PORT TOWNSEND — A group of 23 women who spent four years creating a replica of a 135-year-old sampler have presented it to the Jefferson County Historical Society, which will have it on display beginning today.
The Northwest Sampler Guild gave the replica of the 1875 Charlotte Clayton sampler to Bill Tennent, director of the historical society, and Steve Shively, the program and services supervisor for the Fort Worden State Park — where the original sampler is displayed at the Commanding Officer’s Quarters museum — during a ceremony attended by about 60 people Friday.
Darlene Gorczyca, who managed the project as part of the Northwest Sampler Society, said it was done using the “round robin” process — each person completing a portion of the sampler replica and passing it to another.
The group also put together chart packs of the Charlotte Clayton Sampler for others who want to re-create it.
The presentation was part of the Northwest Sampler Guild’s annual meeting, and it drew participants from throughout the Pacific Northwest.
The sampler, which contains more than two dozen images, was created by a Scottish woman named Charlotte Clayton, who stitched it while living at Devonlea House, Devonside, Tillicoutry, Clackmannanshire, Scotland, about 1875.
Its journey from Scotland through Canada and into Washington state is uncertain, but it ended up in the hands of Clayton’s niece, Catherine Chubb, a Port Townsend resident.
Before her death in 1984, Chubb donated the sampler to the Ford Worden’s Commanding Officer’s Quarters museum, where it has been displayed since.
The Northwest Sampler Guild decided to make a copy of it in 2006.
“This was a great group,” Gorczyca said. “I didn’t even have to crack the whip all that much.”
“I’ve walked by that sampler hundreds of times before and never knew its history,” Shively said.
“I never knew its story.”
Chart packs of the Charlotte Clayton Sampler can be purchased at the Commanding Officer’s Quarters museum.
For more information, phone the Jefferson County Historical Society at 360-385-1003 or visit its headquarters at 540 Water St. in Port Townsend.
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Jefferson County reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
