Chapel Hill, Marshall Co.

Amelia Lucinda Ferguson (1835-1911) was one of ten children born to John Fleming Ferguson and Amelia Louise Brittain. Her father’s farm was near Caney Spring Creek in Chapel Hill, Bedford Co. (later Marshall County). Amelia may have attended the Berea Academy, which had a female department run by Mrs. John M. Barnes. She married Dr. John Bunyan Stephens, a physician. In 1866 they moved to Nashville, seeking a better education for their two children. In addition to practicing medicine, Dr. Stephens was a professor of obstetrics and clinical midwifery in the Nashville Medical College as well as pastor of the Primitive Baptist Church on 3rd Ave. South. Amelia was a loving wife and mother—remembered as a kind, charitable Christian woman.

Amelia’s sampler features bold flowers worked in wool, the fashion of the day. Innovations in printing patterns and dyeing fibers in Germany led to the craze for Berlin work, which was incorporated into traditional sampler making.