A Symbol of Community: The Chazy M.E. Parsonage Signature Quilt

Hallie Bond examining the signature quilt

Last month I wrote about the quilt that Anna Moore Hubbell of Chazy made in the early 1800s. Now it’s time to take a look at another quilt in the Alice’s collection, also made in Chazy, but in the last years of the 19th century. This one was made by the members of the Chazy Methodist Episcopal Church in 1895, probably to raise money to support the parsonage. It is made up of 81 squares of linen fabric, each one hand-embroidered in red with four names, and with more names around the border—342 names in total. This striking quilt is a wonderful example of the signature or autograph quilts that were popular among church groups in the late 19th and early 20th century. This quilt was donated to the Alice T. Miner Museum in 2012 by Christine Lozner, who inherited it from her aunt, Sybil Mead Brown (1912-1988). Sybil was the granddaughter of John Lewis Brown (1857-1928) and Ella Case Brown (1857-1939), whose names are among those embroidered on the quilt.

Friendship quilt made in Delaware County, New York,
1846-49. Each central white cross contains a signature.

The signature quilt’s predecessor was the friendship quilt, which became common in the 1840s. Groups of women would come together to make these quilts—sometimes each woman would contribute a square that she pieced herself, and sometimes one woman would collect fabric from the group and then piece the entire quilt. In either case, each square was signed with the name of the woman who made it or donated the fabric. Friendship quilts were often made as gifts to women who were leaving their community. In the 1840s and 1850s, more and more families were setting out for new homes in the west. Most of them would never return to the places they had left, and friendship quilts were mementos that helped women feel connected to the friends they left behind. This type of quilt was also made during the Civil War to raise money to support Union soldiers.

Signature quilt made by the Maple Grove Ladies Aid Society,
York Co., Pennsylvania, 1920

Over the years, the pieced friendship quilt was joined by the embroidered signature quilt. This type of quilt was often made as a charity or church fundraiser, to raise money to build a new church, to support a minister, or perhaps to assist missionary efforts. Supporters would pay to have their name included (it cost extra to have one’s name put in the middle of a square or some other prominent position), and then the finished quilt itself might be raffled off to raise even more money. On some quilts, the names, arranged in decorative patterns, were the only embellishment. Others also included Bible verses, poetry, or embroidered depictions of the church building.


The first Methodist service in Chazy was held in 1801 at the home of Amasa Ladd. In the early days of Methodism (which had only been formally organized in the United States since 1784), communities were served by circuit riders, who traveled long distances to preach. Initially, Chazy was part of the Plattsburgh circuit, which encompassed both sides of Lake Champlain as well as part of Canada. By 1818, the number of Methodists had grown enough for Chazy to become its own circuit. The minister resided at Chazy and also served Beekmantown, West Chazy, Mooers, Champlain, and Rouses Point.


Preaching took place in members’ homes until a church was built in 1816-17. Alexander Scott, a local merchant who owned a quarry, built the stone church at his own expense. This building burned in 1855 and was replaced by a brick church, which in turn burned down in 1881. The third M.E. church (which is now the Chazy town offices) was dedicated in October 1881. The first parsonage was the old home of Solomon Fisk, a log cabin that had been plastered over; in the early 1850s a brick parsonage was built on the other side of Fisk Road.

The second M.E. parsonage

Methodist ministers were paid according to the size of their families—$80 each per year for the preacher and his wife, plus $24 for children over sixteen and $15 for each child under sixteen. This was not very much money, even in the 19th century, so the congregation would come together to provide additional support. For example, in 1829, the Rev. Mr. Brayton hosted a “donation party” at the parsonage, to which church members were encouraged to bring contributions of butter, flour, firewood, and money. Since this quilt specifically references the parsonage, it’s possible that it was made to raise funds to repair or make improvements to the building.

Signature quilts are of interest to historians because of the wealth of information about when, where, and by whom they were made. They provide a snapshot of a specific community at a particular moment. The Chazy M.E. quilt includes the names of three members of William Miner’s family: his grandparents Clement S. and Lydia Miner, and his uncle John D. Miner. All three were deceased at the time the quilt was made, which suggests that signature quilts also were sometimes used as a way for people to memorialize family members who had died.

The Chazy M.E. Parsonage quilt will be on display during Museum Weekend, June 6 and 7. Perhaps you will find the names of your ancestors on it!

Information about the Chazy M.E. Church comes from Nell Jane Barnett Sullivan and David Kendall Martin, A History of the Town of Chazy (Burlington, 1970), and from Bob Cheeseman, Chazy Town Historian.

If you would like to learn more about friendship quilts, “Piecing Together a Community: A Late Nineteenth-Century Friendship Quilt from Peterboro, New York,” by Shirley Morgan, is a good place to start.

Quilt images are from the International Quilt Study Center and Museum, another great resource for quilt research.

“Where Liberty Dwells There Is My Country”: Anna Hubbell’s Quilt

I recently had the opportunity to take a closer look at the quilts in the Alice’s collection when Hallie Bond came to document the quilts for a project she is working on with Traditional Arts in Upstate New York (she also gave a fantastic talk on Adirondack quilts). Some of these quilts don’t get to come out of their boxes very often and there was one that I had never even seen that I found particularly interesting.

The whole-cloth quilt was made by Anna Moore Hubbell (1793-1861), the daughter of Judge Pliny Moore of Champlain and wife of Julius C. Hubbell of Chazy. Unlike the patchwork quilts (made of many small pieces of material sewn together) that became common later in the 19th century, this quilt is made of just one fabric—and it’s a very unusual textile with an interesting history of its own.

Textile historian Whitney A. J. Robertson has written about this pattern, which is known as “The Apotheosis of Franklin and Washington,” and is one of the most common textiles of its kind to appear in museum collections. You can find it in at least 18 different places, including Colonial Williamsburg, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Old Sturbridge Village, and the Winterthur Museum. As Robinson notes, it’s hard to say “whether this fabric is so ubiquitous because of its popularity during its own time, its appeal to collectors in the 19th and 20th centuries or both,” but I think it’s easy to see why many people might have been attracted to its wealth of patriotic imagery.

Robertson explains that patterned cotton and linen bed furnishings became popular in Britain in the 17th century as washable, inexpensive alternatives to wool and silk. These early fabrics were printed with wood blocks; initially they were imported from India and later were produced domestically. In 1752, Francis Nixon of the Drumcondra Printworks in Ireland figured out how to use the copperplate printing technique used on paper to produce patterns on textiles. Copperplate printing allowed for more detail and larger pattern repeats than wood-block printing, though it was limited to a single color.

Copperplate-printed fabrics, also known as “toiles,” frequently borrowed designs directly from existing engravings. Pastoral scenes and landscapes were common, as were political and military subjects. Many of these fabrics were made by British and French manufacturers specifically for the export market. This market really boomed after the Revolution—American industry wasn’t advanced enough to produce these textiles, but English tradesmen realized that there was a good deal of money to be made in providing fashionable and patriotic materials to Americans.

The unknown maker of “The Apotheosis of Franklin and Washington,” which was produced in England ca. 1785-1800, clearly felt that it was a good idea to put as many different symbols into the pattern as possible. In one scene, George Washington drives in a chariot with a female figure wearing a plumed headdress, representing America; she carries a caduceus, symbolizing the blessings of commerce. The chariot is pulled by jaguars and is led by two Indians, one with a trumpet and a “Unite or Die” flag and one with an early version of the American flag. In the background are scenes from the Battle of Bunker Hill.

In another scene, Benjamin Franklin, accompanied by Liberty, is being led by Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, to the Temple of Fame, where two cherubs hold a map of America. Over the heads of Franklin and Liberty is a banner reading “Where Liberty Dwells There Is My Country.” Liberty carries two conventional symbols, the liberty pole and liberty cap, while Minerva holds a shield decorated with thirteen stars. In addition to these two major scenes, the textile also depicts a Liberty Tree with a copy of the Stamp Act tacked to it, instruments of war, and distinctively American flora and fauna such as the beaver. While all of these symbols would have been familiar to most people in the late 18th century, it is definitely unusual to see so many different forms of iconography in one place.

So how did Anna Hubbell come to make this quilt? Because she signed it with her married name, we know she must have made it some time after her marriage in January 1812—probably many years after this textile was first produced and became fashionable. A label attached to the quilt gives us some clues. According to the writer of the label, the quilt was taken from a bed in the home of Pliny Moore by M. A. Mygatt—presumably Anna and Julius’s daughter Martha Anne Mygatt (Martha’s daughter Isabella donated it to Alice Miner). There is also a barely legible line that says something about “bed curtains.” 

Did Pliny Moore once have an entire set of bed furnishings made from this textile? Moore permanently settled in Champlain in 1789 and built a fine Federal-style house in 1801. He is said to have owned the first piano in Champlain, and he sent his daughter Anna to Litchfield Female Academy, one of the most important institutions for women’s education in the early republic. As a wealthy landowner, judge, and Revolutionary War veteran, he was just the sort of person one might expect to purchase a fashionable toile like “The Apotheosis of Franklin and Washington.” Champlain may have been considered the frontier in those days, but clearly its residents were aware of the latest styles in furnishings. 

My theory is that Anna may have used some of the bed hangings and refashioned them into a quilt—perhaps during the War of 1812 when nationalistic fervor was running high and the British naval blockade limited the importation of new fabric. A close examination of the quilt shows that the material was patched in one spot, the pattern carefully matched so that it is hardly visible. Stories that are still told about Anna Hubbell’s actions when British troops were quartered in Chazy before the Battle of Plattsburgh indicate that she was a spirited and patriotic woman; as the young wife of a newly-minted lawyer she probably also had to be economical in her housekeeping. By refashioning an older textile, Anna would have demonstrated both her patriotism and her resourcefulness.

Sources:

Whitney A. J. Robertson, “Sleeping Amongst Heroes: Copperplate-printed Bed Furniture in the ‘Washington and American Independance [sic] 1776; the Apotheosis of Franklin’ Pattern,” Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings, Paper 739, 2012.

Walter Hubbell, History of the Hubbell Family (New York, 1915).

Duane Hamilton Hurd, History of Clinton and Franklin Counties, New York (Philadelphia, 1880).

Nell Jane Barnett Sullivan and David Kendall Martin, A History of the Town of Chazy (Burlington, 1970).

Litchfield Historical Society, Ledger of Students at the Litchfield Law School and the Litchfield Female Academy.

Interpretive panel about Pliny Moore’s home in Champlain.

Lena's Crazy Quilt

Over the 87 years The Alice has operated as a museum there have been times when interesting objects and letters came into the collection as donations or bequests. In fact, a few weeks ago we happily accepted the personal correspondence and photographs from Dr. George W. Clark's estate here in Chazy. The museum has become a repository for genealogy and local history information as well as for some objects and textiles donated by local families. It is a wonderful textile I will focus on in this article.

In 1983 the Blow family lost their matriarch, Lena. Lena M. (O'Lena) Blow was born in Chazy, NY on November 12, 1896 - the daughter of Napoleon and Eliza O'Lena. She went to school in the little red school house that William Miner attended, and lived in the area her entire life. Around 1916 (the year her wedding dress was made) she married Edward Blow and started a family. She was an accomplished seamstress and made her and her six children's clothing as well as many beautiful quilts, employing sewing and needle craft skills she learned early in life.

On November 21, 1983 Lena passed away and soon after her children donated a few of her possessions to The Alice to be kept and enjoyed by future generations of visitors. The two objects donated in 1983 are Lena's wedding dress and slip. The garments joined two other textiles previously donated to the museum, both are blankets made by Lena Blow. One of these she started making when she was just nine years old, a diamond popcorn stitch bedspread. The other is a colorful crazy quilt with voluminous embroidery stitching and writing.

The crazy quilt is signed "LO" and "Apr. 10, 1908 Sciota, NY". Like most crazy quilts it consists of a quilt top mounted directly to backing with no batting in between. The backing in this case also serves as a ruffle on three sides of the quilt and is a solid rose colored cotton. The pieces consist of a wide variety of colors, shapes, sizes and patterns - and appear to be made up of mostly silk scraps. The scraps were pieced together into nine blocks of similar size and then sewn together along with a long narrow block running the width of the blanket at the bottom. This quilt top was then backed with the rose colored cotton.

Lena's crazy quilt is a striking piece and draws the eye as soon as you walk into the Sheraton Room where it is exhibited. But it's the detail in stitching that brings you in for a closer look. Lena used a large number of different embroidery stitches joining every piece. She also wrote a few messages, including "May You Be Happy" and embroidered flowers and birds. Perhaps her mother saved pieces from various sewing projects over the years and finally handed the scraps over to Lena to create something for her bed. My grandmother made quilts consisting of pieces that I could recognize from clothing she sewed for me and my siblings over the years. It's fun to look closely and see a familiar color and pattern that reminds you of the past. I imagine Lena lying in bed and tracing her family history through these bits of fabric.

This weekend is the Champlain Valley Quilter's Guild Show with hundreds of hand made quilts and wonderful craft items to enjoy. To experience a wide range of amazing fabric art made by local people, this is the show to see... Who knows, there may even be a few crazy quilts there! It's at Bailey Avenue School in Plattsburgh this Saturday and Sunday 10am - 4pm. If you want to see the true details in Lena Blow's quilt, come to The Alice for a tour soon.

And may you be happy!