This rare example of Arkansas-made needlework is one of the earliest documented Native American-made samplers in the United States. Nancy Grave’s Cherokee name was Ku-To-Yi, and she was eleven years old when she made this sampler. She was one of dozens of young Cherokee girls who attended the Presbyterian school known as Dwight Mission, located on the banks of the Arkansas River near present-day Russellville. There they learned “the three Rs” and the various aspects of the domestic economy, which included needlework and the making of samplers. Most samplers are constructed with three major components—the alphabet, numbers, and verse. As a result, the student was taught to sew, spell, read, and count. The Dwight Mission school was established in 1820 by the Presbyterian Minister Cephas Washburn. One of its stated purposes was to serve as a school to educate and Christianize the Cherokee moving west with their families from their homes in Tennessee and Georgia. Ultimately, the “Americanization” of Native Americans in this country resulted in the wholesale loss of language and culture for tens of thousands of American Indians. The Schoolmistress who supervised the work on this sampler was missionary Ellen Stetson (b. 1783). Transcription of sampler: Let western girls This sampler view / And viewing let them copy too / Learn well to mark the way that’s / good / The path to glory and to God Whatsoever / thy hand finde / th to do do it with / thy might Eccl /Remember thy / Creator in the / days of thy / youth Eccl 12Wrought by / Nancy Graves / Cherokee Mission School Dwight /Arkansas july. 9.