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Region: Middle Tennessee
1840 Cynthia McNeill Motheral
Tulip Border Group
Grassland, Williamson Co.

1514"V x 15"H © TSS 142
fibers: silk
ground: 30 V/24 H ct. linen
Biography:
Cynthia McNeill Motheral (1827-1895) was the fourth child of Joseph Motheral and Anness Lea Williams. She and her seven siblings grew up in a two story white clapboard house, built about 1823, on Locust Guard Farm in Williamson County. The land had been a Revolutionary land grant deeded to their grandfather, John Motheral of North Carolina. Cynthia and her older sister Emaline (TSS 012) attended the same, yet to be identified, female academy in Franklin where they made similar samplers in 1840.
Description:
Cynthia’s sampler uses both silk and wool fibers, unlike that of her sister’s, which employs only silk. Cynthia’s verse was written by the Rev. Mathers Byles II in 1778 for his daughter Eliza’s sampler.

My heart exults whilst to the attentive eye,
The curious needle spreads the enamell’s dye
While varying shades the pleasing task beguile
My friends approve me, and my parents smile.
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