Kentucky Historical Society
Quilt attributed to Catherine Gaither (1785-?) of Nelson County, Kentucky
Kentucky museums own a few cut-out-chintz quilts like this one. The style tends to be attributed to the years 1810 to 1850 after which other styles of fabric and applique took over.
Linda LaPinta's caption relects the museum's information about this
Broderie Perse or Cut-Out-Chintz quilt, said to have been sewn
about 1820, perhaps with assistance from Gaither family slaves. Catherine
is described as a daughter of Greenbury Gaither.
The Prussian blue cotton prints in the quilt indicate this date is
20 years too early. The bright blue scrolls and border were
quite popular in the United States after 1840 or so, particularly as stripes.
Prussian blue yields a distinctive color and is prone to migrating as a brown stain, thus
is a good dating clue to "after 1840" in the U.S.
The genealogical information on Catherine Gaither (there are several of them) is confusing and needs to be pursued through our contemporary digital records. There is a Catharine Close Gaither (?-1870), married to Greenberry Gaither, buried in Baltimore (!)
1870 Baltimore obituary
See a recent post about another cut-out-chintz quilt attributed to a Kentuckian here:
civil war susan short
Cut-out chintz style was replaced after 1840 by the technique of constructing florals from small-scale or solid bright cottons---conventional applique. Kentucky museums have quite a few of these mid-century fashionable pieces, standard style based on Germanic folk traditions featuring simplified flowers arranged in symmetrical repeats. These appliqued beauties in 1840-1865 style are frequently seen in Kentucky but certainly no evidence of
early Kentucky quilts.
D.A.R. Museum Collection
Red & green applique quilt attributed to Kentucky-born
Lucy Kemper West (1792-1876.) Probable date: About 1850
when red & green was high style.
Lucy, born there the year Kentucky became the 15th state, was one of 13 children of Virginians Judith Burdett & John Kemper. She lived in Garrard County where some spectacular mid-19th-century quilts were made.
Aside from surviving quilts we can look for evidence of 18th-century bedding in memoirs, diaries and letters of the time and in the contemporary newspapers. Unfortunately---all also in short supply in Kentucky’s first decades 1780-1820.
Another option is probate records, wills and inventories of goods distributed after death. In 1933 June Estelle Stewart King published an investigation of early Kentucky wills and inventories, finding only four vaguely described bedquilts. For example: Peter Cartwright of Caldwell County died in 1809 leaving 2 feather beds (feather stuffed comforters), 5 bed quilts plus blankets and sheets, a bed tick and two beds. Five quilts for $16 meant each was worth more than a 1-year-old steer.
Alden O Brien, curator at the DAR Museum, helped me out by doing some searching in Kentucky probate records on Ancestry.com. Mercer County is an early county with records on line. She looked at the 1790s and found very few bed linens listed among the mentions of clothes, tools and livestock. She reports: "Bed and furniture," with "sometimes bedstead separately because, of course, bed means the mattress; furniture may mean the pillows and...what else? Never any sheets, once in a few instances a coverlid or other thing. Just ONE inclusion of bedquilts." The Mercer County records duplicate King's findings.
One explanation for the lack of quilts is that objects require a value to be counted and distributed to heirs. It is possible that by the time early Kentuckians died their family bedding, whether made in Kentucky or brought from an older state, was so worn that it had no value.
Gloria Seaman Allen examined
Maryland probate records from 1710 to 1820 for her master’s thesis. She found far more quilts in that
well-established colony and state than in Kentucky at the same time. Inventories, wills and administrative
accounts mentioned 311 quilts. (See her paper for the American Quilt Study
Group in the 1984 Uncoverings Volume 5 here:
ttps://digitalcommons.unl.edu/aqsg-uncoverings/?fbclid=IwY2xjawFz7hRleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHX5K0lcRl5t_NtVkrD1A5VZnfPqzUF8-5PzAkDPogp1ODKAJPoPq5Tx5_Q_aem_25nqg1soVTddcUR-50p3JA )
Noting that it was people of wealth who had goods to be probated, Allen described bedding types as fashions changed. In colonial times before 1780 bedrugs (shaggy outer bedcovers) were the dominant bedding.
Elaborate bedrug from Connecticut dated 1781
Lynne Zacek Bassett is our expert on Connecticut bedrugs; this one
was displayed in her exhibit at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme
several months ago. They look just like the "hooked rugs" my friends
are making today---just larger, a lot larger.
In the 1760s quilts appear in 28% of inventories. This finding tallied with her count of surviving pre-1780 quilted bedcovers in museum collections.
MESDA owns a rare survivor, attributed to Marylander Elizabeth
Webster Downing, 1796.
“Almost no Maryland quilts survive from the period 1780,” Allen wrote. Bedding styles changed after 1800; quilts and coverlets became popular with the upper classes who left records. Between 1800-1820 quilts were 2/3 of the described bedcovers. Quilt ownership was a “subject of wealth,” e.g. slaveowners owned more quilts than non-slave holders.
What did quilts look like in 1800?
An Orpah Harris (1774-?) lived in Providence, Rhode Island
where this quilted bedcover might have been pieced
of strips of monochrome toile fabric, typical style at the time.
Allen’s Maryland findings help
explain the lack of early Kentucky quilts. Before Kentucky’s statehood in 1780
quilted bedcovers were not the coastal colonists’ dominant bedding. Numbers of quilts increased after independence as the
property of the wealthy. Wealthy people were not the type to emigrate across
the Alleghenys to the rough frontier. New Kentuckians, the middle and lower classes, had no quilts to bring
with them.
Silk quilt top pieced over Kentucky papers dating
from 1857-1860; online auction
And apparently, Kentuckians did not become enthusiastic quiltmakers until after the 1840s when making patchwork bedding became a fashion.
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