The sampler format is unusual among AKS documented samplers. A peripheral, two color, mildly decorative border of running and cross stitches surrounds a circumferential 2 ½ inch area of linen devoid of stitching excepting the signature area, which is interestingly located at the top of the sampler. This circumferential 2 ½ inch, nearly blank area may suggest the sampler was unfinished. The signature reads:

Wrought by Clarissa Arnold in
the 10 year of her age 1831.
(?)ell(?)

The signature is surrounded by a rectangular border with a significant area lacking stitches suggesting an unfinished appearance or perhaps poor planning.
A border surrounds the central portion of the sampler where eight rows of alphabets and numbers are separated by mildly decorative crossbands. At the end of the eighth row, the date the sampler was made (1831) is repeated.
Below this is a somewhat centrally located verse flanked by potted flowers/plants with significant loss to the plant on the left. The 10th verse of Alexander Pope’s poem, The Universal Prayer, reads:
Teach me to feel anothers wo,
To hide the fault I see
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.

Clarissa “Clara” Arnold was born on April 22, 1822 in Garrard County, Kentucky to Absolam Arnold (1790-1828) and Tabitha Bruce (1798-1878). Her siblings included John Bruce (1818-1900), Thomas (1819-?), Brunette (1820-1849), Horatio Constantine (1823-1859), Elizabeth (1825-1873), Alexander Bruce (1826-1900), and Tabitha Clay (1828-1893).

Clarissa was the second wife of Benjamin Franklin Doty (1818-1887). Doty’s first wife was Clarissa’s widowed sister Brunette Arnold Boyle, by whom Doty had six children. After Brunette’s death in 1849, Benjamin Franklin Doty married Clarissa Arnold on January 28, 1851 in Garrard County, Kentucky. They also had six children including Rebecca Jane (1852-?), Clara Moreland (1854-1941), Moses (1856-1856), Benjamin Franklin (1856-?), Margaret Dean (1857-1857), Horatio Constantine Arnold (1859-1941), and Ethelbert David Kennedy (1859-1906).

Clarissa “Clara” Arnold died on January 7, 1884 and is buried in the John Doty Graveyard in Lancaster, Garrard County, Kentucky next to her husband, Benjamin Franklin Doty. Her headstone is intriguingly engraved, “SHE HATH DONE WHAT SHE COULD” (see ancillary images).