This is an alphabet sampler with floral border. The first line has uppercase cursive letters “A through N”, the second line is a continuation with “O through Z”, the third line has uppercase alphabet “A through N”, the fourth line has “O through Z”, the fifth line has smaller uppercase “A through W”, and XYZ is continued on the sixth line followed by lowercase “a through z”. The alphabet is followed by the signature:
Jane E. Gant’s Sampler Wrought in
her 13th Year while under the tuition
of Mrs. Lotspeich Sept 24th 1848
Let virtue be
A guide to thee.

Below the signature is a large, stately, single door building with sixteen windows. The greenery suggesting plantings and or grass with a front lawn having uncertain motifs left and right of the word “Arcadia”. While this conceivably may reflect the “house name”, AKS suggests that it much more likely that Arcadia refers to the Greek vision of pastoralism and harmony with nature; the poetic shaped space associated with bountiful natural splendor and harmony. The term is derived from the Greek province of the same name with the province's mountainous topography and sparse population of pastoralists later caused the word Arcadia to develop into a poetic byword for an idyllic vision of unspoiled wilderness. (Wikipedia)

The Gant sisters’ samplers were worked “under the tuition of” Nancy (Western) Lotspeich (1803-1889). Design motifs on both works are similar, chiefly alphabets, and a strawberry and vine border on Margaretta’s and a flower bud and leaf border on Jane’s. Their composition’s include their names, age, date, and their teacher, Mrs. Lotspeich. Margaretta’s sampler includes the names of two friends, Sarah A. Means (b.1839) and Juliet E. Woshan (1836-1894) along with the statement “Forget me not” and “Remember me”.

Nancy Western married David Lotspeich in Christian County, Kentucky in 1819. She was widowed in 1832 with six children to support. She continued to teach in Kentucky for more than thirty years. Nancy is noted in the 1880 census living in Amite City, Louisiana with her daughter, also widowed and teaching school. She died on December 13, 1889 and is buried in Louisiana.

Related objects include the sampler of Jane’s sister, Margaretta Gant, which is in the MESDA and AKS Collection.
In 1856, Jane’s sister, Margaretta Gant, married John C. “Posey” Glass (1828-1893) and they ran a successful farm, commercially growing corn, wheat, and tobacco. Jane married a cousin of Margaretta’s husband, James M. Glass (1828-1904).

Two additional samplers that were stitched “under the tuition of” Nancy Lotspeich are known to survive. The sampler of Elizabeth Ann White (1836-1918) is in the collection of the Customs House Museum in Clarksville, Tennessee as well as the AKS Collection. It is almost identical to the sampler stitched by Jane Ellen Gant and was also stitched in 1848.
The earliest surviving example from this sampler group is in the collection of the Speed Museum in Louisville, Kentucky (acc.2014.4) and in the AKS Collection. Stitched by the daughter of Nancy Lotspeich, Mary Magdalene Lotspeich (1832-1904) in 1843, it features a three-story red brick house which at one time was thought to be named “Mount Vernon”. Further research has determined that Mount Vernon was actually a voting precinct name. (AKS conversations with the donor of the Mary Magdalene Lotspeich sampler and corroborated by AKS interview with Christian County historian William Turner in February, 2020). The Mary Magdalene Lotspeich sampler includes a quote on friendship from the poet and author, Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774) as well as her name, age, date, and the inclusion of “under the tuition of her mother”.

Jane Ellen (1836-1894) and her sister Margaretta Waller Gant (1834-1914) were the daughters of Archibald Gant (1789-1854) and Rebecca (Kinkead) Gant (1801-1874). Archibald was a hatter, widely known as “Gant, the Hatter” famous for creating a $10 rabbit hat that was said to “last a man a lifetime”. Around 1844 he started the mercantile business of “Kinkead and Gant” with his brother-in-law. It was 1848 when Archibald Gant decided to enlarge the family home. In that year, 1848, Jane Gant stitched a three-storied house with a single-story wing. It is unknown if this was a literal interpretation of the Gant home or merely a fictitious representation.