Bolivar Academy?

Mary Wallace Montgomery (1819-1888) was a child of James Montgomery, a veteran of the War of 1812, and Dorcas Miller Russell. Her father was a farmer and a cabinet maker. Mary and her cousin Malinda McCroskey (TSS 223) may have been attending the Bolivar Academy in Madisonville when they made similar samplers. At the age of 25 Mary became the second wife of Daniel Heiskell, a widower with seven children. Daniel Heiskell was a tanner, farmer, and successful landowner who eventually became a Justice of the Peace in Monroe County. Mary gave birth to three additional children. Both Mary and Daniel are buried in Heiskell Cemetery in Monroe County.

Neighboring Blount and Monroe counties boast a collection of samplers with highly detailed, realistic, satin stitched flowers. Mary and her distant cousin Malinda McCroskey (TSS 223, TSS 224) used similar free embroidery techniques. Both girls may have attended the Bolivar Academy, in Madisonville, Monroe Co. Mary’s other cousin Sarah Colville Montgomery, a resident of Blount Co., worked a sampler (TSS 185) c. 1847 that shares a floral motif and stitching techniques with Mary’s sampler, but is visually very different.

Photograph courtesy of the owner.