This pieced wool quilt is actually an example of a cleverly designed recycling or repair of a damaged or worn quilt. The original quilt was made of light green, salmon, dark blue, and gray-green wool, all glazed, but only the dark blue corners retain their glaze. At a later date, a pieced pink and brown wool panel complete with its original filling, lining, and quilting stitches, was added across the top.
The lining consists of 6 large segments of plain woven wool or wool and linen; one segment is a plain woven horizontal stripe. The quilt is wool filled and quilted. The quilting patterns are different between the top added panel (7 stitches per inch) and the main body of the quilt (8 stitches per inch). Linen thread was mainly used for seaming; wool thread for quilting. The quilt is bound with 1/2" straight strip of green wool whipped to front and lining; the top added panel is bound with green wool twill-woven tape.
The quilt was part of a larger donation of 18th and 19th century textiles that included coverlets, rugs, printed fabrics, white-on-white embroidered counterpanes, and blankets among other items.
This quilt, pieced in the “Brick Wall” pattern, is composed of 2¼” x 3” rectangles. The rectangles were pieced in strips and artfully joined so that light and dark colors form diagonal stripes creating a dramatic overall effect. A roller-printed cotton depicting a pastoral scene, was used for the lining. This particular fabric, probably English, includes a man fishing, a woman carrying a hayrake, and an amorous couple in front of a cottage.
This small section of pieced fabric squares of varying sizes contains many examples of early nineteenth century fabrics. The cottons are block and roller-printed. Geometrics, florals, printed stripes, checks, and plaids are represented. A few still have traces of glaze. Linen and silk threads were used to join the pieces on this quilt top section from the early 1800s.
Pieced in the “Basket” pattern, this quilt was made in the fourth quarter of the nineteenth century. “Keate P. McHenry 1878” is written in ink on one corner. Catherine (Kate) Price McHenry was the daughter of Jane Price Winter, whose “Carpenter’s Wheel” quilt is also in the collection, and Josiah W. McHenry. Kate (Keate) was born in 1850 and lived in La Pile, Union County, Arkansas.
The quilt top consists of forty-two 9¼-inch blocks made of a variety of roller-printed cottons. The blocks are set in a triple sashing of green print and plain white cottons. A miniature “Nine-patch” design is set in the intersections of the sashing. Stripes, checks, small geometrics, plaids, and scallop-shell motifs are represented in the fabrics. This quilt top is among several items that G. Ruth McHenry (Kate’s niece) donated to the Smithsonian.
This precisely pieced and stuffed-work quilt was crafted by Catherine and Anna Shriver of Funkstown, Maryland, in the mid-19th century. The circular designs, currently referred to as the “Sunburst” or “Mariner’s Compass” pattern, are set off by elaborate stuffed quilting, 9 stitches/inch. The same printed cotton was used for the design and the saw-toothed border that frames the quilt.
Anna, born October 23, 1821, and Catherine, born February 12, 1826, were the daughters of Elizabeth Grosh and Daniel Shriver. Catherine married Frisby Knode in 1845. Ann did not marry. Both died young, Anna on May 24, 1853; Catherine on March 15, 1854. The quilt was inherited by Catherine and Frisby’s son, William Shriver Knode, who passed it on to his daughter, Nina. She in turn requested that upon her death it be given to a museum for safekeeping. When she died, in 1940, her husband, William F. Heft, gave it to the Museum in her name.
Twenty-one different roller printed cottons were used to craft this quilt, a variation of the “Nine-patch” pattern. Seven inch blocks are set diagonally with a 3 ½-inch roller-printed sashing. The side and bottom borders are 25 inches wide. The cotton border fabric is a pillar print with baskets, a popular motif of the period. Two corners are cut out. The lining consists of four lengths of plain-woven white cotton. The filling is cotton. It is quilted 7 stitches per inch. The binding is a 1 inch (finished) straight strip of border fabric seamed to the front, sewn to the lining with running stitches. The assortment of period fabrics contributes to the design of this quilt.
An elaborate eagle and an American flag block adorn this patriotic example of a mid-19th-century album quilt. Baskets of fruit and flowers, wreaths, and cornucopias, all typical motifs of the period, complete the quilt. Some of the most extravagantly decorated blocks appear on a distinctive group of presentation quilts that were made in or near Baltimore, Maryland, and are now popularly known as Baltimore album quilts.
The quilt contains both hand and machine quilting. A two-thread chain-stitch machine was used to outline some of the appliquéd motifs and anchor the bias binding on the edges. The background was hand-quilted with feather plumes, clamshells, and diagonal grid patterns, 8-9 stitches per inch.
Three hundred eighty-four 3 ¾-inch squares of printed and plain white cottons were used to create this quilt top. The plain white squares were all inscribed in ink by many different hands. Several squares are dated “June 1864” and some state a place, “Amherst, Mass.” Most squares contain religious messages, but some secular inscriptions are evident: “Three cheers for the Red, white & blue 1864” “God save Gen. Grant and his brave men” and "A remembrance from the children of Amherst June 1864."
On July 1, 1864, the "Hampshire and Franklin Express" published the following note (p. 2) under "LATEST WAR NEWS":
"Album Bed-quilts"
"The Ladies Soldiers' Aid Society of this village [Amherst, Mass] are making quite a number of small hospital quilts, of patch-work, on every square of which is most neatly written in indelible ink, a sentiment of sympathy, a verse of scripture, or a choice scrap of poetry or prose, and are altogether, very beautiful articles, and cannot fail to be comforting to the wounded soldier to decipher, as he lies on his weary couch of pain."
The pieced top was used to cover an older wool quilt (TE*T14021.00A) and the finished product was sent to a Union army hospital during the Civil War.
This silk quilt, delicately appliquéd and embroidered with baskets and sprays of fruit and flowers, was made by Mary Jane Green Moran when she was a young bride in Baltimore, Maryland. The blocks are set diagonally and separated by a white silk sashing appliquéd and embroidered with bud-and-leaf vines, echoed by the undulating leafy vine in the border. The silk top is closely quilted, 12 to 15 stitches per inch, to a muslin backing. It was said that 1,001 skeins of silk thread were used in the quilting. A woven and knotted golden-colored silk fringe is stitched to three sides of this example of mid-nineteenth- century needlework.
Mary Jane (Mrs. Dr. Moran) exhibited her needlework at various fairs and exhibitions. Her entries won awards. It was noted in one Maryland Exhibition in 1851 that the silk quilt with scarlet lining she made and exhibited "is entitled to notice for the labor and industry evinced." This quilt in the Collection is a fine example of her work.
At the time of Mary Jane Green’s marriage in 1846 to Dr. Jonathan J. Moran, he was a resident physician at Washington University College Hospital in Baltimore. It was in that capacity that he attended the dying Edgar Allan Poe in October 1849. Dr. Moran in later years wrote several versions of those last hours that he spent with Edgar Allan Poe, and lectured on the topic as well. From the accounts, it appears that Mary Moran also nursed the dying Poe, reading to him as well as preparing his shroud.
After the closing of the hospital in 1851, the Morans moved to Falls Church, Virginia, where they were both active in the community and the Dulin Methodist Episcopal Church. Dr. Jonathan Moran became the first mayor of Falls Church in 1875 and served until 1877. He died in 1888, and Mary Jane died the following year.
According to family information, this mid-nineteenth-century appliquéd quilt belonged to Hephzibah Jenkins Townsend of Charleston, South Carolina. The central focus, possibily a Hawk Owl perched above a bird’s nest and surrounded by flowers and butterflies, is appliquéd on a 39 x 37-inch panel. A similar bird is on an English block-printed fabric of about 1780. This is framed by a 2-inch roller-printed cotton floral band, a 13-inch white border appliquéd with flowers and birds, and an 11-inch border of roller-printed cotton. The overall diagonal grid quilting pattern is closely worked at 11 stitches per inch. A 4½-inch woven and knotted cotton fringe is along each edge.
Hephzibah (Hepzibah – Hepsaba – Hepsibah) Jenkins was the daughter of Capt. Daniel Jenkins, a Revolutionary War officer, and Hepsibah Frampton. She was born about 1780 in Charleston, South Carolina. Her mother died in childbirth, while her father was imprisoned by the British during the Revolutionary War. Before her death, Hephzibah’s mother seems to have arranged to have two trusted family slaves take Hephzibah to Edisto Island, a difficult journey at that time, to stay with the Townsend family. The little girl grew up at Bleak Hall, the Townsend family home on Edisto Island. Sometime before 1801 she married Daniel Townsend (1759-1842) and they reared a large family on the island. Hepsaba was said to have been beautiful and gifted with a brilliant mind, a strong will, and a sense of justice.
During her stay on Edisto Island, Hephzibah was inspired by the preaching of Richard Furman, an influential Baptist minister who led the church from 1787 to 1825. He was well known for his leadership, promotion of education, and mission work in South Carolina and elsewhere. After becoming a Baptist in 1807, Hephzibah utilized her talents and organizational abilities to found, in 1811, the first mission society in South Carolina, the Wadmalaw and Edisto Female Mite Society. Their fund raising efforts succeeded, and $122.50 was contributed to the missionary fund in 1812, motivating women to organize societies in other Baptist churches. A few years later, about 1815, this society was responsible for building tabby ovens made from a mixture of sand, lime, oyster shells and water. There the women baked bread and pastries which were sold to raise money to support mission work and build a church.
Hephzibah is also credited with founding the Edisto Island Baptist Church, which was constructed in 1818. While Baptists had worshipped on Edisto Island from the late seventeenth century, it was Hephzibah whose efforts built the first Baptist church on the island. She died in 1847 and is buried in the church cemetery.
Initially, the Edisto Island Baptist Church accommodated both the island’s white planters and their enslaved African Americans. During the Civil War the building was occupied by Union troops. After the war, when most of the plantation families left, the church was turned over to the black membership and continues to this day as an African American church. Both the ovens and the church foundation were made of tabby, an early building material consisting of sand, lime, oyster shells, and water. The Hephzibah Jenkins Townsend Tabby Oven Ruins and the Edisto Island Baptist Church are both on the National Register of Historic Places.
The maker of this quilt top, who is unknown, used samples of many late nineteenth-century-fabrics. The quilt top was part of a donation to the Smithsonian by G. Ruth McHenry in 1961. It may have been in the family of Jane Winter Price, who made a “Carpenter’s Wheel” quilt that is also in the Collection.
The quilt top, pieced in the one-patch “Tumbler” or “Flower Pot” pattern, is made of many printed cottons, over 500 different patterns. Nineteenth-century geometric, floral, and polka-dot roller printed cottons are well represented. Both printed and woven striped, checked, and plaid fabrics also contribute to the design. Novelty roller-prints such as dogs’ heads, scallop shells, horseshoes, and ribbons-and-bows can be found on the quilt top. The variety in fabrics makes the quilt top a useful object for study.
Cross-stitched in pink silk: “Mary Ann Kinyon 1852,” clearly identifies this quilt. A framed-center design, the center panel (51 inches by 44 inches) focus is a basket of tulips, daisies, and grapes with pineapples and tulips in the corners. The frame is a 3-inch band of cone motifs. An outer 16-inch border is quilted with a feathered vine and flowers and a triple diagonal grid 3-inch border. All finely quilted; 12 to 13 stitches per inch.
Mary Ann Bardwell was born July 29, 1816 in Onondaga Co., NY. She married Anthony Kinyon (1805-1892) about 1837. The spelling of the name was later changed to Kenyon. They farmed in the Onondaga County area and raised three children; Anson, Willis, and Flora. Mary Ann died March 25, 1903. Her precisely quilted counterpane is an example of mid-19th-century white-work.
“Mary W. Stow,” embroidered in red, is prominent on this patriotic quilt made of fabrics commemorating the 1876 Centennial in Philadelphia. The motifs were cut from bandannas that were printed as souvenirs of the event, and then appliquéd on white cotton. Most of the motifs are edged with a button-hole stitch using red cotton. Printed fabrics with patriotic motifs were popular in America before the 1876 Centennial, but the major exhibition in Philadelphia provided textile companies with an incentive to produce many new fabrics for the event. Several of these can be found on the quilt.
The central motif depicts the Memorial Hall Art Gallery at the Centennial International Exhibition at Fairmont Park, Philadelphia. The Main Exhibition Building, Machinery Hall, Agricultural Hall, and the Horticultural Hall are circular motifs. These all originally appeared on one bandanna. There are flags of many nations, most likely cut from a printed textile. Cut-out portraits on printed fabric of George and Martha Washington, William Penn, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Ulysses Grant are among the motifs. Democratic candidates for president and vice-president, Samuel J. Tilden and Thomas A. Hendricks, and their Republican counterparts, Rutherford Hayes and William A. Wheeler, appear in separate motifs.
Mary W. Stow lived in Wisconsin, and included on her quilt printed pictures of the capitol building at Madison, Wisconsin and Harrison Ludington (1812-1891), governor of Wisconsin from 1876 to 1878.
Motifs also include inked drawings of the Hingham, Massachusetts, First Meeting House, the Bunker Hill Monument, the Liberty Bell, the Charter Oak, Trinity Church, and Independence Hall. Several motifs have the printed or inked date “1876.”
The border makes use of patriotic colors. A 1½-inch inner band of blue striped cotton with white stars is framed by an outer 1¾-inch band of red cotton. Quilting, 9 stitches per inch, outlines the appliquéd motifs. The border is quilted with a feathered vine and 1-inch diamond quilting fills the background.
The patriotic theme is carried to the lining of the quilt. In the center of the back is a bandanna with the printed text of the Declaration of Independence and facsimiles of the signatures of the signers. These are framed by the Liberty Bell and seals of the thirteen colonies, linked by names of the Revolutionary patriots.
Mary Williams Loomis was born on April 8, 1820, in Brownville, Jefferson County, New York. The daughter of General Thomas Loomis, she married Marcellus Kent Stow (1806-1871) on October 5, 1837, in Buffalo, New York. They moved to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, in 1852 where Marcellus was a business man, practiced law, and was a county judge.
Marcellus had followed his brother, Alexander, to Wisconsin from New York and together they had platted subdivisions that provided a plan for the city’s growth. Their father, Silas Stow, was a congressman from New York during the War of 1812. Mary and Marcellus reared five children, two girls and three boys.
Mary was also active in the Fond du Lac community. She was a foundering member of the Fond du Lac Relief Society, established in 1873 following the great forest fires of 1872 that destroyed several areas in Wisconsin. The establishment and management of a “Home for the Friendless” or “The Home” was a result of the fund-raising labors of this organization. Operating well into the twentieth century “The Home” provided a refuge for those in need, particularly the elderly, who did not have other resources. Although widowed, Mary still lived in Fond du Lac at the time of the Philadelphia 1876 Centennial. She may have visited the Exhibition and made this quilt as a reminder of the event. Her son, James W. Stow (1853-1913), lived in Washington, D.C., and Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. It was in Washington, D.C., on June 13, 1898, that Mary died.
Block-printed linen fabric (rose and brown on white ground) and blocked printed cotton (printed floral pattern on dark ground) were effectively used to design this two-toned quilt. The center is made of 9-inch square blocks pieced in an “Eight-pointed Star” pattern set alternately with plain squares in the same dark- and light-ground fabrics. The outside row of blocks on all four sides of the quilt is composed of “Eight-pointed Star” blocks in reverse coloring, set with plain blocks. Alternate light and dark triangles are pieced to create the border. The lining is plain linen, and the filling is cotton. It is sewn and quilted with linen thread.
Adaline Lusby made this example of a chintz applique quilt in 1837-1838. The quilt design is composed of floral motifs cut from two different chintz fabrics. The center lattice-work basket features a parrot on the front and another perched on one of the branches in the basket. Flowering cactus and sprays of anemones frame the basket, surrounded by a flowering vine of roses and anemones, and, an outer row of sprays of roses. Strips of plain red cotton cut in points and valleys creates a vibrant border. Quilted floral motifs fill the white spaces.
Adaline Wineberger was born c. 1808 in Washington D.C. In 1837, about the time the quilt was made, Adaline married James Lusby (1803-1866). They had three children; James, Sarah, and Fanny. Adaline died in Washington D.C. on October 18, 1895.
According to a note with the quilt when it was donated by her granddaughter, Adelaide Rado, it was rescued from a packing trunk that had floated in a flooded cellar for several days after a tornado in 1915. “The quilt was hung in the garden to dry but unfortunately left stains which have discolored the under part, rather than the top.” Better the lining than the top! Adaline’s carefully planned-out quilt is a nice example of cut-out chintz quilt design.
Embroidered in dark brown silk cross-stitches and eye-stitches along the top right edge of the center of this quilt is "M. Campbell 1795." This quilt is a rare dated and signed example of the use of reverse appliqué which is found in the center panel and the eight border motifs. In reverse appliqué, the positions of the pattern and background fabrics are reversed from those of onlaid appliqué. The silhouette of the pattern is cut out of the background fabric, and openings are filled by applying a contrasting fabric from underneath. It was not often used in American quilts. The remainder of the quilt top is of geometric pieced work.
Block printed cotton fabrics of floral prints, stripes, and small geometrics, mostly on brown or tan grounds, were used for the appliqué and piecework. The lining is linen and the filling cotton. All appliquéd motifs are outline quilted along both the inside and outside edges. The white backgrounds, center border, and printed fabric blocks in the outer border are quilted in a diagonal grid and chevron patterns, seven stitches to the inch. M. Campbell's skillfully worked quilt is a notable example of the reverse appliqué technique.
Dark blue glazed wool was used for this example of a New England whole cloth quilt. Sometimes labelled a utility quilt, a thick carded wool filling and wool fabrics make it an especially warm bedcover. While it has evidence of many repairs (darning and patches) the wool used for the top still has much of the glazed sheen. Glazing, a process involving the use of a hot press on wool fabric, resulted in a smooth, lustrous fabric surface.
The quilt center is quilted in a clamshell pattern, framed by a 5 ½-inch band of chevrons and diagonal grid quilting. A 16-inch border is quilted in interlocking circles. At some point a segment (16-inches x 18-inches) was cut from a corner. Wool and linen sewing threads and wool quilting threads are an indicator of its late 18th-early 19th century construction.
Quilt made, according to the donor, by Amanda Bowers Dement; it won a blue ribbon at the 1907 Georgia State Fair in Atlanta. An unusual example of the stereotyping imagery common at the time, used both to demean African Americans, and to celebrate the mythic world of the antebellum South.
The quilt depicts a black man, holding a knife and a slice of watermelon, standing in the center of a watermelon patch surrounded by a white fence which forms the outer border of the quilt.
The quilt is machine-appliqued and machine-joined in 9 large sections which were then joined before embroidery was added. Gray cotton lining. No filling; the 9 sections of front are appliqued and quilted through a layer of cotton cloth. Embroidery stitches: Stem, Straight. Quilting pattern: background quilting (crossing lines which form uneven diamonds) machine-stitched on each of the 9 sections. Watermelons machine-quilted, 16 stitches/inch. Lining not quilted; held to quilt with tacking stitches in only about 20 places. No binding; front and lining turned in and held by Herringbone stitch.
[Please note: NMAH curators are actively researching this quilt, and are eager to hear from members of the public who have information to share.]
The quilt top is comprised of twenty-five 13-inch printed cotton squares that are samples from the textile firm, James, Kent, Santee & Co., of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. All of the squares are plain-woven, roller-printed cotton. Thirteen squares are different red on pink or pink on red floral designs; twelve are brilliant polychrome prints, mainly paisleys. The squares are hand sewn, but the border is stitched on by machine.
James, Kent, Santee & Co., was a successful textile firm established by William C. Kent and two friends in 1840. A New York Times notice (February 22, 1860) listed the firm among other Philadelphia merchants, as “enemies to the institutions of the South.” They were listed under “THE BLACK LIST, OR ABOLITION HOUSES, OF PHILADELPHIA.” Despite this and a disastrous Philadelphia fire in February 1866 that destroyed their buildings, the firm prospered until it was reorganized under another name in 1882.
The donor’s father, Henry D. Welsh, joined the firm in 1852, became a partner in 1856 and continued in the firm until 1881. William C. Kent and Henry D. Welsh and others, in addition to the textile business, successfully invested their time and energies in the development of railroads. Among many other civic activities, Henry D. Welsh was one of the incorporators of the Centennial Exposition in 1876. Both men, self-made, died successful businessmen. The quilt top represents the product of the textile firm that was instrumental in their careers.
About 1855 in Northfield, Mass., Charles Torrence Ripley was preparing to move his family and daguerreotyping business to Fond du Lac, Wis. This “Friendship” quilt was made by friends and family for his wife, Lucy Arabella (Holton) Ripley.
Friendship quilts are composed of signed blocks of the same pattern often accompanied by an inscription. These quilts were popular in the mid-19th century when many families were relocating further west and a tangible reminder of those they left behind was in order. It is through the many signatures on this quilt that some of its history can be traced.
Blue and white printed cottons are pieced in the “Friendship Chain” (“Album” or Chimney Sweep”) pattern, and the blocks are set diagonally with a 3 ½ -inch blue-and-white polka-dot sashing. The blocks are partly outline-quilted and many have four “Xs” quilted in the white center area.
The majority of the ink-inscribed blocks (28) are from Massachusetts (mainly Northfield) and New Hampshire. Three name towns in Wisconsin, one dated 1854, and the other two, 1920s. Five other blocks are dated 1901 and 1926 and are inscribed in indelible pencil. It would appear that these were written long after the quilt was made and may indicate a significant date or person to be remembered.
In addition to names, places, and dates, many of the blocks contain verses pertinent to friendship. Adaline Swan from Northfield, Mass., penned this on her block in 1851:
“The storm-cloud comes o’er the autumn sky
And the flow’rets in their beauty die,
But friendship true, is an ever green.
That decayeth not ‘neath a sky serene”
(”True Friendship” by James Aylward 1813-1872)
The verses were taken from many sources and may have appeared in magazines or newspapers of the period.
The name of the Museum's donor, “Ione Ripley, Aug 18, 1926, Kenosha, Wisconsin” is written on one of the blocks in purple indelible pencil. The quilt had been kept in the family of her father, Floyd Stratton Ripley, until Ione donated it in 1956. Floyd Stratton Ripley was the son of Charles Stratton Ripley (1851-1914), who immigrated with his parents (Charles Torrance Ripley and Lucy Arabella Ripley) in 1855 to Fond du Lac, Wis., from Northfield, Mass. The initial recipient of this quilt, Lucy Arabella Holton, was born in 1821 in Northfield, Mass. She married Charles Torrance Ripley (b.1815) in 1847, and moved with her 3-year-old son to Fond du Lac in 1855 and had two more children. Her husband established a studio in Fond du Lac, but died in 1861. Lucy died in 1887. Her daughter-in-law, Florence Fellows Ripley (1863-1926), owned the quilt before Ione. Her name, also in indelible pencil, is noted on a block with the date 1901 and Kenosha, Wisconsin. Most likely the donor, Ione, received this quilt after her great-aunt’s death in July 1926.
The quilt was kept in the family for more than 100 years, and now serves as an example of one way a community created a memento for those who left to settle in the West.