Hannah Callender Samson: Her Diary & Her Quilt: 1

Center detail of a silk, wholecloth quilt in the collection of the National

 Park Service's Independence Park with a quilted inscription:

“Drawn by Sarah Smith Stitched by Hannah Callender and 

Catherine Smith in Testimony of their Friendship 10 mo. 5* 1761”

This Philadelphia quilt may be the earliest surviving date-inscribed quilt made in what would become the United States. We are fortunate to know quite a bit about Sarah, the quilt marker and her sister Catherine and her first-cousin Hannah who quilted it because Hannah Callender kept a diary that has also survived.

Over forty years ago I pictured it in my book Clues in the Calico and this is about the best picture you are going to see of the entire bedcover, which is quite old and kept in long term storage.

Hannah's published diary pictures a detail on the cover

in a rich blue---the silk may have once been that color

but it is pale now.

Library Company of Philadelphia Collection

Peter Cooper's panorama of the river with building 22 on the center horizon the Bank Meeting, Hannah's Quaker meeting (actually the gray building between the 3-story brick buildings).
The Delaware divided Philadelphia where Hannah and Caty lived about 20 miles south of Burlington, New Jersey where Sally lived. All three cousins were born in Burlington.

Does this detail in the quilt's center picture the Delaware River?

The big house on the left Hannah's & Caty's in the city with ducks; the small one

Sally's in Burlington with its sheep?

Wait a minute! I made that up. It's always hard to resist the temptation.

It's the conventional landscape view seen in the period's needlework, seen 

here in a sampler by Mary Benezet Woods of Philadelphia in 1817. 

She was great-granddaughter of Anthony Benezet,

Hannah's school master who remained a life-long friend.

I tried placing the quilt's center scene to scale in the center of the

 black & white photo. You can see it's a small part of the design.

Photography after 1840 or so is an enormous

help in understanding the world of 150 years ago.

It's fairly easy to read about 19th-century lives and with some practice understand how people lived---the context of the times---the 18th-century is more obscure. Yet, with Hannah's quilt and diary we certainly get a good view of a well-to-do, religious Philadelphia Quaker's life 250 years ago.

Long familiar with Hannah's and her cousins' quilt I sat down to read the diary. Let me tell you, though, how I think you should read it.

I usually do NOT read the editors' prefaces, introductions or analyses until I have read the actual diary. I do not want any suspense spoiled (Don't tell me all three of a diarist's children died of diphtheria in one week---I'd rather find out for myself after having got to know them.)

And more than spoiler alerts:

"No editor can be trusted not to spoil a diary,'' according to British diary authority Arthur Ponsonby in 1923.

I was quite pleased to see how much of her leisure time Hannah spent on needlework, which she often described in some detail. Quilts are mentioned. Most of her quilting, often done with cousin Caty, is probably layering and decorating clothing such as quilted petticoats. 

Colonial Williamsburg

A silk petticoat from a Philadelphia Quaker family, much like Hannah's silk bed quilt

in fabric and design.

The petticoat with undulating florals 

Hannah's bed quilt detail

In April 1772, shortly before Hannah's wedding: 

"Caty and I put a purple sprig calico bed quilt in the frame."

"Quilt" at the time meant clothing. Bed quilts were distinguished by the use of a longer term. This bedcover matched a "suit of curtains."  They were stitching the bedding for a bed in her new home, what we'd call a four poster. The cotton bed quilt was undoubtedly of whole cloth as we have no real evidence of Americans making patchwork at the time. 

Purple bed curtains and bed quilt---a little photomanipulation. 

Spoiler alert---do not tell those Philadelphians how purple prints

faded to brown over the decades.

"Anna Bringhurst was hear in the afternoon and we were looking at 2 pieces of my work, one a blue Tafaty stitched bed quilt, drawn by Sally Smith, and worked by Caty & I." March 27, 1862. 

In the margin of this entry:

"Sammy Sansom entered his Twenty third year---."

Tomorrow, another post on Hannah.