How to contact Betsey Telford-Goodwin's Rocky Mountain Quilts:
Telephone - for orders or questions - 1-207-363-6800
FedEx - 130 York Street York, Maine 03909
Email - betsey@rmquilts.com
CONRG6 Maine Album Quilt with Provenance and Daguerreotypes
c.1862
75 x 80 inches, includes an 8" x 60" tail
Cumberland, Maine, provenance available upon sale
$4,895
Coming directly from the family is this rare Maine Sea Captain's mint
condition quilt. Created in 1862 as a wedding gift for a Captain and his
wife. I wonder if, at the time before her marriage, Ester was aware of
the life of a sea Captain's spouse. Home alone, without her husband, for
possibly months at a time. There were times when the ships never
returned home...so many sailing ship wrecks litter the bottom of the
sea. Often these women became widows at a young age...many left with
children to raise alone. Fortunately this was not the case here.
There are 25 bocks each measuring apx. 12". From examining the quilting
stitches we believe that the blocks were created and quilted
individually. The completed blocks were then given to a woman who added
the sashing, the border, the batting, the backing, the necessary
quilting and the binding. The wonderful finished quilt, created with
love, then became a very special wedding gift. So special that it was
never used and now 162 years later is for sale as the art and history
that it is.
There are no two blocks that are the same. Most of the blocks are signed
in India ink with the exquisite handwritting of that era. There is even
a saying, of friendship, in one block. Eight family members signed the
quilt. I have their names and dates. I even have pictures of the husband
and wife's trombstones along with family history. All information goes
along with the purchase of this historical quilted piece of art. The
crowning fact is that you would have individual daguerreotypes of the
Sea Captain and his wife.
