Houses in Silk Group

Franklin, Williamson Co.

Mary Elizabeth Collins (abt. 1824- ?) does not appear to be the daughter of any of the Collins families who lived in Franklin or Williamson County. She may have come from another county or even another state as Williamson Co. was known to have many fine female academies. Tennessee marriage records list a number of women by the name Mary Elizabeth Collins, but so far it is uncertain if one of them was the sampler maker.

Although Mary Elizabeth has not emerged from archival research, she fortunately identified her town and the state on her sampler. Her couplet:

’Tis education forms the common mind;
Just as the twig is bent the tree’s inclin’d.

is a popular text from Alexander Pope. She included the number “12” at the end of the fifth alphabet, perhaps to indicate her age when she completed her sampler in 1836.