Chair seat cover

Inscription: The chair seat cover comes with notes on paper taken from the frame backing. One, handwritten in black in states: “This needlework was done/ by Mrs Anna Poor Parsons/ wife of Thomas Parsons/ (Proprietor of Parsonsfield)/ She was born in 1739/ She died in 1783.” Elsewhere in the paper backing there is a stamped ink mark: “A. M. LAING & SON/ 124 Spring St. Cor. on Park St./ PORTLAND, ME”, who were the framers, and there is finally a piece of white cloth tape attached to the top right on which “ M. A. P. Coolidge” is written in ink. This stands for Mary Abigail Parsons Coolidge, the mother of Henry Parsons Coolidge, the final family member who owned the piece.

The chair seat cover was embroidered by Anna Poor Parsons (1739-1783) who died in Effingham, NH at age 44, after bearing nine children. She was married to Thomas Parsons (1735-1811) who soon after founded nearby Parsonsfield, Maine. The chair seat cover traveled down in the family of Thomas Parsons’ brother, William Parsons (1742-1826) who was married to Abigail Frost Blunt Parsons (1744-1818). From there it was given to their son William Parsons (1780-1864) who was married to Mary Parsons (1792-1874), to their son George Parsons (1826-1907) who was married to Sarah Elizabeth Eddy Parsons (1838-1918), to Mary Abigail Parsons Coolidge (1878-1964) who was married to John Templeton Coolidge (1856-1945). The final family member that owned it was their son Henry Parsons Coolidge (1914-2011). After his death, and that of his wife Alice Crawford Coolidge in 2012, their heirs sold the contents of their Lincoln, MA house to a local dealer, who sold the chair seat cover to another dealer, who then sold it to Titi Halle of Cora Ginsburg LLC, who sold it to MMA.