When my father was cleaning out the paint store he worked at, and eventually owned, he discovered a cross stitch sampler among the remnants in the attic.
He had it stored between pieces of cardboard, and he must have left it with me after he moved from our home somewhere around 1998. We must have talked about it before then, but Ancestry was new to me and the information wasn’t as abundant as it is now, so I wasn’t able to find much information. Or else, I didn’t really try that hard!
In 2017, I made inquiries to 2 antique stores I found online who worked with samplers. After sending pictures, one wanted me to send it to them to appraise and both were not thrilled with the condition of it and said it would sell better if it was mounted and framed which could cost in the area of $1,500. Since my father was a picture framer, I was not shocked by that cost. So, I dropped the idea and continued to hang on to it.
Present day 2025, I was organizing my ancestry notebooks and pictures and came across the sampler again beneath old photo albums.
I recalled a conversation, maybe on an Ancestry forum, when I was told “Chatham” was not the one in Massachusetts as we originally thought, but it was an early town in Middlesex County, Connecticut and now part of present day Portland Connecticut.
So I contacted the Portland Historical Society and offered them the sampler and they happily agreed to accept it! They are open the 2nd Sunday of every month and today is that day. If they are open after this “big storm”, I’ll bring it there today.
Let me tell you about Fanny Hall the 12 year old cross stitcher.
Fanny was born in Chatham, Connecticut on April 27, 1802 to Samuel Hall and Ruth Bates Hall. A record says “Middletown Upper Houses:577”. Fanny was one of 10 children born to Samuel and Ruth.
Fanny married James Wells White of Chatham on January 20, 1825. Of note, her sister Hannah, born October 29, 1803 married Wanton Ransom of Hartford on that same day.
Fanny and James’ married life was short lived. Fanny died on November 8, 1825 in Portland Connecticut at the age of 20. I ran across an article in the National Library of Medicine about an article written by Dr. Thomas Miner concerning an epidemic in 1823 in Middletown of “Typhus Syncopalis”, Sinking Typhus, or New England Spotted Fever. Perhaps that is how she died?
The abstract:
“In 1825 Dr. Thomas Miner wrote about an epidemic that occurred in Middletown, Connecticut in 1823. He called this disease “Typhus syncopalis,” sinking typhus, or New England spotted fever. Differences in the understanding of disease processes in the early 19th century preclude a definitive modern equivalent fortyphus syncopalis. In addition, there are disagreements among Dr. Miners’ contemporaries with regard to fever classification systems. Examination of the symptoms and physical findings as described by Dr. Miner suggest the presence of encephalitis or meningitis as well as a syndrome resembling a shock-like state. Based on symptom comparisons, this paper suggests that typhus syncopalis was likely meningococcemia caused by Neisseria meningiditis”.
James went on to marry Margaret B. Lewis on December 24, 1827 and they had four children. Their first child was a daughter, born in 1829, whom they named Fanny Hall White.
Back to the original Fanny Hall! Both Fanny’s father, Samuel, and her mother, Ruth Bates were from families of early settlers in New England. Very briefly, I had traced Ruth Bates Hall’s family back to an early 1600s voyage to “The New World”.
Samuel’s earliest recorded ancestor and Fanny’s 5x great grandfather, John Hall, was one of the earliest settlers in Middletown. He was born on June 5, 1584 (my father’s birthday!), in Canterbury England. He died on May 26, 1673 and is buried in the Riverside Cemetery in Middletown Connecticut.
Riverside Cemetery, Middletown CT It’s location is sad, because it’s such a historic cemetery, squashed by the entrance to a highway. Both sites I linked will give you some different information on the cemetery. Compared to the love and attention our Center Street Cemetery in Wallingford receives, it makes me sad.
Samuel was born in November of 1777 to Joel and Hannah Ranney Hall in Chatham, Connecticut and lived there throughout his life until his death in October of 1849. He and family members are buried in Trinity Cemetery in Portland with other family members.
This was an interesting search for Fanny Hall and her ancestors. I look forward to handing off her 208 year old sampler to the Portland Historical Society where it belongs.
If you’re interested, here is a link to the history of Portland Connecticut. Like my hometown of Wallingford, it broke off into the different towns we know of today.
It's All About Family 