s S,” the last letter standing of course for, “Sampler.” Also notable is the listing of vowels, “AEIOUWY,” as W was included then. Following this listing are Fatima’s initials. Tucked into the family information and worked vertically is the aphorism, “Children, obey your Parents and, be united.” 

Surrounding the carefully worked alphabets and family information is an unusual and very appealing three-sided border. It features organic, spiky round blossoms on vines, with little berries in the four corners.

The sampler was worked in silk on linen and is in excellent condition. It has been conservation mounted and is in a fine birds-eye maple frame.