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Susan Robb's Confederate Quilt and the Pelican

December 26, 2015, 4:00 am
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Your time to see Susan Robb's Confederate quilt at the Autry Museum in Los Angeles is running out.
The exhibit Empire and Liberty: The Civil War in the West,closes on January 3, 2016.
http://civilwar.theautry.org/

You may have noticed the pelican knocking an eagle off his perch
that she placed in one corner of her center panel.

There are several birds on her quilt but this large bird seems to communicate some obvious symbolism. The Union eagle is being beaten by a bird with a long beak, representing the Confederacy as the eagle does the Union.


Confederate uniform button from Louisiana

The pelican has been the symbol of the state of Louisiana from
pre-Civil-War years.

Louisiana flag

Louisiana battle flag with a pelican in the center of the star.

The pelican feeding its young remains on the state flag today.
Why a pelican? Susan Robb Ruple lived in Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas, but I haven't found any records of her living in Louisiana.

The Louisiana pelican is always seen as nurturing---not the aggressive bird in Susan's quilt.

When Terry Thompson and I were working on
my books Quilts from the Civil War and Civil War Women
Terry used the pelican image to make a Secession Quilt

Secession Quilt top by Terry Clothier Thompson and
Frankie Lister, 1998

Terry's bird has a banner proclaiming "Secession". Frankie appliqued the cut-out chintz flowers and Terry pieced the traditional Seven Sisters blocks to stand for the first seven states of the Confederacy.

It's always easy to make wrong assumptions about symbolism in the past---maybe it's not a pelican at all. 

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Star Gazing

December 30, 2015, 4:00 am
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Shawn probably has his top quilted by now.



Phyllis made rings of stars around an applique block designed by Kim Diehl.

Sylvia used a Hewson reproduction print for her center.
It's hard to see the scale on these but the bird isn't very big.


She had the perfect pillar print for a border.

Cynthia M's Anachronistic Stars, set with a 16-patch

Cynthia writes:
"Here's my really warped top! I don't have many repros so I made lots of anachronistic combinations. Thanks for all the information and inspiration!"
And Terry has posted three different tops that she's made over the year.


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More About Quiltmaker Susan Robb

January 2, 2016, 4:00 am
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Confederate applique quilt made by 
Susan Robb,1861-1862. Chicot County, Arkansas
Collection of the Panhandle/Plains Museum at Texas Tech University

Susan Robb's quilt is on display at The Autry Museum in Los Angeles through January 3, 2016, as part of the exhibit Empire and Liberty: The Civil War in the West. 

See the Autry Museum's website here:
http://civilwar.theautry.org/

When the Civil War began Susan Robb was a farmer's wife, living in Chicot County, Arkansas in Planters Township near Eudora. The quilt is attributed to the first years of the war, 1861-1862, when Robb's stepsons William Henry Robb (born 1844) and Theodore F. Robb (born 1846) joined the Arkansas Confederate troops. Theodore's records are hard to find but William left several.



In September 19, 1861, when he was 16 years old William joined the Chicot Rangers, which became the First Arkansas Mounted Rifles. William's company spent time in Indian Territory and Arkansas before crossing the Mississippi as part of Van Dorn's army and later Beauregard's. William served a little over a year with the First Arkansas and was discharged in Tennessee, November, 1862.

His stepmother Susan C. Davenport Robb was probably born in 1822 in Kentucky. In 1849 when she was about 27 she married Henry Baron Robb, 43 years old. Robb had been married twice before and Susan became stepmother to William and Theodore, 5 and 3 years old, and their sister Minerva, about ten.

Mississippi with Coahoma County in yellow. 
The Mississippi River
forms the western border between
Mississippi and Arkansas

The family moved to Coahoma County, Mississippi, near the Mississippi River where the couple had three more children: Mary, born about 1849, who died at a young age, Aaron Baron born in 1851, Thomas Jefferson born in 1854. (Mary is listed as 1 year old in the 1850 census so she may have been born to Henry's middle wife.)

Sometime between Thomas's birth and the 1860 census the family moved just across the Mississippi  to Chicot County, Arkansas, 

The 1860 Census recorded Henry Robb's family.
He was listed as a Planter

When the war began and Susan commenced working on her Confederate quilt she was about forty years old, wife to a 55-year-old farmer and mother to six children ranging in age from about 6 years old to 17. Minerva had just married and left home. Susan may have had live-in help from servant or friend Julia Zale who had also lived in Mississippi.


Henry died soon after the war in 1866.  That year 45-year-old Susan C. Robb married David (or Davis) S. Ruple in Chicot County on May 28. 

Ruple, Davis S., 44
 Robb, Susan C., 45
 28 May 1868
 43
Record here:

1850 Census showing David Ruple's first family with wife Nancy
and two young children Charles and Mary

David Ruple, born in 1822 was listed in the Chicot County census in 1850. His name is spelled in various ways Ruplo or Ruple (probably correct) and Davis or David. 


In 1870 Susan Ruple and David Ruple lived in Chicot County with three teenaged boys, her sons Aaron Baron and Thomas plus David's son Greenberg Ruple who was about 10 when they married.


Susan C. Davenport Robb Ruple died in 1887 in Carrollton, Texas. The Texas connection would explain how the quilt wound up at the Museum at Texas Tech.

Susan's descendants visited the Museum to see the family quilt in 2010.

The quilt was donated to the Panhandle/Plains Museum at Texas Tech University in 1983.


                       


                           
                       
                     


                   


                   
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Westering Women Block of the Month 2016 

                     

                                              January 6, 2016, 4:00 am
                     


                     
                     

                     
                     
                                          
                     
                                          
                     
                   


                   
                   


                     
                     

                       
                       

                         
                              
                         

                          
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In 2016 we are going to feature a Block of the Month here for 12 months called Westering Women, celebrating the women who walked west on the overland trails in the 19th century.

Photo of family and an oxen-pulled wagon, about 1900

On the last Wednesday of each month beginning January 27, 2016, I'll post a free pattern and history lesson about America's western migration. Westering Women will have patterns for 12" block designs, each chosen for a traditional name that recalls a location along the old trails from the Missouri River to the Pacific coast.

Amelia Stewart Knight left a diary of her 1853 trip

You'll get a monthly view of the history of the western migration through the eyes of the women who kept diaries and wrote letters home a century and a half ago.

Wagon train from Harper's Weekly in 1858

I'll post the monthly lessons here at the Civil War Quilts blog on Wednesdays (along with regular Saturday posts about Civil War quilts.)

Independence, Missouri published by Herrmann J. Meyer
in 1854

So get your gear ready and meet us in a few weeks at the jumping off point on the Missouri River in Independence.

Re-creation of the interior of a wagon---spinning wheels were often tossed along the trail.




What should you pack in your small valise? Any kind of fabric you like. We'll be using Civil-War era reproductions prints such as my Old Cambridge Pike and Alice's Scrapbag lines, but you might want to use solids or brights..



Here's a bunch of new Moda fabrics to think about. The colors are perfect for a mid-19th-century theme.

See Carrie's post on Moda's classic repros here:
http://blog.modafabrics.com/2015/12/whats-old-is-new/


                       


                           
                       
                     


                   


                   
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Liberty Tree Battle Memorial Quilt by Mrs. S.K. Daniels

                     

                                              January 9, 2016, 4:00 am
                     


                     
                     

                     
                     
                                          
                     
                                          
                     
                   


                   
                   


                     
                     

                       
                       

                         
                              
                         

                          
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Liberty Tree Quilt by Mrs. S.K. Daniels.
Date-inscribed 1896 
69" x 80" 
Collection of the Museum at Michigan State University
Purchased in Kentucky
Kitty Cole Clark Collection

"Mrs. S K Daniels Mach (sic) 1896,"

Mrs. Daniels made this fashionable quilt in 1896 according to her inscription in red work embroidery along the edge. We assume she meant March, 1896.

She used a popular pattern of the time, possibly copying
one sold by the Ladies's Art Company

Her pattern is close to #260 above in the Ladies' Art Company
1898 catalog of patchwork designs. They called it "Tree of Paradise"

But she embroidered "Liberty Tree" in one of the central blocks.


Other early 20th century names for this particular block included
Christmas Tree Patch from Comfort Magazine and Pine Tree from
Ruth Finley's 1929 book.

Most of the white spaces in the center and along the borders are embroidered with 
Civil War battle names, dates and Generals. 
Above:
 "Pittsburg Landing April 1862," 
"Pittsburg Landing April 6 1862."

Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River near Corinth, Mississippi was
the site of the important battle known as Shiloh in the Confederacy.

It must have meant a great deal to Mrs. Daniels.

Similar inscriptions from other battles include:

"Wilson Creek, MO Aug 10 [1]861 Lyon," 
"Raleigh NC Aprill 26, 1865 Sherman,"

Although the dates are during the Civil War, the embroidery style in Turkey red cotton indicates she embroidered them after 1880, a date consistent with another inscription: "Wm McKinley 1896."  



McKinley was elected to his first term in 1896. The inscription might have been a celebration of his November election or an advocacy of his candidacy earlier in the year.
Another embroidered name is recorded as "C A Hobert," which probably refers to McKinley's 1896 running mate Garret A. Hobart.

Mrs. Daniels also embroidered a Temperance slogan
in the center: "Abstain from Strong Drink."

Searching for Mrs. S. K. Daniels in the published records comes up with two:

1) Alice Daniels and S K Daniels in the 1880 census, 5th Ward, East Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

2) The grave of  "DANIELS, Annie b. Mar 3, 1851 d. Oct 17, 1900 Wife of S.K. Daniels"
in the Teoc Presbyterian Cemetery in Carroll County, Mississippi (about 170 miles southeast of Corinth)

Could one of these women be the same Republican who called the Battle of Shiloh Pittsburg Landing? If she were indeed a Southerner we'd assume she kept this quilt well out of sight.

The Museum has transcribed the block inscriptions in the center:

"Appomattx, VA. April 1, 1865. Grant," 
"Liberty Tree," 
"Abstain from Strong Drink," 
"Hatchers Run Feb. 5 to 7 1865 Grant," 
"Pittsburg Landing April 1862," 
"Pittsburg Landing April 6 1862." 

Inscriptions around outer edge: "Wm McKinley 1896,"
 "Appomatax April 1865 Grant,""Five Forks 1 April Sheridan,"
 "Wilson Creek, MO Aug 10 861 Lyon," 
"J B Tanner,"
 "One Flag One Country,"
 "Marching through Georgia,"
 "Atlanta Georgia July 22 1863,"
 "Mrs. S K Daniels Mach 1896," 
"Wm.. Northcott,"
 "Five Forks Mo. April 1 1865 Sheridan," 
"Raleigh NC Aprill 26, 1865 Sherman," 
"Raleigh NC April 26 1865 Sherman." 

Additional inscriptions: "C A Hobert," 
"Battle of Chickamauga Sept 199-20 1863,," 
"We love the dear old Flag,"
"Washington, Lincoln, Grant," 
"Battle of Chattanooga Dec 23, 24, 25 1863"


                       


                           
                       
                     


                   


                   
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Sewing Machines

                     

                                              January 13, 2016, 4:00 am
                     


                     
                     

                     
                     
                                          
                     
                                          
                     
                   


                   
                   


                     
                     

                       
                       

                         
                              
                         

                          
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The other Barbara B has pieced quite a few borders around her Hewson square.
She has plans for more...
http://bbquiltmaker.blogspot.com/2016/01/time-to-make-more-stars.html

Another human sewing machine
(who works by hand)
 Jill has plans for two tops

And Lori at Humble Quilts
who finishes more things than I even think of starting
has set stars with a chrome yellow/orange.

Her favorite block.

http://humblequilts.blogspot.com/2016/01/stars-in-time-warp.html

Her plan.
You can't go wrong with cheddar can you?
More proof below....


Top from Cécile in France
http://patchworkinspirations.fr/?p=1797


                       


                           
                       
                     


                   


                   
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Mary Custis Lee's Raffle Quilt 

                     

                                              January 16, 2016, 4:00 am
                     


                     
                     

                     
                     
                                          
                     
                                          
                     
                   


                   
                   


                     
                     

                       
                       

                         
                              
                         

                          
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Quilt with the initials MC embroidered in the center,
attributed to Mary Randolph Custis Lee. 
Collection of the Virginia Military Institute Museum
"I had hoped to have had the Quilt ready to raffle but gave the Book to Sue Maury & she has not yet returned it unless some of the students will take chances, I fear it may be some time ere it is done - Perhaps Mrs Freeman would take a chance Do you know her?" 
"Tell your Mother the Quilting is so much admired & I am so much obliged to her why have you never brought her to see me? " Letter from Mary Custis Lee.
Mary Randolph Custis Lee and her son Robert E. Lee, Jr,
about 1845. Collection of the Virginia Historical Society.

In this undated letter Mary Custis Lee seems a bit frustrated in trying to organize a quilt raffle. Sue Maury appears to have kept the book of chances and sales were at a standstill.

Washington College in 1870. 
Collection of the Virginia Historical Society.

The letter has no date or location but it is likely to be from Lexington, Virginia, where General Robert E. Lee and his wife moved in December, 1865. Lee spent the years after the Civil War as President of Washington College there. Two of the other women mentioned are also recorded in the 1870 Lexington census.

Sue Maury (Mrs. Richard Launcelot Laury) was born Susan Elizabeth Crutchfield in 1842. She was 34 years younger than Mary Lee, probably in her late 20s when the letter was written. History has not treated her well. In a biography of her father-in-law Matthew Fontaine Maury, author Patricia Jahns described her as "a beautiful girl with money, social position, and influential relatives and utterly no sense of humor."
All we can do is hope that Sue returned the ticket book and some sales were made.

The letter's addressee, Mrs. Letcher, was another Sue, Mary Susan Holt Letcher (1823-1899), the wife of Virginia Governor John Letcher who held office during the Civil War.

Sue Maury's husband Major Dick Maury.
Maury spent the years 1865-1868 in Mexico
trying to set up a Confederacy there, but returned to
Virginia in 1868. He was law partner to Sue Letcher's husband John.

Apparently Sue Letcher's mother quilted the quilt in question doing a job that was "so much admired." Elizabeth Shaver Holt Yount, 67 years old, was living with the Letchers in the 1870 census. 

In 1898 the Lexington Gazette recalled the local lineage of her grandson Judge Houston Letcher.
"Miss Sue Holt married Governor Letcher---then plain John Letcher, attorney at law-on Linsville's Creek. She was a lady of rare accomplishments, her mother being a Miss Shaver..."



As far a date for the letter: Mary Custis Lee lived until 1873 so it was written some time between 1865 and 1873.

Is the plaid quilt in the collection of the Virginia Military Institute's Museum the quilt they are hoping to raffle? It is pictured in the Quilts of Virginia book captioned:
"Quilting is executed at 12 stitches per inch in crosshatching and chevron with double straight lines."

The fabric is silk plaids, the popular Balmoral look of the 1860s that was out of fashion in the 1870s. In the center is an embroidered wreath with birds and leaves. 

The  R.E.Lee Memorial Chapel at Washington & Lee University

The tickets were sold to fund the chapel at Washington College which became Washington and Lee University. Robert E. Lee is buried in the chapel. Lee died October 12, 1870 and whether the quilt was made before or after his death is unknown. The letter refers to students taking chances. The ladies may have offered tickets to students at the College and the Military Institute.

The quilt was donated to the museum at VMI in 1926, accompanied by a letter described in the museum catalog: "1926) from Mrs. William B. Anderson to Sydney B. Williamson relating the history of a quilt made by Mrs. Lee." Williamson is supposed to have bought the winning ticket in the raffle.
Sydney Bacon Williamson 1865-1939

Sydney Bacon Williamson was about 7 years old when the quilt was raffled off. Born in Lexington, he was the son of Thomas Hoomes Williamson, an engineering professor at VMI. The younger Williamson was an engineer also, his most important project the Panama Canal.

 Thomas Hoomes Williamson 1830-1888

Virginia Military Institute

We can see how the quilt wound up in the VMI Museum.


Lee's Medallion, Jean Stanclift, quilted by Sharyn Rigg, 2000

See more about Mary Lee's quilts at a post I wrote six years ago (six years!) featuring this plaid flannel quilt that Jean made 16 years ago (16!)

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2010/01/robert-e-lees-birthday-mary-custis-lees.html

                       


                           
                       
                     


                   


                   
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Another Human Sewing Machine

                     

                                              January 20, 2016, 4:00 am
                     


                     
                     

                     
                     
                                          
                     
                                          
                     
                   


                   
                   

                   
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A Sanitary Commission Quilt Arrives in Bowling Green

                     

                                              January 23, 2016, 4:00 am
                     


                     
                     

                     
                     
                                          
                     
                                          
                     
                   


                   
                   


                     
                     

                       
                       

                         
                              
                         

                          
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Boxes and barrels headed to Louisville from Ohio

Josie Underwood was a young woman living with her pro-Union parents in the Union state of Kentucky in 1862. In June a load of Sanitary Commission supplies arrived in town for the Federal soldiers occupying the town and the injured men in the hospitals. Among the barrels and boxes: a box of quilts.

June 15, 1862
Bowling Green, Kentucky
"Ma has been appointed-receiver and distributor of sanitary stores, sent by various societies throughout the north. The first consignment came today ...Ma had a room on the back porch cleared for them---but it would not hold half---so they are piled up on the porch and a soldier has been detailed to guard them....A box of quilts was opened---on one was pinned a paper---with these lines written on it.
Mary Jackson is my name
Single is my station
Happy will be the soldier boy---
Who makes the alteration.
All the soldiers there---clamored for it, declaring their desperate lack of covers. Ma told them to stand in a row and draw straws for it."

Detail of a Sanitary Commission stamped fabric
that Linda Frost made for a reproduction soldier's
quilt based on the kinds of quilts sent in those boxes and barrels.

Sanitary Commission Headquarters at Gettysburg, summer, 1863

Josie Underwood's Civil War Diary has been edited by Nancy Disher Baird and published by the University Press of Kentucky.

Read more about her family at this post:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/the-fall-of-the-house-of-underwood/

The main bridge and the Underwood home were burned when Confederate
occupiers left Bowling Green.

Linda and I are selling models we've made for various books
and classes at my Etsy store. 
See more about this reproduction Sanitary Commision quilt by clicking here:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/263585723/civil-war-reproduction-quilt-perfect-for


                       


                           
                       
                     


                   


                   
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Westering Women: Introduction

                     

                                              January 26, 2016, 4:00 am
                     


                     
                     

                     
                     
                                          
                     
                                          
                     
                   


                   
                   


                     
                     

                       
                       

                         
                              
                         

                          
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Tomorrow I'll post the first pattern in my 2016 Block of the Month Series Westering Women. Today: An introduction, discussing the format for the free pattern, a suggested set, history behind the posts and sources.

1) The Format

It's a free Block-of-the-Month, easy to access. No signing in or signing up. Just check this blog on the last Wednesday of every month in 2016. Or subscribe by email so the info goes into your mail box.

2) The Set

If you want to plan ahead: You'll be getting 12 blocks, finishing to 12". Here's a suggested set based on tradition.

3” sash & cornerstones, 9” Borders
66” x  81”

Yardage from EQ7
Cornerstones - 1/4 yard
Sashing - 1-1/8 yards
Border - 2 yards

For the blocks---if you are starting from scratch---
6 half-yard pieces or 12 quarter yard pieces will give you the variety you need (3 yards). It just depends on how scrappy a look you want.

Cutting the Cornerstones: Cut 20 squares 3-1/2" x 3-1/2".

Cutting the Sashing: Cut 47 strips 3-1/2" x 12-1/2".

Cutting the Border: 
Cut 2 strips 9-1/2" x 66-1/2" for the top and bottom.
Cut 2 strips 9-1/2" x 63-1/2" for the sides.



2) Local History
I originally wrote this series for my quilt guild in eastern Kansas. The Oregon/California/Santa Fe Trails are local history to us. We're surrounded with references to the overland roads. For example, many of our members live in the city of Overland Park, Kansas, near streets named Santa Fe and Mission Road.

Madonna of the Trail sculpture by August Leimbach.
The DAR situated these monuments
along the trail from Maryland to California in the 1920s.

The series is skewed geographically to our local history (if we lived in Iowa I'd be talking more about the Mormon Trail and Council Bluffs).

A life-size stone buffalo by James Patti is a
landmark in my neighborhood.

The block-of-the-month also supposes you readers know a lot about the trail. Most Americans understand why people left the east, how they settled the west and how that massive migration became a pillar of our past.

If you would like to read more background see the references at the bottom of the page.

Silent Movie Poster

3) History and Mythology.
Because the stories of the western settlement are so important to our identity they are full of mythological heroism, dangers, triumph and suffering. A good deal of what we know is myth based on 20th-century imagery and stories from sculpture, movies and television westerns.

12 Quilts of the Covered Wagon

Quilts and quiltmaking tend to become part of any American story of hardship from the Civil War and the Great Depression to frontier living and log cabins. I will address a few myths about the trail, and the role of quiltmaking in the lives of travelers over the year. 

I've occasionally seen Ruby McKim's 20th-century
embroidered Colonial History quilt advertised
as an authentic wagon-train-made quilt.

I do want to make it quite clear that I do not believe that women made quilts in any numbers while they were traveling.

Detail. Quilt made from Oregon Pioneer Association Ribbons, 1923.
Collection of the American Folk Art Museum

http://collection.folkartmuseum.org/view/objects/asitem/594/156/title-asc?t:state:flow=7c927799-5f44-4fae-9e92-761f78e31262

Women brought quilts; they made quilts when they found new homes and they continue to remember the migration story through quilts.

Abut 1940 the Omaha World Herald printed a
pattern for a pioneer embroidered quilt featuring The Covered Wagon States.

Block from an online listing

See a quilt made from this pattern at the International Quilt Study Center and Museum website:
http://www.quiltstudy.org/exhibitions/online_exhibitions/ptp_reprise/ptp_reprise_colonialhistory.html

If you are hoping to hear stories about quilts actually made on the trip west, you will have to look elsewhere. The quilt blocks we'll be making were named in the 20th century, part of the nostalgic re-telling of the migration history.

Historical Sources for the Women's Words.

When I first became interested in following the trails west I read many women's diaries and letters looking for descriptions of local landmarks. I was struck by the lack of mention of sewing in these diaries since I'd taken it for granted that quiltmaking was part of all frontier experience. After reading dozens I realized patchwork or quilting was rare while traveling and I wrote a paper on the topic for the American Quilt Study Group. It's not online but read it in Uncoverings 13, 1992.

Barbara Brackman, "Quiltmaking on the Overland Trails: Evidence From Women's Writing,"
Uncoverings 1992, Volume 13 of the Research Papers of the American Quilt Study Group. Edited by Laurel Horton.

Buy the book here:
http://www.americanquiltstudygroup.org/UCDetail.asp?ID=13

Most of the references to women's voices are taken from Kenneth Holmes's Covered Wagon Women, Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, a series of books reprinted by the Nebraska Press.

http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Covered-Wagon-Women-Volume-3,672466.aspx

Many of the individual documents are now available online and I will provide links to them in the posts.

Warning--this photo is probably about 1900

In the posts I'll try to use original period illustrations such as engravings and paintings from the era. Photographs are always suspect. Many are reproduction photo setups or from old movies. I have to confess to falling for many of the reproduction pictures. You can tell from the women's clothing and hair styles that it's not 1860 or even 1880, but the photos look so great.  I'll try to warn you when I use reproduction set-ups and late photos of women and wagons.

I hope not to upset your wagon of preconceived notions about women on the way west, but I've always felt that knowing a true history is far more interesting than the noble myth. I hope you find that true too.

Ezra Meeker did a lot of wagon train recreations in the early 20th century.

It looks pretty good but it's 1900 in downtown Seattle.
You quickly learn to recognize Ezra Meeker (on the left) who set up and sold these postcards.

More background to read---these references are decades old but still important.

Glenda Riley, "The Frontier in Process: Iowa 's Trail Women As a Paradigm,"The Annals of Iowa Volume 46 Number 3 (Winter, 1982) pps. 167-197. Available online:
http://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8836&context=annals-of-iowa

Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road: The Covered Wagon Mainline via Fort Kearny to Fort Laramie, 1987.

John Mack Faragher, Women and Men on the Overland Trail, 2001.

                       


                           
                       
                     


                   


                   
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Westering Women Block 1: Independence Square 

                     

                                              January 27, 2016, 4:00 am
                     


                     
                     

                     
                     
                                          
                     
                                          
                     
                   


                   
                   


                     
                     

                       
                       

                         
                              
                         

                          
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Westering Women Block 1
Independence Square
by Becky Brown

We'll begin our trip to the Pacific coast where the westering women began their real adventures, at the far edge of the United States. In the 1840s when the wave of western migration began, the land beyond the Missouri state line was Indian and Mexican Territory stretching to the Pacific.


The western trail began for many in Independence, Missouri, near a bend in the great Missouri River. 
Independence's town square in 1854, published by Herrmann J Meyer.
 The county courthouse was in the town square.

The most efficient way to get to the trailheads in the early years of the migration was to take river boats from eastern homes to the Missouri and Iowa borders. The Missouri River continued north while the immigrants headed over land west by northwest.

Clothing indicates photo from about 1900

The town of Independence was located far from the riverbank because flooding was an annual problem. Several entrepreneurs offered transportation from river boats to the town square.


Each spring travelers gathered in Independence waiting for May 1st. The prairie grasses needed time to grow to provide food for their animals. If a group left early their stock would have nothing to eat. If they left late the four-month trip would linger into fall snowstorms in the mountains.

Wagon train traffic photographed during the Civil War.

Thousands of wagons left Independence in the first few weeks of May every year. 
In 1849 Tamsen E. Donner wrote her sister from Independence:
"I am seated on the grass in the midst of the tent....My three daughters are around me one at my side trying to sew....I can give you no idea of the hurry of the place at this time, It is supposed there will be 7000 waggons start from this place this season. We go to California, to the bay of San Francisco. It is a four months trip. We have three wagons furnished with food and clothing &c, drawn by three yoke of oxen each."
Date unknown
Most travelers used oxen rather than horses to pull their wagons.

Two of Tamsen Donner's surviving
children with a foster mother after their parents perished on the trail.

Tamsen Donner's name may be familiar as she was the matriarch of the ill-fated Donner Party who were trapped in the snow-covered mountains because they strayed from the established trail. Tamsen was among those who died in the winter.

The courthouse is still on the Square in Independence, Missouri,
although it's not the same building.

Linda Mooney is using a red, white and blue color scheme.

In the 1970s, Mabel Obenchain of the Famous Features syndicate designed a quilt block Independence Square to honor Philadelphia during the American Bicentennial celebration.  The 9-Patch can also celebrate the old square in Independence, Missouri.

It's BlockBase #1621

Independence Square by Denniele Bohannon

Cutting a 12" Block

A - Cut 4 squares 3-1/8"
B - Cut 16 rectangles 4-1/2" x 1-7/8"
C - Cut 4 rectangles 3-1/8" x 1-7/8" 
D - Cut 9 squares 1-7/8" x 17/8"

Sewing the Block



Make a Nine Patch




See the set information by clicking on the introduction yesterday here:
http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2016/01/westering-women-introduction.html

"Trying to Sew"
Do note Donner mentions that her daughter was "trying to sew" while camping in their tent in Independence. Women were more likely to mention sewing when they were temporarily settled for any length of time rather than when they were camping at noon and night. 

References and Links



I read Tamsen Donner's letters in Volume 1 of Kenneth L. Holmes Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, which includes documents from 1840 to 1849.

Here's a link to a Google Book preview:
 donner  https://books.google.com/books?id=9i9ajDTZ9XAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=donner&f=false

A link to online excerpts from her writing:
http://www.thestormking.com/Donner_Party/Tamsen_Donner_Letters/tamsen_donner_letters.html

Ric Burns and PBS did a documentary on the Donners. Read the introduction at this link, which gives us a good summary of the motivation behind the overland migration:
"If ever there was a moment when America seemed in the grip of some great, out-of-the-ordinary pull, it was in 1846. The whole mood was for movement, expansion, and the whole direction was westward."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/introduction/donner-introduction/

If you are brave enough to watch it bring snacks and a couple of warm quilts. Just remember it's a worst case scenario.

                       


                           
                       
                     


                   


                   
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Persis Woodbury's Applique Table Cover 

                     

                                              January 30, 2016, 4:00 am
                     


                     
                     

                     
                     
                                          
                     
                                          
                     
                   


                   
                   


                     
                     

                       
                       

                         
                              
                         

                          
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Detail of an appliqued table cover by Persis Ripley Bradbury
"Made by P.R.B. 1864."

You may recall seeing this patriotic appliqued piece in the 1994 book Classic Crib Quilts and How to Make Them by Thomas Woodard and Blanche Greenstein, which recorded many of the small quilts that passed through their dealer showroom.
The fifteen blocks add up to a finished size of  27" x 43", 
indicating each is about 8" square.

See a digital photo online at the Alliance for American Quilts website Quilt Treasures Presents: Woodard and Greenstein.

http://www.allianceforamericanquilts.org/treasures/photos.php?id=5-16-C&galleryid=5-1A-18&photoid=5-19-13D

View more of the favorite quilts from their collection by clicking left and right at the site.

Norway, Maine about 1905

Persus Ripley Bradbury was about 30 years old when she appliqued the date. She lived in Oxford County, Maine, near the Vermont border and was married to Henry A.M. Bradbury, who'd been a private in the 23rd Maine Infantry in 1862. 

A view of Paris Hill, Oxford County, from the Robert N. Dennis collection of
Stereoscopic Views

Persis was born in 1835 to Valentine and Lovina Ripley, near Buckfield, Maine. She married Henry in 1855 and when he enlisted he left her with baby Elton and three-year-old Ernest. Two older children Henry and Mary had died at 3 years and just a few days old.

Fortunately Henry's regiment never saw battle although many men died of disease in their service guarding the Potomac and other sites in Washington City, Maryland and Virginia. Persis's brother Eliphaz Ripley died in a hospital in Washington in December, 1863. 

The appliqued house

Henry was mustered out in July, 1863, and we hope returned home for the rest of the war. 


The family tombstone tells a sad story of Persis's children. Elton died six months after his father returned. Two later girls died young too.

The five children who died before they were five: 
Henry Woods, Sept 28, 1856 - Feb. 1859
Mary, May 22, 1858 - May 26, 1858
Elton Bird, Jan. 7, 1862-Jan. 23, 1864 [This date has been misread as 1904.]
Vina Ripley, Feb. 18, 1870-July 18,1870
Inez Pearl, Sept. 13, 1871-Feb. 25, 1873
Children of H.A.M. & Persis R. Bradbury


They seem to have had only one surviving child, Ernest Ambrose Bradbury who became a doctor of homeopathic medicine, practicing in Vermont. 

The tombstone was erected when Henry died in 1907.

Persis lived to be 80, dying in 1915. Her family is buried in the  Norway Pine Grove Cemetery in Paris, Maine.

In the Woodard and Greenstein book Persis's name is spelled Persius.
(Persis without the U was a rather popular name in that small part of Maine at the time.)

Her small blocks on dark wool have much in common with cotton applique
quilts at the time of the Civil War.

Bed covering dated 1841,
Collection: Museum of Fine Arts Boston

The style is similar to a New England tradition of wool applique, found in large bedquilts.

Wool applique and embroidery on wool, about 1860, 158" x 112"
American Folk Art Museum.

Maine quilt 
Collection: Museum of Fine Arts Boston

New England quilt, about 1800-1830. Collection: Winterthur Museum.

And a related tradition of smaller table covers
From Laura Fisher Quilts


Above and below from dealers Elliot  & Grace Snyder




Detail of the Bradbury piece, upper right corner.
Details in the Bradbury table clover, such as the blue seam-covering embroidery and the plaid binding (back brought over front?), however, might indicate that the piece was assembled after 1880 when the feather stitch was quite popular.

Here's a detail of a wool applique quilt from the collection of Historic New England. It's
dated 1854 on the right side in one of the blocks. This one is set together in period fashion. Each block was bound before it was joined---a potholder quilt, we'd call it.

See the whole quilt here at the Quilt Index:
http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=1D-FC-12CA

In fact, these two quilts have so much in common,
it must go beyond coincidence.

But why I cannot say.


                       


                           
                       
                     


                   


                   
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Stars in a Time Warp: Different Sets Different Times

                     

                                              February 3, 2016, 4:00 am
                     


                     
                     

                     
                     
                                          
                     
                                          
                     
                   


                   
                   


                     
                     

                       
                       

                         
                              
                         

                          
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Edith's by way of Barbara B.

Above: a Time Warp top you haven't see before.
 The set alternates a variety of period prints large and small.
Perfect period look for 19th century.

Lori at Humble Quilts has her border on:
Similar set but Lori's use of solids and a lot of cheddar
plus the double strip border makes hers look very 1880-1910.

Barbara B's finished her Hewson medallion.
V-e-r-r-r-y early 19th century.


And Victoria has long-arm quilted her star in a square
or is it a star alternating with an x block?
A mid-19th-century look, don't you think?


                       


                           
                       
                     


                   


                   
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Persis Bradbury Corrected

                     

                                              February 6, 2016, 4:00 am
                     


                     
                     

                     
                     
                                          
                     
                                          
                     
                   


                   
                   


                     
                     

                       
                       

                         
                              
                         

                          
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Last week I did a post on a wool applique piece dated 1865.
http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2016/01/persis-woodburys-applique-table-cover.html

Well, I tried to do a rush job before I left town for Southern California where I was trapped by winter storm Kayla (it was heck, pure heck---there were flowers everywhere and smiling people wearing raincoats). I had to stay an extra day. But now I am back at my computer.

I made many errors in the rush post, the most egregious of which may be the mis-bordering of Maine.
That is New Hampshire next to Oxford County, Maine---not Vermont.

So I thought I'd do another post pointing out errors and comments....

First the comments:

Quilt attributed to Emily Wiley Munroe of Lynnfield, Massachusetts, 1865.
Collection of the New England Quilt Museum.

Laura noticed the similarity between the wool Bradbury piece and the Emily Munroe quilt.
The comparisons go beyond the date (1865) the fabrics (wool and cotton) and the style (pictorial applique with embroidery.)

Quiltmakers seem to be using the same patterns.

See another comparison at the top of the page here.

Read an interview with quilt historian Lynne Bassett about the Munroe quilt here:
http://www.whyquiltsmatter.org/welcome/quilt-stories/why-quilts-matter-question-and-answer-with-lynne-bassett/

Errors:
I mispelt her name as Persis Woodbury rather than Bradbury in the post headline so it is forever wrong in the ether.

And I had the wrong Henry Bradbury and thus the wrong wife. Suzanne emails me:
"Henry A M Bradbury (a carpenter a/k/a joiner) did not serve in the 23rd ME Inf.  That was Henry N Bradbury married to Elizabeth. Persis' husband enlisted in the  32nd ME Inf in 1864 and was transferred to the 31st ME Inf in 1864 and discharged for disability in 1865. The nature of Henry's disability can be found in his pension file, he qualified for the pension in 1865, unusually early, and died in 1903.
In the 1900 and 1910 censuses, there is a column asking the wife to state how many children she bore and how many were alive on the census date.  Persis reports having 9 children with 4 alive on the census date.  In 1910 she is living with daughter Nina and her family, husband Henry is dead, and she consistently reports having 9 children with 4 alive on the census date.
According to pension index cards, Persis out lived him as she had a successful claim as his widow.  However, mysteriously, she is not living with him in the 1900 census.  Henry is living with his brother in law and is reported as still married 45 years.  Persis is living with her widowed "son", a 35 year old supposedly named Henry B Esmond.  Either his name was Henry Esmond Bailey or he was a grandson or son in law, not a son.
According to VA pension payment records, Persis died October 13, 1915, 12 years after Henry."



Aside from the factual confusions over the makers and their geography---I'm always fascinated to see similar quilts. Still have no answers to why the patterns are so close.

                       


                           
                       
                     


                   


                   
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LInks to Time Warp Block Patterns and Posts

                     

                                              February 10, 2016, 4:00 am
                     


                     
                     

                     
                     
                                          
                     
                                          
                     
                   


                   
                   


                     
                     

                       
                       

                         
                              
                         

                          
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Jan is using Pinterest in a way I hadn't thought of.
She's posted a picture for each of my Stars in a Time Warp series.


Four of Sylvia's set with am authentic-looking foulard

When you click on the picture it will send you to the actual post. That way you can look at the whole thing and see if you are missing anything.


Shawn's top

It's storing stuff on the Pinterest cloud instead of your computer (or mine.)

Look for Jan Davis's "Barbara Brackman's Star Quilt Along"

Here's the link:
https://www.pinterest.com/sewprimitive/barbara-brackmans-star-quilt-along/

Evelyne's cracked ice.

Heritage Stars, Sharon V.'s from a design by Sherri Bain Driver for
McCall's Quilting


                       


                           
                       
                     


                   


                   
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Loyal Hearts of Illinois Quilt Catalog

                     

                                              February 13, 2016, 4:00 am
                     


                     
                     

                     
                     
                                          
                     
                                          
                     
                   


                   
                   


                     
                     

                       
                       

                         
                              
                         

                          
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Detail of a post Civil War quilt
made by a Union veteran and his wife.




I missed seeing the exhibit Loyal Hearts of Illinois a few years ago.
So I am glad to find an online catalog.


The catalog is in the Illinois State Museum's publication
The Living Museum, Spring 2013.


Click here to see a file:
http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/ism/id/7220/rec/28

On the right you'll see page numbers of the magazine.
The catalog is pages 2 to 30. Click on each page to read the labels and see the quilts
that were in the show.

See those small arrows under the window. Click on those to
make the window larger or smaller. Experiment to find the best
viewing size, etc for quilts and captions.

Do enlarge the pictures to see the detail in these lovely quilts 

The names of the veterans above
appear on the GAR flag quilt below.


Items sold at Sanitary Fairs.
A corncob pincushion?
I can see it with yellow yo-yos.


                       


                           
                       
                     


                   


                   
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Threads of Memory Finishes

                     

                                              February 17, 2016, 4:00 am
                     


                     
                     

                     
                     
                                          
                     
                                          
                     
                   


                   
                   


                     
                     

                       
                       

                         
                              
                         

                          
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Remember 2014?


We did the Threads of Memory Block of the Month: 12 stars.
Barbara at Cookie's Creek won a prize with hers, an impressive red ribbon.

Some other finishes found in 2015.

Jelibet

Rachel - all Kaffe Fassett fabrics

Jean

Rosemary
That's a good set.

Flo with alternate pictorial blocks.

From the Patchwork of Life Blog 

Christine

She quilted the name of each block.

Kathie


Do go over to our Flickr page every once in a while and see what's new. Dustin and I did a separate page for the 2014 BOM.
https://www.flickr.com/groups/threadsofmemory/

Jean Stanclift's model is hanging in Elizabeth's period house
in West Virginia. 


Here's a link to the free patterns for the blocks if you are inspired to catch up.
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2015/01/threads-of-memory-bom-free-pattern-posts.html


                       


                           
                       
                     


                   


                   
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Judy's Replica Quilt

                     

                                              February 20, 2016, 4:00 am
                     


                     
                     

                     
                     
                                          
                     
                                          
                     
                   


                   
                   

                   
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Westering Women Block 2 Indian Territory 

                     

                                              February 24, 2016, 4:00 am
                     


                     
                     

                     
                     
                                          
                     
                                          
                     
                   


                   
                   


                     
                     

                       
                       

                         
                              
                         

                          
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Westering Women: Block 2
 Indian 
By Becky Brown

St Joseph, Missouri, was another boom town that supplied western travelers with wagons, oxen and food for the trip across the continent, another of what were called  "Jumping Off Places."

Hilly St. Joseph overlooked the Missouri River and the territories beyond.

 In June, 1847, Elizabeth Dixon Smith recorded her first day beyond the U.S. in her diary:
"Passed through St. Joseph on the bank of the Missouri. Laid in our flour, cheese and crackers and medicine for no one should travel this road without medicine for they are almost sure to have the summer complaint.... 
[The next day]
Crossed the Missouri. Doubled teams with difficulty ascended a hill or mountain. Traveled 3 miles and encamped. We are now in Indian territories."
Kansas and Nebraska were Indian Territory in the 1840s and into the 1850s. Travelers tempted to try to settle the pretty countryside west of Missouri had to keep moving.


George Catlin's map shows the reserves assigned to the various Eastern tribes west of the Missouri border (the brighter horizontal strips). The green stripe was the reserve assigned to the Kickapoo, moved west from the Great Lakes. Below them the narrow yellow strip was assigned to the Delaware people moved from their original lands in New York and New Jersey. The tan-colored area was the traditional home of native tribes.

From a period map drawn on linen

The land was promised forever to native tribes like the Kansas and the Osage and to resettled Eastern tribes like the Shawnee.

George Catlin, painting of Wáh-chee-te, 
Wife of Cler-mónt, and Child, 1834
Osage/Wa-zha-zhe I-e. 
Collection of the Smithsonian Institution

The Smith party made only three miles that first day because they had to wait to cross the Wolf River. The next day they traveled at a more typical pace covering 18 miles.

Albert Bierstadt painted the ford at the Wolf River west of St. Joseph.
The tribes who camped at the passages often charged a toll fee to cross. 

The bank may have looked like "a hill or mountain" to Elizabeth Dixon Smith, but wagons crossed these small rivers (we call them creeks today) at the lowest and most stable spots.

From the collection of the Kansas State Historical Society

In 1859 Beirstadt's brothers took a photo of the ford at Wolf River---
painters and diarists might exaggerate for drama's sake.

Block 2,  Indian By Denniele Bohannon

We can recall the pre-Civil War years when half the United States was home to native tribes with a block called Indian. Quilt designers in the 1930s named several blocks in variations of the word Indian, primarily because the quilt pattern looked like something one might find in a Navajo rug or a pueblo pot. Nancy Page in her fictional syndicated quilt club named this one, which is BlockBase #2050



Cutting a 12" Block
A - Cut 4 squares 3-1/2" x 3-1/2"

B - Cut 4 light and 4 dark squares 3-7/8"
Cut each into 2 triangles with a diagonal cut. You need 8 triangles.

C - Cut 1 square 6-1/2" x 6-1/2"

Sewing the Block



Martha Spence Haywood
about the time of her journey in the 1850s

One of the very few references I found to quiltmaking on the trails was in Martha Spence Haywood's journal. She peeked into a tent in a Native American settlement near Fort Laramie and saw several women working: "One was making patchwork."

Martha Spence Haywood's journal was published in Not By Bread Alone: The Journal of Martha Spence Haywood, 1850-56 (Utah State Historical Society, 1978).

Elizabeth Dixon Smith's was published in T.T. Geer's Fifty Years in Oregon in 1912. Read it online at this link:
http://www.theragens.com/fifty_years/fifty_years_in_oregon_18-19.htm

Block 2  Indian By Linda Mooney


                       


                           
                       
                     


                   


                   
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Stanley Family Quilt 

                     

                                              February 27, 2016, 4:00 am
                     


                     
                     

                     
                     
                                          
                     
                                          
                     
                   


                   
                   


                     
                     

                       
                       

                         
                              
                         

                          
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The New England Quilt Museum recently acquired a quilt
dated 1865. I found the pictures on Cyndi's excellent shop blog Busy Thimble.

The sampler style, with red and green applique and a flag block, is consistent with that date.
But some fabrics looks to be older. This star for example
could be 1820s or '30s.


Alternate blocks are appliqued in both Broderie Perse (cut-out chintz) style
and conventional applique, another indication that parts of the quilt
may have been stitched decades earlier.

The set looks to be eight-pointed stars (perhaps pieced in the 1830s and '40s)
set on-point with alternate blocks of applique.

The quilt is a gift of Judy Lewis Simpson. She'd received it from a friend who was the great-granddaughter of the quiltmaker. The family attributes it to New Yorker Penelope Carpenter Stanley (1810-1900)  who finished it for son Jerome Henry Stanley's wedding to Ida M. Livenberger November 17, 1864.

Jerome and Ida were married in Tuscarawas County, Ohio.

"For Jerome By His Mother 1865"

"Jerome and Ida Forget Me Not"

After the Civil War Ida and Jerome moved to Redlands, California, west of Los Angeles, where they are listed as orange growers in early 20th-century city directories. 

Redlands was the heart of California's citrus empire.


Over her long life, Penelope Carpenter Stanley migrated from Mamaroneck, New York to Wisconsin
where she is buried near Berlin. 

The quilt has several hearts, crosses and other symbols such as anchors---images we often see in the album quilts made close to the Civil War and soon after. We think of the Christian attributes Faith, Hope and Charity, but the same images also carried a weight of symbolism in fraternal organizations.

This block with a cross, anchor and heart is from
an 1867 quilt by another New Yorker, Susan Rogers.
The triple link chains are an important symbol in the Odd Fellows
fraternal group.

Quilt signed Susan Rogers, Brooklyn, New York.
Collection of the Smithsonian Institution.

Curator Pamela Weeks at the New England Quilt Museum
is working on trying to find out more about their new quilt,
its symbolism and its maker.

Those of you who haven't decided how to set your Time Warp stars might
give Penelope Carpenter Stanley's quilt a look. Alternate applique blocks.....


                       


                           
                       
                     


                   


                   
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