Charter Oak Pattern

Charter Oak Variation

15" finished

Two versions of the Charter Oak applique, from Marie Webster's 1915 book and Carrie Hall's 20 years later. 

The name Charter Oak does not hold the same significance for us that it did for their generation a century ago when the old tree was an icon of American identity, particularly in Connecticut where the tale was often told that 17th-century British colonists settling the Connecticut Colony hid their rather liberal charter from a more conservative later governor in the large tree.

Although the ancient tree fell over in a storm in 1856 (or maybe because it did) it remains a Connecticut symbol to this day. Americans place great pride in their colonial origins---or at least in the English origins of New England's emigrants. The idea that a quilt pattern was designed to commemorate the politics of 1650 at the time was a very faulty idea, but one that was supported by the glorification of New England stock (as they were often called---like cattle) during the time Webster & Hall were formulating quilt history.

Webster showed this top with four applique designs as Charter

Oak. Was she talking about the square blocks or the trees---

a typical New York/Connecticut design of the mid-19th century?

"Important events...are quite frequently recalled to us by their names. The stirring frontier activities and the great men of history made impressions on the mind of the housewife which found expression in the names of her quilts 'Washington's Plumes,' 'Mexican Rose,' and 'Rose of Dixie' are old quilt names reflecting domestic interest in important events." 

Webster also mentions Pilgrim's Pride and Confederate Rose. 

Ruth Finley went further than Webster in assigning earlier-than-accurate dates to patterns reflecting current events, particularly political events venerating English colonists, technically stitched before 1776. 

Finley tells us the pieced Pine Tree design above

"Originated in Massachusetts along with the Pine Tree Shilling & the Pine Tree Flag [circa 1650]....both gone but 'The Pine Tree' quilt remains."

Our current, wider view of the history of quilts enables us to see that the pieced tree designs developed in the second half of the 19th century, rather than in colonial times 225 years earlier.

BlockBase #819

Tree of Paradise

The Ladies' Art Company inspired many a quilter with

their circa 1900 design. Several magazines printed patterns

for popular pieced trees in the 1890-1930 period.

As the Great Depression undermined faith in democracy's benefits several newspaper columns offered supposed colonial patterns. The Chicago Tribune's pseudonymous Nancy Cabot column played fast and loose with colonial history as in this column from 1936. Pattern from the "colonial period" 1750 New York.

1933 Tribune ad for wholecloth, commercially-made bedcovers

The Charter Oak design was given further fame in the new wave of writing about quilts in the last quarter of the last century with Ione Benck McIntyre’s 1981 pattern book and “history” The Charter Oak.

The idea of a pattern named Charter Oak does precede Webster's mention as in this list of winners from an 1895 fair in Minnesota:

Print this out for a pattern for a folded snowflake kind of center.

Susan Johnston's Charter Oak