This simple sampler has seven rows of alphabets separated by simple crossbands. These are followed by her signature lines:
JANE * MCCLANE * HER
SeMPLeR * ROUCH
T * IN * THE * YEAR 8
011 * ANd IN * THE
8 YEAR OF HER
AGE * 1 2 3 4

The last line of the sampler appears unfinished, with numbers terminating at “4”. The spelling and imperfections in her sampler along with the random use of upper and lower case letters in words like “SeMPLeR”, suggest she likely made the sampler at home, rather than at a female academy.

Jane McClane (aka McClean, McLean) was born in 1803 in Germantown, Bracken County, Kentucky, to recent Northern Irish immigrants John McClane (1765-1860) and Ann Shaw McClane (1773-?). (Note that Germantown is partially in Bracken County and partially in Mason County, Kentucky.) Jane’s siblings included Francis “Frank” (1790-?), Robert Delef (1793-1847), Rachel D. (1794-1826), Elizabeth (1795-?), William (1796-?), James (1805-1842), and John (1806-?).

On January 5, 1824, when Jane was twenty-three years old, she married John Hooten (1798-1842), a blacksmith, in Brooksville, Bracken County, Kentucky.
The couple moved to Putnam County, Indiana, shortly after their marriage and clearly by 1832, as John had purchased “One hundred & fifty-four acres & fifty six hundredths of an acre”. (See the United States Land Office Record of January 3, 1832 in the ancillary images. Interestingly, the salutation reads:
“Given under my hand, at the City of Washington, the third day of January, in the year of our Lord, 1832 and of the Independence of the United States the 56th.” (1832-1776=56 years.)
John and Jane Hooten’s children included Frances Elizabeth Hooten (1827-?), Beverly James Hooten (1834-1899),Martha Ellen Hooten (1836-1869), William Thomas (1840-1870), and possibly two younger children born prior to 1827.

After John Hooten’s death in 1842, Jane married John Adams (1803-1848) in Putnam, Indiana on February 7, 1843 when she was forty years old. They had one child together, Isaac (1844-1933). Jane’s husband John Adams died in 1848 after five years of marriage to Jane.

The 1860 census shows her living in Washington, Putnam County, Indiana at fifty-seven years old.

Jane McClane Hooten Adams’ date and place of death and burial are unknown.

The posted images of the sampler are "Courtesy of Case Auctions, Inc."