On this day in 1656, Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, two English missionaries traveling from a Quaker center in Barbados, became the first Quakers to immigrate to the American colonies when their ship landed in Boston. Shortly after arriving in Puritan-controlled Massachusetts, Austin and Fisher were arrested and jailed for their liberal teachings and after five years in jail, were deported back to Barbados.
Philena Cooper Hambleton’s Quaker Friendship Quilt was made in New Garden, Hanover Township, Columbiana, Ohio in 1853. Lynda Salter Chenoweth has done extensive research on the quilt and documented it in The Quilt Index as part of the Signature Quilt Pilot Project.
From this Quilt Index record:
This quilt is a single-pattern friendship quilt comprised of twenty five 12″ X 12″ blocks, a border, and a folded, front to back edging. The quilt was made by Philena Cooper Hambleton’s female relatives and friends to take with her to Iowa when she and her husband migrated there from Ohio in 1854. The quilt passed from Philena to her daughter, Angelina Craver, then to Angelina’s son, Arthur Hambleton Craver, then to Arthur’s daughter, Florence Philena Oberholtzer. It became part of an estate sale in Danville, CA in 1995 when Florence died and was purchased from an antique shop in Petaluma, CA in 2001.
View this quilt on The Quilt Index to find out! Read more about its history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view or click the “See full record” link to see a larger image and all the data entered about that quilt.
Source:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-quaker-colonists-land-at-boston
Posted by Amy E. Milne
Executive Director, Quilt Alliance
amy.milne@quiltalliance.org