Early Silk Quilt

 

Center panel in a silk quilt signed Catherine Bradford

Below her name: an eagle?

The panel may have been finished years before the patchwork field of triangles

were added.

Catherine Penniman Bradford's quilt was pictured in the Wisconsin project's book Wisconsin Quilts: History In The Stitches by Ellen Kort.

Catherine Penniman Bradford (1778-1827) Massachusetts

As Catherine died in 1827 we conclude the bedcover was completed in the first quarter of the 19th century. It may have been commenced when she was young at the end of the 18th. Genealogy is confusing because parents named daughters Catherine in her family for many generations and the quilt is said to have been passed on to a succession of Catherines.

Is that William Bradford heading the party in this imaginary 

depiction of the landing in 1620?

One reason this rare piece has survived is that Catherine's husband Charles (1767-1851) was descended from the William Bradford (1590-1657) family of Mayflower fame. It was important because it was associated with New England's "first families."

Charles was born almost 150 years after the famous ship landed in Massachusetts but six or more generations is nothing in ancestor-worshipping culture of New England.

Mayflower descendants

See the quilt at the Quilt Index here:

https://quiltindex.org//view/?type=fullrec&kid=15-11-3466

Mayflower passengers on landing

And the actual history is not so sunny as

stories that are widely preserved.

Catherine Penniman Bradford's husband was a descendant of William's second wife. Bradford's first wife Dorothy May Bradford (1597-1620) drowned soon after the Mayflower landed when she fell or jumped from the ship. I'm voting for jumped. It was all too much. The 23-year-old woman had left her child in England. William was traveling around leaving her on that cold ship in a Massachusetts December.