Civil War Replica Quilt

Civil War Replica

Here is a fun quilt that I'm making possibly for inclusion at a Cherokee Nation facility.  Legislation passed into the Cherokee Nation Code states that when buildings are constructed, a percentage of the budget is for Cherokee art. 

I'm a Cherokee history buff.  This quilt is interesting because I've utilized replica fabrics which existed during the Civil War era.  See how the colors of red are turkey red?  See how there are two shades of blue... conrflower blue and indigo?  See how the green is more of a bronze color?  Greens back then were made in a two-stage process where indigo was overdyed with something producing a yellow.  Greens were transient colors, and if you ever look inside the seam of an old quilt, you can see what the original color more closely resembled.

The cream "blank" squares are natural unbleached muslin, but I then overdyed them with a camel color to sadden the fabric and give an aged appearance.  A quilt from the 1860s, now 150 years old, would not remain this bright.  Beth Herrington has a quilt from this time period, which was once featured in a Thompson House quilt show about 15 years ago.  It was a quilt that a soldier had carried with him in the war.

This one consists of four four-patches grouped together.  And while I have never seen a 16-patch, it is typical because it is geometric, pieced, contains squares of about four inches.  The sewing machine was invented or sold about 1824 or so--- it is a contemporary of photography and the industrial revolution in England.  But very few homes had treadle machines and almost all sewing was by hand.  This one was machine pieced (and when quilted, it will be machine quilted).  Unlike quilts from the 1860s, this one is retrospective.  The squares contain images (such as quilt block patterns) from the Civil War era, and also facts and information about the Cherokee condition in the Civil War.  Most of the facts were gleaned from Emmet Starr's History of the Cherokee Indians.  You would find the last names of some of the soldiers who fought together; some names of battles in Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory; information about impacts of the war; and some quotations; treaties; casualty summaries, and the like.

When I made this quilt before I added the war data, it seemed too new to be authentic and didn't tell much of a story except via colors.  Now with the fact squares, it 'speaks' about its historical context.  I'll be posting more Cherokee art quilts of this nature in the future from time to time.

I am seeking a Cherokee hand-quilter who would like to collaborate on this project, but my time frame is short.  If you would be interested in hand-quilting it (or know of someone who does that), then I would be delighted to hear from you.

Nancy Newton Carter

Here's a wonderful old picture of my great-grandmother, Nancy Newton Carter.  Her husband, Enoch Carter is in the background.

She was born, if I recall, at Rabbit Trap in Adair County.  A lot of her ancestors are buried at Hope Cemetery North of Westville.

She lived her adult life in Carter community.  In the 1950s when Lake Tenkiller was built, part of that land was changed by the lake.  Today it is called Carter's Landing.  There was, long ago, a Carter Schoolhouse.  There was a post office at Carter community, named after the postmaster Bud Chronister.  The mail came to Chronister, Oklahoma and some of the old birth certificates of babies such as my father show the birthplace as Chronister, Oklahoma.

I published a family history of the Carter women's side of the family in 1995.  Today it is out of print, but I plan to publish it for sale online soon.  Leave a comment with your email address if you wish to be notified about how to purchase this book. 

It contains a story passed down in our family from the Civil War about Nancy's mother, Laura Newton when she was a teen.  She lived back East in the Cherokee homeland of Tennessee.  Raiders came to the home.  They took anything and everything, at gunpoint.  She pleaded with them to let her keep her wedding dress, and they left without taking it.  Another time, she went down the road to a neighbor's homestead to borrow a cup of sugar or flour.  But as she was walking along, she saw a man or men hanged from a tree in their yard.  War must have a terrible toll on the psyches of the people who live thru them.  Laura Newton, all of her life, recounted vivid and chilling stories of these events and she never got over it.