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Monday, October 31, 2016

Oldest Carolina/Cleveland Lily Quilts

Quilt dated 1841
Last week I discussed the Carolina Lily design.

Another quilt dated 1841

This one signed Mary Berry. From eBay long ago.


These 1841 quilts are the earliest dated examples I've found of this pattern. I believe this one was
also in an online auction several years ago.

In the center is inked "Mary Margaret
Burchfield Her Quilt April 6th 1841"

We can summarize it as a Turkey red & green pieced and appliqued quilt. The green is 
not the stereotypical green quilt calico but something that might be a dress print. The wide white border (framed by pieced diamonds) appears to have stuffed feathers in the quilting.

Celia Eddy has been researching a similar quilt made in Ohio,
dated 1842 in the collection of England's Guernsey Museum.

The Ogier wedding quilt has stuffed feathers in a 
border framed by pieced triangles.

The next one I find with a date is in an 1845 album/sampler...

Sold at Pook & Pook auctioneers in 2013
This album has the hallmarks of an early version (cut-out chintz blocks, chintz border)
probably from the Baltimore area although it's not high-style Baltimore album..

I feel pretty good about dating the lily pattern to the early 1840s, when the albums and red & green applique appeared. Several relations also appear about that time.

Including this simpler floral dated 1843-45
with feathers in a wide border framed by pieced triangles.

Album quilt dated 1843-1845 from the Phillips family.
Maryland.
Collection of the National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution.

More Ogier mysteries....

It says in stuffed work Ogier 1846

This one, we might call a Cleveland Lily. Wide border with feathers framed by pieced triangles. The green is not the wearable green but the brighter green calico printed more for quilts than clothing

Photo from eBay, I'd guess.
Signed Mary Ogier, dated 1846 from Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Are we looking at two different quilts here?


Details showing the stuffed work label
and the green which appears to be a solid.

And one more in the same style... 

a more complex variation from Montgomery County, Maryland,
with quilted feathers in a wide border framed by pieced triangles
signed by Emeline Talbott.

Emeline's quilt from the McCarl collection was pictured in Safford & Bishop's 1989 book America's Quilts And Coverlets and was documented by the Western Pennsylvania Beaver County project.
See the Quilt Index:

The inscription:
"Montgomery County, Maryland, Oct. 10th 1844. 
Machine stitched (?) Emeline Talbott"


But here's the oldest of any of these pieced/appliqued designs in Turkey red and green so far.
I saw this rather new acquisition at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum recently.

It's dated 1840
by Agnes Douglas Knox, Belmont County, Ohio
2013-058-0001
Agnes moved to Guernsey County, Ohio, sometime after
her son's birth in 1843.

The quilt is not in their online database yet.

Stuffed work and red and green applique in 1840.
I wish I'd looked at the date to make sure that last zero was really a zero.
Was Agnes the first with a new style and pattern?

And here is a little about Agnes's and her quilt's travels from her son's biography at Find-A-Grave.

"Douglas Knox
Born Jan. 27, 1843. Saint Clairsville, Belmont County, Ohio. His parents being James and Agnes (Douglas) Knox. He was largely reared at Liberty, Guernsey county, Ohio, where his father followed the cabinet-making trade. In 1853 the parents removed to a farm in Appanoose county, Iowa...".
And her daughter's
"Miss E. E. Knox. now Mrs. Hurst...was born in Belmont County. Ohio. Nov. 25, 1844, and is the daughter of John and Agnes (Douglas) Knox. After the death of her mother she came with her father in the year 1856 to Nebraska City, after tarrying in the State of Iowa for about four years." 

According to her page at Find-A-Grave, Agness Douglas Knox was born Jun. 27, 1816 in Ireland and died April 6, 1852 in St, Clairsville, Ohio.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Knox&GSiman=1&GScnty=2069&GRid=33959172&

The Carolina Lily pattern seems to have been a huge fad in the 1840s. See this page of dated examples from the collection of the Indiana, Pennsylvania Historical & Genealogical Society:
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~paicgs/applique_quilts.shtml

Monday, October 24, 2016

Carolina Lily: BlockBase # 765

Most of us would call this a Carolina Lily

Or a North Carolina Lily

It's an old pattern with much variety. You see all manner of leaves pieced and appliqued.

Although the flower is fairly consistent.



The earliest published pattern was probably Ladies Art Company #53,
printed about 1890.

They called it Cleveland Lilies. We can assume it
was to honor President Grover Cleveland who
was in office twice (1885-1889 and 1893-1897).

Could it have been a political pattern?

Or just a pretty floral.
In 1915 Marie Webster showed it as North Carolina Lily.

A version without any leaves was published as A Lily Quilt in the agricultural magazine the Orange Judd Farmer in 1901 and in 1929 Ruth Finley put a similar version in her book Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women Who Made Them.
She gave it many names---most of which didn't stick.

Spencer Museum of Art Collection
In her 1935 book Romance of the Patchwork Quilt Carrie Hall repeated those
names and showed this version, which some copied quite closely below.




Similar to Ruby McKim's 1931
Noonday Lily.

The pattern was popular


This one looks to be 1840s or '50s from the green print.


Mid-20th century,
above and below


Collection of the Literate Quilter



BlockBase indexes many variations all numbered 765. Here's
a couple of the templates for a 12" block of 765.24, The Double
Tulip from Mrs Danner in 1934. The leaves are pieced
but the stems are appliqued.
If you are inclined to make one from the BlockBase patterns
you'll want to print out the templates as well
as the rotary cutting information.

And while you are sewing you can decide how to set the blocks.


Quilt Index

Woodard & Greenstein


And then you can add on more lilies
as in these two stuffed work versions from about 1850.

From an old Quilt Engagement Calendar
Twins, perhaps, with that bud coming out of the base
and the feather quilting.

Same quilt documented by the North Carolina project. 
Picture from the Quilt Index.