Northern Shenandoah Valley Quilt Show

Every once and a while we get a chance to emerge from dusty archives and hallowed halls of museums and historical societies to see what today's quilters are doing.  Although this post takes a detour from the topic of historical quilts made by Quakers, we thought our followers might enjoy seeing some pictures from the Northern Shenandoah Valley Quilt Show that ran April 12-14, 2013.  Exhibiting about 130 quilts and 5 pieces of wearable art, the show was held at the Clarke County Parks and Recreation Center in Berryville, VA, and was described as "a biennial event that celebrates and recognizes fabric art artisans from the Northern Shenandoah Valley".

Sponsored by the Apple Valley Needle Threaders, the Shenandoah Piecemakers, and the Skyline Quilters' Guild, with participating members from the Stitching with Mary Quilt Group and the Top of Virginia Quilt Guild, this year's theme was "Civil War Remembered".

Northern Shenandoah Valley Quilt Show, 2013.

 

 

The theme was reflected in the choice of fabrics and patterns, as in the following 88 X 88 inch quilt titled "Civil War Stars".  It is owned and made by Kristin Westfall and long-arm machine quilted by Christy Dillon.

 

"Civil War Stars."

 

 

Another stunning show-themed quilt on display was the 60 X 60 inch "Civil War Remembered" owned and made by Linda Hammond.

 

"Civil War Remembered."

 

With many other categories, vendors, and demonstrations of techniques, one day was hardly enough time to spend at the show but, with permission, we were able to get a few more photos to share.  Kristin Westfall had many of her works on display including "Butternut and Blue" which she made from a pattern published by Barbara Brackman in her book of the same name.  Kristin graciously agreed to pose with her quilt, which was long-arm machine quilted by Cindy Dillon.

 

Kristin Westfall with her "Butternut and Blue" quilt. 

 

 

One of our favorite quilts was the 96 X 96 inch "Heritage", also made by Kristin Westfall and long-arm machine quilted by Cindy Dillon.  (Of the six "featured" quilts in the show, three were made by Kristin.)

 





"Heritage."

 

Detail of "Heritage".

 

 

Before leaving we had to make a stop at the booth of our friendly local shopkeeper, Kelley Bora, who runs the Scrappy Apple in Winchester, VA.

 

Kelley Bora's booth.

 

 

After studying several historical Quaker quilts made within a 15 mile radius of where the show was held, we were so pleased to see the art and craft of quilting still thriving in this community.

 

*  *  *

 

All photographs by Mary Holton Robare.  Special thanks to Linda Hmmond, Sue Hickman, Kristin Westfall, and the Northern Shenandoah Valley Quilt show.  For more on the show and the Scrappy Apple see:

 

http://www.nsvquiltshow.com/index.html

 

http://scrappyapple.com/

 

 

(c) Lynda Salter Chenoweth and Mary Holton Robare, 2013.



"I Was at a Quilting Party Last Sixth Day Afternoon, and Ate Peaches."

So wrote Elizabeth Margaret Chandler to her aunt, Jane Powell of  Philadelphia, from Elizabeth's Hazelbank homestead in Michigan on September 2, 1833.  This one sentence generally describes a common activity in the 18th and 19th centuries: a coming together of neighbors, family, and friends to provide communal support to the act of quilt making and to enjoy time together at table.  In addition, these events usually included the opportunity for young people to meet each other and spend some chaperoned time getting acquainted--an activity that fostered eventual marriages and a strengthening of the community.

Quilting Party.  From Godey's Lady's Book, September 1849.

 

 

Communal quilting events have been variously described as "parties", "frolics", and "bees", the latter only from the second half of the 19th century presumably to describe the busy, communal activity as similar to that of a beehive.  As early as 1799, Quaker Elizabeth Drinker mentioned such a gathering in her diary:  "Sally Downing is gone to Tommy Downings next door to a quilting match where I was invited, but did not suit me to go . . ."  (Crane, 214.)  One wonders what she meant by the word "match".

 

Margaret Elizabeth Chandler's published letters mention three occasions of attending a "quilting".  One in the summer of 1832 was attended by "about twenty girls besides myself" who were joined in the evening by "about the same number of young men".  (Mason, 121.)  She goes on to discuss the dress of those attending, assuring her aunt that they were as well attired as Philadelphians.  The second quilting, in the fall of 1833, was where Elizabeth ate peaches.  "We had a prodigious variety of cakes at tea--and there were two tables full sat down--first the girls and then the young men--though the party was not so large as the first one I attended after we came here.  I was at another a few weeks ago, but twas not so large nor so pleasant a one as this."  (Mason, 196.)  Accounts from other women's journals and letters indicate that some gatherings such as these also included, at day's end, dancing to music provided by one or more attendees who played instruments such as "fiddles".

 

Although Elizabeth was a Michigan pioneer, the community around her seems more settled and sophisticated than that of Anna Briggs Bentley, a Quaker from Maryland who settled on the Ohio frontier in 1826.  In a letter home dated 3rd mo 2nd 1828, Anna described a "chopping frolic and sewing party" which included twenty-two women and twenty-men.  With the help of neighbor women, Anna provided this crowd with a sumptious repast that included both a midday meal and supper.  "For dinner [the midday meal] we had a turkey, 3 fowls, 3 quarters of a small fat veal, a nice piece of corned beef, potatoes, turnips, cold slaw, parsnips, pickled cucumbers and beets for supper and excellent green apple pies, peach and green apple sauce, real coffee, tea, rolls, light bread, pickles, fruits stewed, and relishes of the cold meat left at dinner, etc."  (Foster, 41.)  All of these delights (except for the coffee and tea) came from livestock, poultry, and gardens raised by the Bentleys and their neighbors.  There was no mention of dancing.  Hopefully a lot of wood got chopped that day because Anna noted afterward that she was totally exhausted and that not much sewing was done.

Women sewing together.  From Women, A Pictorial Archive from

Nineteeth-Century Sources, copyright free illustrations selected by Jim Harter.

 

 

Not all women on America's frontier in the 19th century were lucky enough to have contact with neighbors or a community nearby.  Many of them pieced and quilted in solitude, sometimes taking many years to complete a quilt in the small amount of time allotted between chores and other family obligations.  They lacked not only the help to finish quilting tasks but also the companionship of other women, so important to sustaining their lives on the frontier.  When Ella-Elizabeth Spaulding from Ludlow, Vermont, married Joseph Willard Reed on September 5, 1854, Willard immediately migrated west taking Ellen, as she was known by her family, far from home to the frontier of Wisconsin.  Here she lived in virtual isolation and poverty until her early death from tuberculosis in 1858.

 

Ellen's letters to her family repeatedly revealed her loneliness and longing to see her family and friends back in Vermont.  Her parents were encouraged when they finally received a letter describing Ellen's attendance at a quilting party.  "I have been and helped her [a Mrs. Cady] quilt two afternoons she had a great quilting there was a lot of the neighbors there and some of them spoke to me and some went home without as much as saying why do you so (as Uncle Alden said)  I expect they were afraid they should get bit."  (Lipsett, 80.)  This was reportedly Ellen's only social event in Wisconsin.  Mrs. Cady and her family moved farther west shortly thereafter.

 

Throughout 19th century America, in metropolitan areas and on the western frontiers, quilting parties seemed a preferred way to finish a quilt project.  These parties not only helped to complete quilts, they provided women with some things that were much more important: companionship, social interaction, good food and, frequently, a roaring good time.

 

Sources:

 

Crane, Elaine Forman (ed.).  The Diary of Elizabeth Drinker, The Life Cycle of an Eighteenth Century Woman.  Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.

Foster, Emily (ed.).  American Grit, A Woman's Letters from the Ohio Frontier.  Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002.

Fox, Sandi.  For Purpose and Pleasure, Quilting Together in Nineteenth-Century America.  Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 1995.

Lipsett, Linda Otto.  Remember Me, Women & Their Friendship Quilts.  Lincolnwood, IL: The Quilt Digest Press, 1997.

Mason, Marcia J. Heringa.  Remember the Distance that Divides Us, The Family Letters of Philadelphia Quaker Abolitionist and Michigan Pioneer Elizabeth Margaret Chandler, 1830-1842.  East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2004.

Reich, Sue.  Quiltings, Frolicks & Bees, 100 Years of Signature Quilts.  Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 2012.

(c) Lynda Salter Chenoweth and Mary Holton Robare, 2013.

Elizabeth Margaret Chandler and the Free Produce Movement

"I should like to have sent you thy patchwork by this opportunity, but have not yet got it finished, as sewing cotton run[s] low with us, and I felt unwilling unless compelled by actual necessity to purchase any of the slave manufacture."

These words were written by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler to her aunt, Jane Howell of Philadelphia, in a postscript to a letter dated 10th month 28th, 1833.  The letter was written in Lenawee County, Michigan, from an eighty-acre homestead called Hazelbank.  Elizabeth, one of her brothers, and an aunt had migrated to Michigan from Philadelphia three years earlier.

Elizabeth Margaret Chandler.  Frontispiece to Elizabeth M Chandler, The

Poetical Works (1836) published posthumously by abolitionist Benjamin Lundy.

Source:  Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Elizabeth was raised in Philadelphia and attended a Quaker school where she developed strong anti-slavery sentiments.  She began writing at an early age, first publishing verses about nature at age sixteen.  At eighteen her poem "The Slave Ship" drew national attention and, thereafter, she wrote mainly about the institution of slavery and its human toll.  She is credited with introducing to America a popular abolitionist image, based on a medallion of a male slave originally created by Josiah Wedgwood in England.  The image was that of a female slave kneeling in chains bearing the words "Am I Not a Woman and a Sister?"  By the time of her death in 1834, at age twenty-seven, she was a well-known author and abolitionist.

 

A medallion image similar to the one Chandler popularized in America by publishing it in 1830

 in Benjamin Lundy's abolitionist paper, The Genius of Universal Emancipation, in the

"Ladies' Repository" section which she wrote and edited.  The image was used on ceramics,

cloth, silk purses, medallions, pin cushions, and other objects that were sold at fairs organized by women

in the early 19th century to raise money for the abolitionist cause.  Source: Wikimedia Commons.

While living in Philadelphia, Elizabeth belonged to the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society and actively supported a boycott of goods produced by slave labor.  This boycott, initiated by Quakers in Delaware in 1826, became an official movement in 1827 when Thomas McClintock and others formed The Free Produce Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.  The boycott, practiced by many Quakers as well as other abolitionists, included not only that of cane sugar and other edible agricultural crops, but also that of fabric made from cotton planted and harvested by slaves.

 

Cover page of the Constitution of the Free Produce Society created in 1827.  Its first officers were

William Rawle (President), Thomas McClintock (Secretary), Benjamin Tucker (Vice

President), and H. M. Zollickoffer (Treasurer).  James Mott, husband of Lucretia Mott, was a

member of the Committee of Correspondence.

 

 

The lack of "sewing cotton" Elizabeth referred to in her letter to her aunt was largely due to the fact that Elizabeth now lived in Michigan rather than Philadelphia.  In other letters written to relatives in Philadelphia, Elizabeth requested that they buy and send to her fabric and cotton thread purchased from Lydia White, a dry goods merchant who ran a store that sold only free produce goods.  Lydia's was not the only Philadelphia store carrying such goods.  Another merchant selling free produce items was Sydney Ann Lewis who, like Lydia White, was a member of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society.

 According to Margaret Hope Bacon (278), "Altogether fifty-three such stores existed between 1817 and 1862, of which at least five were run by women.  Most were in Philadelphia, but there were stores also in Boston, Wilmington, and New York City, as well as scattered in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, and Maine."  The cotton fabrics sold in these stores came from cotton bought by free produce associations from farmers who did not own slaves, mainly in North Carolina.  The associations then had the cotton woven into bolts that could be sold by retail merchants. The fabrics thus produced were generally more expensive and were known to be of inferior quality, but those supporting the cause continued to buy them for quilt making, lining bonnets, aprons, bed ticking, underclothes, mending, and other purposes.  When it came to dressmaking and outer clothing, Quaker women who supported the boycott turned to the quality of silk and wool.

 

We do not know if Elizabeth ever finished the patchwork she was making for her Aunt Jane.  It seems likely that it was sent on unfinished to Philadelphia where free produce cotton could be had more readily.  Elizabeth stated at the end of the postscript quoted earlier:  "I shall not be able to make it the full size as I shall not have pieces enough.  It will I expect require a border, perhaps the width or a breadth of furniture calico." (Mason, 210.)  These statements at least imply that Elizabeth expected someone else to complete the quilt.

 

Sources:

 

Margaret Hope Bacon, "By Moral Force Alone, The Antislavery Women and Nonresistance" and Phillip Lapsansky, "Graphic Discord, Abolitionist and Antiabolitionist Images."  In The Abolitionist Sisterhood, Women's Political Culture in Antebellum America, 274-297 and 201-230.  Jean Fagan Yellin and John C. Van Horne, eds.  Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994.

 

Marsha J. Heringa Mason.  Remember the Distance that Divides Us, The Family Letters of Philadelphia Quaker Abolitionist and Michigan Pioneer Elizabeth Margaret Chandler, 1830-1842.  East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2004.

 

(c) Lynda Salter Chenoweth and Mary Holton Robare, 2013.

 

 

 

 





Quaker Disownment and the Purcell Quilt

Family tradition attributes the 90 1/2 X 86 inch quilt shown below, and referred to by the family as the "Thistle Border Quilt", to Hannah Taylor Purcell (1816-1882).  It is finely hand-quilted in diagonal rows and cross-hatches in natural-colored thread.  Quilted flowers and leafy vines appear on the plain blocks that alternate with the blocks of nine-patch construction.  The 7 1/2 inch wide, thistle-print fabric that borders the quilt is rolled to the back to form a binding.

Purcell Nine-Patch with Thistle Border Quilt, circa 1830.  Photograph by

John Herr.  Private collection.

 

Hannah Taylor married Lott Purcell on September 12, 1833 in Loudoun County, Virginia.  Lott was reprimanded by Goose Creek Meeting for "marrying out of unity" to a non-member.  The couple later moved to Frederick County, Virginia, where Lott was subsequently disowned for being unwilling to "make any kind of satisfaction" or "acknowledge error" in the matter of his marriage.

 

Disownment was a common and frequent action taken by 19th century Meetings to express displeasurew with the behavior or actions of their members.  It is important to understand, however, that a Quaker disownment, while painful, was not a shunning.  It was the behavior, not the person, that Meetings wished to disown and these behaviors included such things as neglecting attendance at meetings, training in the militia, "frolicking and dancing", marrying outside of the faith, even simply attending a non-Quaker wedding.

 

As much as the practice was painfully abused, like most things Quaker it is important to look at specific times and circumstances.  According to a history of Hopewell Friends, persons "offending or failing to live up to the rules of discipline were under dealings by the monthly or business meeting, but might give satisfaction by signing a written statement that they had come to a 'sight' and 'sense' of their offenses and had experienced a true repentance.  That the individual might do this was in all cases the desire of the meeting."

 

Some disownments tore relationships apart.  Other times, even without a satisfactory resolution between an offender and a Meeting, the disowned could retain close connections with their Quaker friends and family.  In 1837, Lott Purcell's parents and siblings transferred their membership to Hopewell Monthly Meeting in Frederick County, Virginia, where Lott was enumerated as "Lot Pursell" in the U.S. Federal Census of 1840.  Lott died in 1850, leaving Hannah with many children (between six and eight in number according to various records).

 

Interestingly, although they are not found in Quaker records following Lott's disownment, Hannah and Lott are both buried in a Quaker graveyard near the gravesites of Lott's parents and other family members.  The burial ground adjoins the former site of the Upper Ridge Meetinghouse on Apple Pie Ridge Road in Frederick County.

 

Upper Ridge Cemetery, Frederick County, Virginia.  Photograph by Mary

Holton Robare.

 

Gravestone of Hannah Taylor Purcell.  Photograph by

Mary Holton Robare.

 

Purcell Nine Patch with Thistle Border Quilt, detail.  Photograph by John Herr.

 

 

The Thistle Border Quilt attributed to Hannah is the oldest of several quilts made over a span of three generations that were handed down to descendants.  One hundred and eighty years after it was made, the family considered it a "Quaker quilt".

 

Sources:

 

Hinshaw, William Wade.  Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, Vol. VI (Virginia).  Ann Arbor, MI: Edwards Brothers, 1946.

 

(c)  Lynda Salter Chenoweth and Mary Holton Robare, 2013.

 

 

 

 



Plain Dress, Vibrant Quilts

Many who have researched nineteenth-century Quaker quilts note the apparent aesthetic inconsistency between the modest clothing of muted colors generally worn by members of the Religious Society of Friends and the colorful vibrancy of some of their quilts.  Authors who have discussed this issue in the context of quilt study include Patricia J. Keller, Patricia T. Herr, and Jessica F. Nicoll.

The rules of conduct expected of Quakers in both their public and private lives were periodically issued by their Yearly Meetings in the form of regional "general advices" and published as "Disciplines".  (Refer to our posting of December 20, 2011 for a description of the organization and activities of Quaker Meetings at all levels.)  The behavior specified by the Disciplines differed somewhat over time and on regional bases, but these generally encouraged Friends to observe moderation in dress and manner, and to avoid superfluity in the way they conducted their lives.  Through the Disciplines, all Quakers were called upon to face the problem of living "in the world, but not of it."

Nineteenth-century Quakers were generally distinquished by the plainness of their dress.  To dress plainly meant dressing in clothing of simple design made with fabrics of muted colors such as dove, grey, cream, and moss green.  Plain dressing also included the general avoidance of decorative elements, such as buttons, long scarves, and "gaudy stomachers", that were considered superfluous. The changing "stlyles" of clothing were also to be avoided so as not to call attention to one's self as someone "of the world".  In America strict adherence to plain dress varied, creating a distinction within the religion between "gay friends" and plain friends".  The gay friends still dressed simply but did not eschew subtle forms of adornment on their clothing and wore more colorful, but still modest, fabrics.

English Quaker Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845) wearing the plain dress adopted

by most American Quakers in the early 19th century.  This style of dress generally

included a modest bonnet, floor-length dress or skirt in subdued tones (often made of

silk), cream-colored bodice inserts for skirts, and a shawl.  This picture of Elizabeth Fry

is after a portrait by George Richmond, 1824.  Illustration from The Quaker, A Study in

Costume by Amelia Mott Gummere.

 

"Typical Quaker dress of 1840 and after, with slight variations in the fullness of skirt

  and sleeves.  This costume was worn in Pennsylvania in 1840." Illustration and quote from

Elizabeth McClellan, Historic Dress in America 1800-1870, 1901.

 

 

 

"Old lady in Quaker dress.  The shawl is of a soft fabric called Chenille.  The bonnet

is a grey silk shirred over small reeds.  From a photograph."  Illustration and quote

from Elizabeth McClellan, Historic Dress in America 1800-1870, 1901.

 

 

Women, including Quaker women, have always used in their quilts the left-over remnants from clothes making.  We certainly see such remnants in Quaker quilts of silk, reflecting the muted tones of the fabrics they wore.  (Refer to the Yarnall quilt featured in our posting of April 11, 2012.)  But what about the bright and vibrant cotton fabrics used in many nineteenth-century Quaker quilts?  Were these contrary to rules outlined by Quaker Disciplines?

 

 

 

 

"Album Quilt, #1945-35-1". details.  Collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  Photographs by

Mary Holton Robare.

 

 

In her Uncoverings article cited below, Mary Holton Robare quotes from a discourse about material culture found in the Baltimore Yearly Meeting's Book of Discipline:  "True simplicity consists not in the use of particular forms, but in fore-going overindulgence, in maintaining humility of spirit, and in keeping the material surroundings of our lives directly serviceable to necessary ends, even though these surroundings may properly be characterized by grace, symmetry and beauty."  Mary goes on to comment that "Beautiful, high quality cottons or chintzes used in quilts fit this directive, and served the tenet of simplicity by lasting longer than fabrics requiring repair or replacement."  (Robare, 197.)

 

We see from surviving examples that colorful quilts seem to have been generally acceptable in Quaker homes in spite of religious dictates related to clothing.  This may have been because clothing presented to the world a reflection of the spiritual state of the wearer and his or her commitment to religious tenets.  The belongings one kept in one's home for private use seem not to have been considered in quite the same way so long as they still reflected simplicity in construction, appearance, materials, and purpose.

 

Given the variety of fabrics that occur in cotton Quaker quilts, one might assume that few of them were derived from clothing fabric.  But certainly many of the fabrics of muted and cream-colored tones could be clothing-fabric remnants.  We also know from Mary Frances (Mollie) Dutton, a Quaker of Waterford, Virginia, that she used many scraps of "red oil calico" (otherwise known as "Turkey red" fabric) in a mid-nineteenth century quilt she made as a girl.  She remarked that "In those days, nearly every baby had a pretty red dress [. . .]"  (Divine, Souders and Souders, 11.)   Further, the Quakers, who were generally well-off and could afford to buy the best fabrics available, purchased fine quality materials to make household items such as bed hangings and curtains.  They also purchased fabric for quilt making as demonstrated by the amount of single-fabric yardage used for backing and other purposes in assembling some of  their quilts.

 

The modesty of Quaker dress was tied to religious beliefs and codes of conduct set forth by the Disciplines.  Some of their quilts, however, while reflecting the concept of simplicity, display a creative impulse to provide functionality and symmetry with the beauty of vibrant color.

 

Sources:

 

Comfort, William Wistar.  Just Among Friends: The Quaker Way of Life.  New York: Macmillan, 1941.

 

Divine, John E., Bronwen C. Souders and John M. Souders.  "To Talk is Treason": Quakers of Waterford, Virginia on Life, Love, Death & War in the Southern Confederacy, From Their Diaries and Correspondence.  Waterford, VA: Waterford Foundation, 1996.

 

Gummere, Amelia Mott.  The Quaker, A Study in Costume.  Philadelphia: Ferris & Leach, Publishers, 1901.

 

Herr, Patricia T.  "All in Modesty and Plainness."  In The Quilt Digest, 22.  San Francisco: The Quilt Digest Press, 1985.

 

Keller, Patricia J.  "Of the Best Sort but Plain": Quaker Quilts from the Delaware Valley, 1760-1890.  Chadds Fort, PA: Brandywine River Museum, 1996.

 

Nicoll, Jessica F.  Quilted for Friends: Delaware Valley Signature Quilts, 1840-1855.  Winterthur, DE: Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1986.

 

Lapansky, Emma Jones and Anne A. Verplanck.  Quaker Aesthetics, Reflections on a Quaker Ethic in American Design and Consumption.  Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.

 

Robare, Mary Holton.  "Cheerful and Loving Persistence." In Uncoverings 2007, 165-206.  Lincoln: American  Quilt Study Group, 2007.

 

(c) Lynda Salter Chenoweth and Mary Holton Robare, 2013.

 



 



Philena Cooper Hambleton

Philena Cooper Hambleton was born in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, on September 13, 1822.  Her father, Whitson Cooper, had migrated to Brady Township in Clearfield County after being disowned by the Chester County Bradford Meeting for fathering a child out of wedlock.  Her mother, Rachel Bonner Erskine (also pronounced Askey) was from a Presbyterian Scots-Irish family who had homesteaded on the Susquehanna River near the town of Curwensville.

Philena Cooper Hambleton in 1903.  Photograph courtesy

of the Jerome Walker family.

 

In April of 1835, when Philena was thirteen years old, her father drowned in a rafting accident while transporting lumber on the river, leaving her mother alone with two daughters, two sons, and a third son who was born a month after Whitson's death.  Unable to support her family, Rachel sought the assistance of two of Whitson's sisters who had migrated from Pennsylvania to Columbiana County, Ohio.  Family correspondence indicates that Rachel soon moved to Columbiana County where Whitson's sisters Phebe Cooper Hall and Lydia Cooper Windle shared responsibility for caring for Rachel and her children.

 

Rachel met Reuben Clemson of Lynchburg in West County shortly after the move and they married in 1837.  Reuben had migrated to Ohio from Pennsylvania where he had been a member of the Bradford Meeting along with Whitson Cooper and Whitson's sisters.  Reuben was condemned by the Bradford Meeting for marrying Rachel, who was not a Quaker, but he was later reinstated and continued to follow his faith at the New Garden Meeting nearby in Hanover Township. 

 

Philena and her sister, Phebe, moved into the Clemson home after their mother's marriage and seem to have begun attending meetings of the Religious Society of Friends with their step-father.  It was at the New Garden Meeting that they met their future husbands, Quakers Osborn and Joel Garretson Hambleton.  Philena was the first to marry on March 24, 1842.

 

Philena and Osborn moved to Osborn's parents' property in Butler Township after their marriage.  There, Osborn had rented the mill owned by his father, Benjamin Hambleton, and served as its manager and operator.

 

 

Home belonging to Benjamin and Ann Hanna Hambleton where Osborn and Philena moved

after their marriage.  The home is built of brick but is  now covered by modern siding.  It is located

on the corner of Butler Grange and Winona Roads in Butler Township.  Photograph by Lynda

Salter Chenoweth, 2004.

 

 

The Hambletons were avid abolitionists and members of the New Garden Anti-Slavery Society.  Their house was a station on the Underground Railroad and many were the nights that the family ushered fugitive slaves into their basement under the cover of darkness and up an interior stairway to the attic where they would stay until transported by Benjamin and Osborn to the next "safe house".  Philena probably helped her mother-in-law, Ann Hanna Hambleton, feed and care for the fugitives while they were at the house.

 

Philena and Osborn had two daughters, Angelina and Lorilla, between 1843 and 1847.  When the Hambleton mill burned to the ground sometime around 1850, Osborn decided not to rebuild it but to move the family farther west where land was opening to settlers and inexpensive to purchase.  This he did in 1854 but, before leaving, Philena, members of her family, and her dear friends made her a friendship quilt inscribed with the names of those she would be leaving behind.  Poignantly, one block of the quilt is inscribed:  "Whitson Cooper Died in the Year 1835" -- a testimony to the love Philena still felt for her father almost 20 years after his death.

 

 

Lynda Salter Chenoweth and Tina Frantz "showing" the quilt made for Philena  to

past members of the Dutton family, including Osborn's sister Rachel Hambleton Dutton,

at the Dutton Family Cemetery, McCann Road, Hanover Township, Columbiana County,

Ohio, 2004.  Photograph by Theodore H. Chenoweth.

 

Philena and Osborn migrated to Poweshiek County, Iowa, in 1854.  In 1855, they purchased government land near Searsboro and built a house.  Osborn built and operated a steam mill at nearby Forest Home but it, too, was destroyed by fire after about three years of operation.  (Osborn may have been injured in this fire because local records in Iowa state that he had only one arm.)  After losing the mill, Osborn retired to his land and continued to farm it until his death.  He and Philena remained devoted to the anti-slavery cause while in Iowa.  Osborn founded the Forest Home Anti-Slavery Society in about 1858, serving as President while Philena served on its executive committee.

 

Osborn Hambleton (1818-1882) and Philena Cooper Hambleton (1822-1915). 

Probably taken in Ohio before they left for Iowa in 1854.  Photographs courtesy

 of the Jerome Walker family.

 

 

Two of Osborn's brothers and one of his sisters eventually joined him and Philena in Iowa, and Osborn's parents also migrated to Poweshiek County in 1864.  After Osborn's death in 1882, Philena and their daughter Lorilla, who never married, moved to Illinois to stay with daughter Angelina and her husband Charles F. Craver.  They all moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1907 where Philena died on March 20, 1915.  Her body was taken back to Iowa, to be buried next to Osborn, his parents, and her sister and brother-in-law, Joel G. and Phebe Cooper Hambleton, in the Friends Cemetery at Lynnville in Jasper County near Searsboro.

 

The quilt Philena took with her to Iowa in 1854 remained in the family and was passed down to Philena's daughter, Angelina Hambleton Craver, then to Angelina's son, Arthur Hambleton Craver, and then to Arthur's daughter, Florence Philena Craver Oberholtzer.  When Florence died in Danville, California, in 1995, the quilt was sold as part of an estate sale and ended up in an antique shop in Petaluma, California.  Lynda Salter Chenoweth bought it and spent the next five years researching Philena's life and the lives of those who had inscribed her quilt in 1853.

 

Philena Cooper Hambleton, her grandson Arthur Hambleton Craver, her daughter Angelina

Hambleton Craver, and her great granddaughter Florence Philena Craver Oberholtzer.  Taken at

Harvey, Illinois, 1903.  Photograph courtesy of the Jerome Walker family.

 

 

Source:

 

Chenoweth, Lynda Salter.  Philena's Friendship Quilt: A Quaker Farewell to Ohio.  Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2009

 

(c) Lynda Salter Chenoweth and Mary Holton Robare, 2013.

 

 







Mary Jane Clevenger

Mary Jane Clevenger (1831-1904) lived and quilted in Frederick County, Virginia, for many decades.

Mary Jane Clevenger Robinson.  Photograph courtesy

of Barbara Harner Suhay.

 

 

One stunning 96 X 96 inch quilt, estimated c. 1850, was passed down in a Quaker family of her descendants.  Its center block has a stamped medallion containing a name that appears as "Mary Jane Clevinger" (more often spelled "Clevenger").  The reverse applique cutout hearts you see here also appear on several other Quaker quilts from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.  Other blocks exhibit patterns typical of a popular paper-cutting technique whereby paper is folded and cut into intricate patterns, then unfolded to create a symmetrical design.

 

 

 

Mary Jane Clevenger Quilt, details.  Private collection.  Photographs by Mary

Holton Robare.

 

As you look at the quilt in its entirely, notice the scalloped border, unusual appliqued sashing that is interrupted along the vertical lines, and the fabulous variety of block patterns.

 

 

Mary Jane Clevenger Quilt.  Photograph by Carroll DeWeese.

 

 

Mary Jane married Josiah Robinson shortly after the estimated 1850 date of this quilt, and one year after her father, Asa Clevenger, died in California during the Gold Rush.

 

Mary Jane was especially close to her father who went to California in 1849 with the Charles Town Mining Company.  In fact, according to family letters, Mary Jane wanted to accompanyhim to California but he wrote her, "not for all the gold in California would I have you here [ . . .]."  In a letter to his wife he instructed her to "Tell Mary Jane it is not uncommon for a young woman --for I cannot call them young ladies -- and a man to see each other at a ball in the evening and get married the next day.  The society is very bad here, so much so, that it is not a fit place for any decent female to be."

 

So Mary Jane stayed in Virginia and became the wife of Josiah, who was a successful farmer and miller at Cedar Grove in Frederick County.

 

Cedar Grove home of Josiah and Mary Jane Robinson.  Photograph courtesy of

Barbara Harner Suhay.

 





The couple had six children, three of whom survived.  Members of their families were prominent orchardists and organizers of Winchester, Virginia's Apple Blossom Festival (an annual event since 1924), and Mary Jane and Josiah's great-grandson became a Congressman.

 

Mary was an active member of her Meeting.  Interestingly, there are several other surviving quilts on which she most likely worked, and we know that quilting was a regular part of the life in her community.  In a letter to her daughter (probably written in the early 1880s) she wrote:  "I have piece[d a quilt] out of your old light dress and Willia's dark [illegible], got red yarn and knapped it [. . .] Ella Marple said I was to tell you she pieced six borders in your comfort and help[ed] half a day to quilt on it."

 

Thanks to her family's dedication to preserving and honoring their history, we know a little bit more about the life of this Quaker quilter.

 

 

Descendant Barbara Harner Suhay with Mary Jane's quilt.  Photograph

by Mary Holton Robare.

 

 

Sources:

 

Asa Clevenger, letter, 1850.  Private collection.

 

Mary Jane Clevenger, letters n.d.  Private collection.

 

Barbara Harner Suhay, personal correspondence.

 

(c) Lynda Salter Chenoweth and Mary Holton Robare, 2013.