July 22, 2022

The Long Hill Friendship Quilt

When we began this email as the Daily Dose, back at the beginning of the pandemic, we featured the The South Windsor Bicentennial Quilt, the 42 quilt squares that make it up, and the people who created them. We have another quilt in the archives known as the Long Hill Quilt. This quilt also used to be on display but has since been packed away safely and is now in storage in keeping with preservation best practices. I have always been curious about this other quilt, but have not until recently had the time to explore all of the information we have about it. 

This Musings from Main is a result of that exploration. Most of the text used is taken directly from previous research and writings done by Jean Klein, who served as Educational Coordinator for the Friends for over 25 years. Learn more about Jean on page 40 of our Formative Women of the Friends of Wood Memorial Library online exhibit. We are extremely grateful to her for all of the work she did to bring the history of this quilt and its creators to life.

The Long Hill Section

The squares of this quilt were worked in the early 1890’s by a close-knit group of neighbors living in the Long Hill Section of South Windsor, or as it was equally referred to south of the town line, the Long Hill Section of East Hartford. At the turn to the century, a narrow dirt path rambled down the center of the mile-long plateau which topped this gentle rise. It connected neighbor to neighbor, passing houses, cow barns, apple orchards, cider mills, pastures, crop lands, and a one-room schoolhouse. For long distances a split rail fence followed intermittently on the west side; a walking path provided smoother footing along the east side.

In the 150 years since settlement began on this eastern upland, people had grown from neighbors and friends to mostly family, intermarrying generation after generation until the names had a familial ring and defined relationships:  Elmore Burnham, Burnham Williams, Timothy Elmore Burnham. So, most of the women who worked on this quilt were more than just neighbors; they were related as mothers, daughters, and grandmothers; aunts, and great aunts; and cousins – first, second, and thrice removed. They ranged in age from ten to sixty-one, and the older women at least, all belonged to the Long Hill Missionary Circle, a group which met in each others homes to work on projects for missionary aid.

Friendship Quilts

In the 1892 and ’93, Circle members selected and embroidered squares to be sewn into a quilt. They chose the trendiest style of the day, outline designs on unbleached muslin with “turkey” red thread. Then, they added their own touch, their names or initials. Quilts, signed with the names of each of the square makers are called Friendship Quilts.

The time of the greatest popularity of these Friendship or Autograph quilts, had been in the 1840’s and 1850’s. This was the period when so many young families were leaving home and friends to venture into the vast unfamiliar, often frightening West. These earlier quilts had been pieced together of dress and shirt scraps, swatches of coat and petticoat, remnants which reminded the owner of loved ones left behind. Many had not only the names but messages, first embroidered, later penned in indelible ink, similar to those messages in Autograph albums, which were also a great fad at the time. 

Later, modified Friendship Quilts like this one were still popular in the 1890’s. Sewing Circles often stitched them up to be given to the first of the group to marry, or barring that, the first to have a child, or the first to move away. Why these squares were never pieced together, quilted and given to any one of the young girls who add their name-squares to the collection we do not know.

Penny Squares

When she was 97 Susie remembered the fun they all had picking their designs. Called “penny squares” these could be bought for a penny each by mail-order, or from a local dry goods store, already imprinted with a design. The embroidery floss came with them, and the choice of color was red or blue. “Turkey” referred to the distinctive red in Turkish carpets, dyed from madder root, which was so popular at the end of the century. Not only coverlets and quilts were stitched in this “redwork,” but pillowcases, dresser scarves, and tea towels were in vogue. Experienced elders a well as beginners, worked in the outline and feather stitch taught young girls, and often boys, when they first started needle work.

The uniformity of the completed quilt comes not only from using the same fabric and thread but from the simple outline style of the deigns. The choice of line drawings was greater than it appears at first glance. There are birds and bugs and butterflies; a running horse and a sad setter dog; lily pads and a frog; bouquets of flowers, woodland plants, acorns and oak leaves; a boy with his fishing pole; a little girl in tears. The same group of owls fill one square; in another they become but a small detail. The figures come from the drawings of Kate Greenaway, who beginning around 1860, illustrated children’s books, calendars, and notepapers with costumed children.

Bringing the Past into the Present

Susie Ellen Lathrop was fourteen years old in 1893, and her younger sister, Anna Elsie, ten, when they joined their mother, Susan Burnham Lathrop and the other ladies to make their squares. 

The embroidered squares were found in 1976, over eighty years after their creation, in a brown paper bag while the family was cleaning out the attic of Susan E. Lathrop Briggs. 

Shortly after their discovery, the squares were given to volunteer quilters at Wood Memorial Library to piece together. The Long Hill Missionary Society stitched fifty Penny Squares in 1893, forty-eight were made into the quilt, two were made into pillows, all of which were finally finished in 1977.

If you can help us to identify the volunteer quilters in this image please e-mail us so that we may update our files.

Sources used for this Musing are listed below.

Formative Women of the Friends of Wood Memorial Library online exhibit, page 40-41, FWML website. 

Klein, Jean, Learning from Quilts, Windows on Wood Newsletter,  Vol. IX No.3,  Fall 1997, FWML Archives Object Number 2015.21.

Klein, Jean, The Long Hill Quilt, FWML Archives Object Number 2007.15.001.