Originally Posted by
Barb in Louisiana
I have a dispute with the statement in this article that Canton Historical Society has the oldest whole cloth quilt made in America in their collection, 1786.
Many of you know that my family has donated a pieced, Broderie Perse with applique quilt to to Colonial Williamsburg's Textile Museum. It was made in Virginia by Martha Frances Collier. OUR quilt was dated by that Museum as being from 1780 OR EARLIER.
Mrs. Collier also made a whole cloth quilt that, along with our pieced one, received a Premium award in a fair in Waco, TX in 1874 as being "the oldest quilt in the state at the time and for its many fine stitching designs." Quotes are from a written provenance that accompanied the pieced quilt when my immediate family received it into our care in the mid 1950s. It was written by one of Mrs. Collier's granddaughters who was in her 90s when the quilt passed to us. Both the whole cloth and the pieced quilts were passed through the line to granddaughters who moved to Texas following the Civil War for a period. There may have even been other quilts by this remarkable lady, but we have lost all contact with any but our pieced quilt. As best we can tell I am the fifth generation of 'daughters' to have cared for this pieced quilt.
Just as an interesting side note: Mrs. Collier was married to Capt. Thomas Collier of Portobello Plantation, Yorktown, VA. That homestead was land that is now the secretive government-owned Camp Peary off I-64 at the Colonial Williamsburg exit. I lived just a couple miles from it during my brief time in Williamsburg 2000-2003; felt like hallowed ground through the whole area while I was there.
Jan in VA