SAMPLER

This is the earliest known sampler made in Georgia.  Its creator, Mary Smallwood, grew up surrounded by Revolutionary fervor.  The earliest independence gatherings in Georgia were held at the Midway Congregational Church that she and her family attended.  Their church also included two signers of the Declaration of Independence: Lyman Hall and Button Gwinnett. 

Mary never finished the Ten Commandments on her sampler.  The abandonment of her sampler might coincide with her 1778 marriage to Captain Elijah Lewis.  Mary died in 1791, and the end of her life was recorded in black thread by another hand on the sampler.