The Global Roots of an American Family Record Sampler

by Amelia Peck and Cynthia V.A. Schaffner 

In 2020, The Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased a family record sampler at auction that is a model of beautiful stitchery and sophisticated design. Following several years of intensive study, however, the Poyen family record sampler, completed in about 1819, has proved to be much more than a lovely object stitched by a young woman. It has revealed a remarkable and rarely told story of late-18th- and early-19th-century French Caribbean immigration to the United States, and one family’s assimilation into the thriving towns along the Merrimack River in Massachusetts (figure 1). 

The first clue to this complex story lies in the names of the children listed on the sampler. Anglicized names such as “Mary Antoinette” and “Francis Louis” are clearly references to the queen and king of France who were deposed and executed in 1793 during the French Revolution. The key to these names is the heritage of Elizabeth Josephine Poyen (1806–68), the sampler’s maker. Elizabeth was born in Rocks Village, a parish of Haverhill, MA, the eldest child of Joseph Rochemont de Poyen (1767–1850), whose name was anglicized as Joseph Poyen at some point after his arrival in the United States in 1792. Her mother was Sally Swett Elliot Poyen (1781–1858), the daughter of Thomas Elliot (1752–1818), a local tavern keeper, and Sally Swett Elliot (1761–1833), both descendants of English settlers who arrived in Essex County, MA, in the 17th century. Elizabeth’s father was the son of Pierre Robert de Poyen de Saint Sauveur (1740–92), an aristocratic sugarcane planter from Guadeloupe, the French West Indies, and his wife, Marie Joseph Mauvif (1743–80).

This seemingly simple piece of girlhood embroidery prompted us to examine the somewhat unexpected welcome and acceptance that a royalist French Catholic family found from the American citizens of Newburyport (figure 2) and Haverhill. It also made apparent the mutually beneficial connections between sugarcane planters from the French West Indies and the people of the shipbuilding towns on the Merrimack River. Both groups were significant contributors to the infamous triangle trade in enslaved people, sugar, and rum that operated between ports in New England, Africa, and the Caribbean.

The French Revolution began in 1789, and eventually spread to the French West Indies, forcing the royalist de Poyen family to flee their plantations in 1792. Connections made through the sugar trade brought them to Massachusetts, where 27 years after their arrival, Joseph Poyen’s American-born daughter created a fashionable family record sampler. 

Traditionally, samplers have been studied to research the family history of the girl who made it. This genealogical approach usually yields information about the family, often emphasizing deep American roots. However, Elizabeth Poyen’s family record is an example of how a sampler can reveal much more: social history, patterns of immigration, French and American economic ties in the early 19th century, and particularly the acceptance by New Englanders of their French partners in the triangle trade due to their mutual economic interests. The full article about this fascinating story, revealed through a sampler, can be found in the 2024 edition of Americana Insights. 

Amelia Peck is the Marica F. Vilcek Curator of American Decorative Arts and the Consulting Curator at the Antonio Ratti Textile Center at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Cynthia V.A. Schaffner is a researcher in the American Wing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.