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.

http://daybook-celeste.blogspot.com/2011/11/american-quilt-in-guernsey.html

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.

http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_556525

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:

http://www.quiltindex.org/fulldisplay.php?kid=58-99-D4

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.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=108743763

"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