The sampler has nine rows of alphabets and numbers separated by nine decorative crossbands. The narrow signature at the bottom of the sampler reads:
Worked by Catherine A. Hagan in the 14th year of her age. July 1845 Gethsemani

Catherine Ann Hagan was born in 1832, when her father, Thomas Sydney Hagan (1800-1886), was thirty-two years old and her mother, Ann (Nancy) Cissell (1809-1849), was twenty-three. Her full siblings included Mary Francis (Fannie) (1832-?), Edward Clement (1834-1916), Susan Emily (1836-1896), Thomas J. (1840-1871), Cyrene (Serene)(1843-?), George Miles(1846-1886), and Regina Genevieve (1848-?). The family reportedly lived in Louisville, Owensboro, New Hope, and New Haven, Kentucky during Catherine’s childhood. After Catherine’s mother’s death in 1849, her father remarried in 1850 to Mary Amanda Edelen (1823-1901) and they had five half-siblings to Catherine.

AKS can find no evidence of Catherine marrying or having offspring.
Catherine Ann Hagan died in 1901 at the age of 71, and was buried in Saint Catherine Cemetery, New Haven, Nelson County, Kentucky (see ancillary images).