The upper portion of the sampler has six rows of alphabets and numbers separated by simple crossbands. The central verse, a portion of Ecclesiastes 12:1 KJV, (with the remainder in parentheses) reads:
Remember Now
Thy Creator in
The days Of thy
Youth While the
(evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;)

The verse is followed by three lines of alphabets and numbers, again separated by simple crossbands. The signature line at the bottom the sampler reads:
Margaret Keith her sa
mpler Work in the year
Of our Lord 1789 aged
12 year 10 month * * *

All of the above is surrounded by a simple vine and strawberry/flower border.

Sampler maker Margaret Keith (1775/6 - 2/12/1830), was born in Newtown, Bucks, British Colonial America (Pennsylvania), and christened there on October 1, 1775. Margaret was a daughter of Ann Mann (1750-1794) and Isaiah Keith (1743-1796), who were married at the Presbyterian Church in Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania on 5/6/1773. The couple’s children included John Mann Keith (1774-1836), the sampler maker Margaret Keith, William Keith (1777-1798), and Isaac Stockton Keith (1778-1836). By 1786, the family had relocated to Union, Fayette County in southwestern Pennsylvania. Isaiah is last on the PA tax roles in 1788. In the spring of 1787/1788, they migrated down the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers to Kentucky with the Barnes and Williams families as well as with George Stockton, (a cousin of Isaiah Keith) and George’s wife, Rachel Dorsey, into Virginia/Kentucky and formed a stockaded fort to ward off Indian attacks. This was called Stockton Station in Mason County, Virginia. The Margaret Keith sampler was made in 1789 in the tiny new community of Stockton Station, Mason County, Virginia.

A brief history of this region’s county formation is as follows. In 1772, Fincastle County became the frontier county of Virginia, extending to the Mississippi it embraced all of what is now Kentucky, and a part of Southwestern Virginia. The county of Fincastle was dissolved by legislative enactment of the State of Virginia December 81, 1776 at which time a portion of it became Kentucky County, Virginia. In May, 1780, Kentucky County was subdivided into three counties: Fayette, Jefferson Lincoln Counties, Virginia (Kentucky). Bourbon County, Virginia(Kentucky) was formed from a portion of Fayette County in 1786. Mason County, Virginia(Kentucky) was formed from a portion of Bourbon, County, Virginia(Kentucky) in 1788 (encompassing all of the territory in Eastern Kentucky, and Northern Kentucky to the mouth of the Licking River. Mason County was the eighth county formed by Virginia from the original Kentucky County, Virginia. Fleming County, Kentucky was formed in 1798 (after Kentucky statehood in 1792) from Mason County, and the portion of the county where the sampler was created was renamed Flemingsburg.  

As such, Margaret Keith’s 1789 sampler is the oldest known antique Kentucky sampler as of December 25, 2024.

Margaret's mother, Ann, died in Fleming County, Kentucky in 1794. Margaret’s father Isaiah Keith remarried after Ann's passing but upon his death in 1796, an extended court struggle over land ownership ensued between his second wife and the children of Ann and Isaiah. Meanwhile, sampler maker Margaret returned to the Bucks County, Pennsylvania, locale of her birth. In Hartsville, Warminster Township, Bucks, Pennsylvania, she married Aaron Bennet Van Zant (various spellings include Vansant, Van Sant, and Vanzant) (1772-1826) on 9/3/1799. Upon the court's decision to award a portion of her parent's land to Margaret, she and her new husband Aaron Van Zant claimed the awarded land in Flemingsburg, Fleming County, Kentucky, and the young couple returned to Kentucky circa 1800. Their children included Aaron Bennett (1795-?), Ann M (1801-1863), James (1802-1844), Mary Mariah (1806-1875), Eliza (1806-?), Marva (1806-?), Amanda C. (1812-1894), Isaiah Keith (1815-1854), and John Keith (1820-1901). On November 10, 1828, Margaret Vansant transferred ownership of her 116 acres land in Fleming, Kentucky where she lived with her husband, Aaron Vansant, to her sons James Vansandt, Aaron B. Vansandt, Isaiah Vansandt and John K. Vansandt. The land she was entitled to as one of the heirs of Isaiah Keith, was part of Mercer Beeson's preemption. (See ancillary image of Keith family land and cabin built by Aaron Vansant. Written description on back by Mercedes Allen Palmer. Unknown date.)

Margaret Keith Van Zant, a Presbyterian, died on February 12, 1830 in Fleming, Kentucky and is buried at The Vansant Cemetery, located on the original homestead of Aaron Bennett & Margaret Keith Vansant. The cemetery is located on the hill behind the house, aka, “On The Home Place,” Fleming County, Kentucky (per FamilySearch.org).