UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES

 
 A BOOK OF 
 HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 I 41 §1
 
 —
 
 A BOOK OF 
 HAND-WOVEN 
 COVERLETS 
 
 BY 
 
 ELIZA CALVERT HALL 
 
 AUTHOR OF "AUNT JANE OF KENTUCKY," "THE LAND OF LONG AGO," ETC. 
 
 WITH NUMEROUS PLATES IN COLOR AND 
 OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 N ON-REFER T 
 
 19 
 
 aawvAO-cnSi 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 
 1914 
 
 
 

 
 Copyright, IQI2 
 By Little, Brown, and Company 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 THE-PLIMPTON'PRESS-NORWOOD-MASS-U-S'A 
 
 
 ' • • • • -• . 
 
 . • . • • 
 
 
 
 - • • • .
 
 Q\& b 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF 
 WILLIAM WADE. 
 "THE GENTLE MINDE 
 BY GENTLE DEEDS IS KNOWNE 
 
 ■>•>
 
 It is a pity that when we speak of art, the 
 thought should be of something quite remote 
 from the life of all the people. . . . The word 
 art ought to carry as common and universal a 
 meaning as the words life and love. 
 
 J. H. DlLLARD
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 tot 
 
 i 
 
 y 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 ■z 
 'si 
 
 Foreword 
 
 I. Long, Long Ago . 
 II. A Backward Glance 
 
 III. The Mountain Weavers 
 
 IV. Coverlet Names . 
 V. Coverlet Designs 
 
 VI. Coverlet Colors 
 VII. The Professional Weaver 
 VIII. The Storied Coverlet . 
 IX. The Ancient Coverlet 
 X. The Heirloom Unappreciated 
 
 PACE 
 
 3 
 
 13 
 
 23 
 35 
 49 
 
 99 
 
 127 
 
 169 
 
 215 
 239 
 257
 
 LIST OF PLATES 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR 
 The John Mellinger Coverlet .... Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Lee's Surrender Facing page 10 
 
 The Litie McElroy Coverlet 16 
 
 Rose in the Wilderness 38 
 
 The Sally Rodes Coverlet 52 
 
 Seven Stars 64 
 
 Pine Bloom 76 
 
 Youth and Beauty 84 
 
 Tennessee Trouble 92 
 
 Fragment of an Old Coverlet from Danville, 111. . . 138 
 
 The Mary Simmons Coverlet 150 
 
 A Mountain "Kiver" 218 
 
 Betty Teague 232 
 
 Old Ireland 246 
 
 Nine Diamonds 260 
 
 The Downfall of Paris 268 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS IN HALF-TONE 
 
 Hickory Leaf Facing page 6 
 
 Mount Vernon 20 
 
 A Modification of Pine Bloom 28 
 
 [xi]
 
 LIST OF PLATES 
 
 Sunrise Facing page 32 
 
 King's Flower 4 2 
 
 Cat Track 46 
 
 Catalpa Flower or Work Complete 56 
 
 Dog Tracks 60 
 
 Double Chariot Wheels or Church Windows ... 68 
 
 Missouri Trouble 72 
 
 The Blazing Star 80 
 
 The Whig Rose 88 
 
 Ladies' Delight 96 
 
 Double Muscadine Hulls 102 
 
 Single Chariot Wheels 106 
 
 The Cross no 
 
 A Monroe County Coverlet 116 
 
 Old Drafts used in the Kentucky Mountains ... 120 
 
 Forty-Nine Snowballs 124 
 
 The Betty Dean Coverlet 164 
 
 Thistles and Lilies x 68 
 
 Irish Chain 172 
 
 Lover's Knot 172 
 
 Coverlet showing Masonic Emblems 176 
 
 Boston Town l 7& 
 
 Birds of Paradise 180 
 
 The John Gerard Coverlet 180 
 
 The Anne Hay Coverlet 184 
 
 Lion and Eagle l8 4 
 
 The Double Roses l88 
 
 [xii]
 
 LIST OF PLATES 
 
 Chanticleer Facing page 188 
 
 Bird of Paradise 192 
 
 The Ida P. Rogers Coverlet 192 
 
 E Pluribus Unum 196 
 
 Freedom's Home 196 
 
 Declaration of Independence 200 
 
 Liberty 200 
 
 La France 204 
 
 Frenchman's Fancy 204 
 
 Lover's Chain or Lover's Knot 208 
 
 The Flora Woodbury Coverlet 208 
 
 The Martha Shepherd Coverlet 222 
 
 The Deborah Parker Coverlet 238 
 
 Governor's Garden 242 
 
 A Variation of Lover's Knot 244 
 
 Sunrise 250 
 
 The Waity Staples Coverlet 254 
 
 The Anthony Wayne Coverlet 264 
 
 [xiii]
 
 A Book of ' Hand- IV oven Coverlets
 
 A Book of 
 Hand -Woven Coverlets 
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 FRIEND once sent me 
 thirty photographs of 
 coverlet designs. In a 
 burst of enthusiasm over 
 their beauty I began to 
 write this book. I thought the task a 
 light one and I expected to see its com- 
 pletion in a few months. 
 
 But after my joyous beginning the 
 work grew strangely difficult and my 
 progress strangely slow. A weight 
 
 seemed to hang on pen and brain. I went 
 
 [3]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 unwillingly to my task and I left it daily 
 with an unaccountable feeling of despair. 
 Often the Devil of Failure has whispered 
 in my ear: "Give it up!" But the 
 charm of the subject had mastered me, 
 and in perplexity and discouragement I 
 plodded on. 
 
 At last a day came when I understood 
 why the work was so hard and I so slow. 
 Heretofore I had written what Imagina- 
 tion dictated, but now Imagination stood 
 silent with folded wings, and instead of 
 her dulcet tones I heard a harsh voice 
 that clamored for "Facts! Facts!" 
 
 Fact and I have always been strangers. 
 It does not interest me to know that the 
 moon is "a celestial body that revolves 
 around the earth once in a little less 
 
 [4]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 than twenty-seven days and eight 
 hours." 
 
 I prefer to know the moon as Shelley 
 knew her, an 
 
 — "orbed maiden. 
 With white fire laden." 
 
 If I ever used a fact, I used it as a 
 slender thread on which I strung the 
 beads of fancy, and in the present work 
 that process had to be reversed; fancy 
 is the thread and the beads are facts. 
 
 And where were the facts? Before I 
 could record them I had to go forth and 
 find them in the jungles of " original re- 
 search." So many people have helped 
 me in this research work that if I name 
 them all, I shall seriously invalidate my 
 
 claim to the authorship of this book, 
 
 [Si
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 which, indeed, could never have been 
 written without the aid of Miss May 
 Stone and Miss Katherine Pettit of the 
 
 Settlement School at Hindman, Knott 
 Co., Ky.; Mrs. Jennie Lester Hill, for- 
 mer Superintendent of Fireside Industries 
 at Berea College; Mrs. Laura M. Allen, 
 Director of Weaving in Mechanics' In- 
 stitute, Rochester, N.Y. ; Miss Elizabeth 
 Dangerfield of Lexington, Ky. ; Miss 
 Sallie M. Dougherty of Russellville, 
 Tenn.; Miss Amy Du Puy, Pittsburgh, 
 Pa.; Miss Susan Beeler of Fountain 
 City, Tenn.; Mrs. Henderson Danger- 
 field Norman of Sycamore, 111.; Miss 
 Florence Strong of Athol, Ky. ; Dr. Wil- 
 liam F. Arnold, Surgeon U.S.N., retired; 
 
 Miss Madie Woodbury of Danville, 111.; 
 
 [61
 
 HICKORY LEAF 
 
 IN Georgia this design is called 
 "Muscadine Hulls" in Mis- 
 sissippi " Double Muscadine Hulls" 
 in North Carolina" Hickory Leaf" 
 in Rhode Island "Double Bow 
 Knot" in Kentucky it is sometimes 
 "Double Bow Knot ' and some- 
 times "Blooming Leaf." Probably 
 "Lemon Leaf and "Olive Leaf 
 also belong to it. All of the leaf 
 designs seem to have been evolved 
 from the "Sunrise" design.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 J. Capps and Son, Jacksonville, 111., and 
 last, who should have been first, the late 
 William Wade of Oakmont, Pa., who first 
 made known to me the beauty of the 
 hand-woven coverlet. 
 
 Many others whose names appear else- 
 where in this book have aided me in my 
 search for rare specimens of weaving and 
 my efforts to bring order and system out 
 of the chaos of names and designs in 
 which I found myself involved at the be- 
 ginning of my labor and in which I am 
 scarcely less involved at its "ending," 
 so called. 
 
 My friends say that for more than two 
 years past my salutation has been: 
 
 "Have you an old coverlet ?" 
 
 "Do you know anybody who has one? 
 
 [7l
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 and do you know the names of any cov- 
 erlet patterns?" 
 
 By putting these questions to friend 
 and foe, rich and poor, high and low, the 
 city-bred and the country-bred, and by 
 writing innumerable letters to dwellers 
 in the mountains and the lowlands I 
 have collected a pleasing array of facts, 
 names, and patterns; but what are these 
 by the side of the facts, names, and pat- 
 terns that might still be collected? 
 
 If life were as long as art, I might 
 come nearer to the goal of completion, 
 but no dictionary or encyclopedia holds 
 the knowledge I seek. To learn what is 
 still unknown to me about names, drafts 
 and designs I would have to make a pil- 
 grimage through the villages of New Eng- 
 
 [8]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 land and the mountains of North 
 Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Vir- 
 ginia, stopping at every doorway and 
 asking an alms of information with such 
 questions as these: 
 
 "Are ' Flourishing Wave ' and ' Floating 
 Wave' the same as 'Ocean Wave'?" 
 
 "What are the differences between 
 'Iron Wheel/ 'Running Wheel,' 'Wheel 
 of Fortune,' 'Wheel of Time' and 'Pilot 
 Wheel'?" 
 
 "What are 'Muscadine Hulls'?" 
 
 "What flower is 'King's Flower' in- 
 tended to represent?" 
 
 "Was 'Lee's Surrender' named in 
 sorrow or in triumph?" 
 
 "Is 'Penford' the name of a place or 
 a person?" 
 
 [9]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Since I cannot go in search of this in- 
 formation, I leave to each reader the task 
 of adding something to my incomplete 
 work. On the blank pages at the end of 
 the book you may place the pictures of 
 your family coverlets and write their 
 history. Thus each book will become a 
 collaboration, and I shall have almost as 
 many collaborators as readers. 
 
 Some critics may think the subject un- 
 worthy of the labor I have bestowed on 
 it; but the colonial coverlet is to Ameri- 
 can art what the prose works of Increase 
 Mather and the verses of Anne Brad- 
 street are to American literature. Who- 
 ever tries to trace the rise and progress 
 of art in the New World will see in the 
 
 colors and designs of the hand-woven 
 
 [10]
 
 LEE'S SURRENDER 
 
 WOVEN by Ernest D. Chap- 
 man, Clark's Falls, Conn. 
 There are two drafts of this name, 
 No. i and No. 2. The above is 
 "Lee's Surrender" No. 2.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 coverlet the first faint stirrings of that 
 spirit which breathes full-awakened 
 through the sculpture of St. Gaudens and 
 Borglum, and the architecture of Rich- 
 ardson and McKim, and glows in the 
 canvases of Whistler, Furness, Sargent 
 and Abbey. 
 
 "Art is the wine of life," says Richter, 
 and the hand-woven coverlet tells you 
 that the humblest artisan who kneels at 
 the altars of Beauty receives from the 
 hand of the god his share of that priceless 
 draught. 
 
 [nl
 
 LONG, LONG AGO
 
 LONG, LONG AGO 
 
 u there are voices of the Past, 
 Links of a broken chain, 
 Wings that can bear me back to times 
 Which cannot come again." 
 
 Sfirai 
 
 
 *, 
 
 
 HE house-mother sits at 
 her loom weaving in the 
 late afternoon hours. 
 There is the grace of 
 splendid strength in the 
 motion of her arms, and the beauty of 
 boundless health in her sturdy form. 
 
 To and fro goes the shuttle over the 
 warp, and to and fro goes the weaver's 
 thought, over the water to Holland, 
 the home of her childhood, or south- 
 ward to the camp of Washington, where 
 
 [15]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 two stalwart brothers are bearing arms 
 for the cause of freedom. Now she 
 hears the water lapping against the 
 dyke; or she stands by her mother's 
 side listening to stories of the grand- 
 father who fought under William of 
 Orange, and then she thinks of the 
 news the lame soldier brought to 
 the village last week and wonders if 
 the battle he prophesied has been fought. 
 Memory and love soften the stern 
 face; she whispers a prayer for the 
 safety of the soldier brothers and 
 another prayer for the victory of the 
 patriot army. The old Dutch clock ticks 
 loudly in the corner, and the clatter of 
 the loom makes friendly answer. The 
 
 scarlet berries of the ash-tree press against 
 
 [16]
 
 THE LITIE M c ELROY COVERLET 
 
 A "King's Flower" design. 
 Woven on the "Old Home 
 Place" of Mr. Alanson Trigg near 
 Glasgow, Ky., by Sam Gamble, a 
 travelling weaver. Owned by Mrs. 
 Clarence Underwood McElroy, 
 Bowling Green, Ky.
 
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 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 the tiny panes of glass and the sunbeams 
 shining through them rest on the bur- 
 nished pewter vessels over the chimney 
 and touch to a pale lustre the smooth 
 braids of the housewife weaving her blue 
 and white coverlet. 
 
 Over the seas they came, these strong- 
 limbed daughters of European lands, from 
 the Palatinate on the Rhine, from the 
 Netherlands, from the provinces of 
 France, from the British Isles, the can- 
 tons of Switzerland and the villages of 
 Sweden and Norway, bringing with them 
 the arts and customs of old civilizations 
 to be grafted on a new life in a new 
 world. 
 
 The dust of their bodies passed long 
 
 ago into flower and tree as the strength 
 
 [i7l
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 of their bodies passed into the making of 
 a nation. Their names are forgotten 
 and unrecorded, except on a fallen, 
 lichen-crusted stone in an old bury- 
 ing-ground or a dim page of family 
 records which their children of the 
 third and fourth generations are too 
 busy to search out and read. But in 
 nearly every American family there 
 is a certain heirloom which is a me- 
 morial to the sturdy fore-mothers of the 
 nation — a hand-woven coverlet of which 
 the very old will say in a tremulous voice : 
 
 "My mother spun and wove it; ,; 
 and the middle-aged: 
 
 "My grandmother wove it;" 
 
 and the young, touching it with reverent 
 
 curiosity, whisper: 
 
 [18]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 "This is my great grandmother's cover- 
 let." 
 
 Occultists say that things are endowed 
 with influences, good or evil, according to 
 the nature of those who have owned or 
 used them, and that every one is sur- 
 rounded by an aura. You may laugh at 
 such statements, but I would not like to 
 wear a jewel that Lucrezia Borgia had 
 worn; a room furnished in old mahogany 
 always seems to me a haunted place, 
 and often I have felt the spells that go 
 out from inanimate objects blotting out 
 all consciousness of the present moment 
 and carrying me at one bound of thought 
 and emotion into "The Land of Long 
 Ago." 
 
 How many roads lead to this shadowy 
 
 [19]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 land, and how many things are guide- 
 posts on the way! The perfume of an 
 old-fashioned rose, a bit of yellow lace, 
 your grandfather's seal, the pin your 
 grandmother wore with a lock of hair 
 under the crystal front, a bundle of old 
 letters tied with faded ribbon, a book- 
 mark of time-stained cardboard that 
 said to some beloved one "Remember 
 Me," or "Believe Me True," a pressed 
 flower in an old book, the brass candle- 
 stick that used to stand on a shining ma- 
 hogany table along with the family Bible 
 and the basket that held your grand- 
 mother's knitting — but the spell of the 
 past is not as strong in any one of these 
 as it is in a coverlet that, like a family 
 tradition, has drifted down to us of the 
 
 [20]
 
 MOUNT VERNON 
 
 THE real name of this design is 
 not known. Miss Sally M. 
 Dougherty of Russellville, Tenn., 
 copied the design from a coverlet 
 on one of the beds at Washington s 
 home and christened it "Mount 
 Vernon."
 
 A A. A A 
 
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 A^i^Lj^^^ 
 
 .wJ"* '
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 present day to be held in honor or cast 
 aside in dishonor, but always seeming to 
 
 say: 
 
 "Have you forgotten? Have you forgot- 
 ten?" 
 
 Some of us have not forgotten. 
 
 [21]
 
 II 
 
 A BACKWARD GLANCE
 
 II 
 
 A BACKWARD GLANCE 
 
 'Remembrance wakes with all her busy train." 
 ~fefHEN the owner of an 
 
 ȴ1IL 
 
 old coverlet unfolds it 
 to your view, the first 
 words that come to her 
 lips are: 
 
 a 
 
 I remember 
 
 K 
 
 I remember," says one, "the year 
 that this was woven. I was just a little 
 girl, only four years old. Father gave 
 Mother a certain number of sheep, and 
 when the sheep were shorn, Mother 
 sent her share of the wool to Indiana to 
 
 be woven. I remember how interested 
 
 [25]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 she was in the sheep-shearing and how 
 proud she was of her coverlet." 
 
 "I remember," says another, "when I 
 was a little child, here in New Jersey, 
 there was a kitchen full of darkies, — 
 the kitchen detached from the main 
 house — and over this was a long gar- 
 ret. I remember seeing my old black 
 mammy run back and forth spinning 
 wool into yarn. ... I remember going 
 with my grandfather to what he called 
 'The Falling Hill/ The little hamlet 
 was called Millford, and it must have 
 been here that the coverlets were woven. 
 My recollection is that we took the wool 
 and got it back in long soft rolls so 
 white and pretty that I loved to put my 
 
 hands on it. These rolls were what I 
 
 [26]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 saw spun into yarn. I know the blue 
 thread for the coverlets was colored at 
 home, for I have heard of the dyeing. 
 This was seventy years ago." 
 
 "I remember," says another, "when 
 Mother used to dye the thread and her 
 nails would be blue with indigo, and I 
 used to wish I could make my finger 
 nails that pretty blue color. I remem- 
 ber, too, how Mother used to spin flax 
 on the little flax wheel to make the 
 foundation for her coverlets. Mother's 
 thread always brought a higher price 
 than anybody else's and she was noted 
 for her fine, even selvedge." 
 
 "I remember," says a distinguished 
 southern educator, "how Mother used 
 
 to spin flax on the 'little wheel.' She 
 
 [27]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 often made fishing lines for me, and 
 they were better in every respect than 
 any twisted line I could get to-day. 
 Our home was a farm in West Virginia, 
 and we made at home all the woollen 
 and linen cloth we used out of wool 
 and flax produced and prepared at home. 
 Cotton was the only material we bought. 
 We wove coverlets with figures, even 
 trees, in them. Many treadles and 
 many shuttles were used and the paper 
 spread before the weaver looked like 
 a piece of music. My mother always 
 put in the web, and many a day I have 
 spent (in fine fishing weather) passing 
 threads through the 'reed' to Mother. 
 When the flax was gathered, we always 
 
 had a flax-scutching followed by a din- 
 
 [28]
 
 A MODIFICATION OF PINE BLOOM 
 
 THE coverlet from which this 
 design was taken is a very 
 old brown and yellow one made in 
 Warren County, Ky., and owned 
 by Mrs. Emmett G. Logan, Jr., of 
 Bowling Green, Ky.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 ner and social amusements running into 
 the night. Girls came chiefly to make 
 this function attractive to the men who 
 did the scutching, though some girls 
 scutched well." 
 
 At every recollection like these a cur- 
 tain lifts and I see the life of an earlier, 
 sterner time than mine when the ques- 
 tions, What shall we eat? What shall 
 we drink? Wherewithal shall we be 
 clothed? had to be met at the dawning 
 of every day and answered by ceaseless 
 toil, the man wresting the raw materials 
 from the soil, while the woman's labor 
 completed the miracle of clothing and 
 feeding a family. The dying years 
 leave us many legacies, but every gen- 
 eration casts aside old customs, old ways 
 
 [29]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 of thought, old faiths and old ideals, 
 as the forest casts aside its withered 
 leafage, and, in the hurried march we 
 latter-day pilgrims are forced to make, 
 it may happen that something of real 
 value will be purposely thrown away or 
 carelessly left by the wayside. So now 
 and then we should turn from the clam- 
 orous present and go back in thought 
 to that quiet past where the roots of 
 our being lie. There is many a Half- 
 Way House on the road; one of them 
 might be called "At the Sign of the 
 Old Coverlet"; and pausing here we 
 may recover certain lost things un- 
 known to us or unremembered, but well 
 deserving both knowledge and remem- 
 brance. 
 
 [30]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 I think the Time Spirit must know 
 that we need to be thus recalled into 
 the life of the past, for everywhere I 
 find the woven coverlet which, more 
 than anything else, seems to stand as 
 a symbol of the olden times. 
 
 I ride along a country road and 
 through the open door of a farm-house I 
 have a glimpse of a four-poster bed spread 
 with a blue and white "Pine Bloom," or 
 a "Gentleman's Fancy.' 3 I pass a negro 
 cabin and on the clothes-line or the fence 
 hangs a bed-cover inherited from "Old 
 Mistress," spun and woven, probably, 
 on the old plantation in slave days by 
 the skilled fingers of "black Mammy." 
 I walk through the streets of town when 
 the festival of house-cleaning is going 
 
 [31]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 on, and over the railing of balcony or 
 porch I see a "Governor's Garden," 
 or a "Sunrise," older, no doubt, than 
 the oldest member of the family, but 
 napping gayly in the breeze, and flaunt- 
 ing its reds, blues, and greens in the 
 spring sunshine as if in gay defiance of 
 Time the Destroyer. When Novem- 
 ber's frosts and fogs are in the air, I 
 stand at my window and watch the 
 tobacco wagons come creeping into town; 
 and now and then under the tarpaulins, rag- 
 carpets and patchwork quilts that cover 
 the rich brown leaves I see the unmis- 
 takable colors of a coverlet — Grand- 
 mother's handiwork put to such "base 
 uses," but still beautiful, still dignified 
 
 in the midst of its humiliation. I look 
 
 [32]
 
 SUNRISE 
 
 THE coverlet from which this 
 design was taken was woven 
 eighty years ago by Deborah Camp- 
 bell of Warren County, Ky. 
 Owned by Mrs. Beulah Wrenn, 
 Warren County, Ky. Colors: pale 
 blue and white. A very fine piece 
 of weaving.
 
 .yr, $?//,, , 
 
 
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 m 

 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 eagerly after it to see if the pattern is 
 one known to me by name, the creaking 
 wagon disappears round the corner in 
 the road, and I turn away, my heart 
 and brain full of the message that the 
 woven coverlet carries to you and to me 
 from our great foremothers of genera- 
 tions ago and our mountain sisters of 
 to-day. 
 
 [33l
 
 Ill 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN WEAVERS
 
 Ill 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN WEAVERS 
 
 " There she weaves by night and day, 
 A magic web with color gay" 
 
 HE art of weaving had 
 its beginning in prehis- 
 toric days. In Greece 
 nine hundred years b.c. 
 the art must have been 
 as far advanced as it was in Europe in 
 the eighteenth century, for Homer tells 
 us that when Iris flies to Helen the god- 
 dess finds her "in the palace at her 
 loom" weaving into "a golden web" 
 the story of the Trojan wars, "And the 
 dire triumph of her fatal eyes"; and he 
 
 clothes Ulysses in "A robe of military 
 
 [37l
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 purple" into which Penelope had woven 
 a hunting scene: 
 
 "In the rich woof a hound, Mosaic drawn, 
 Bore on, full-stretch, and seized a dap-pled fawn." 
 
 Egyptian hieroglyphics show the god- 
 dess Isis with a shuttle in her hands, 
 and Egyptians may have been the first 
 to make textile fabrics, or perhaps it 
 was China twenty-five hundred years 
 before Christ. All we really know is 
 that the weaver's art was borne west- 
 ward from Egypt and Asia in the march 
 of civilization. Italy was the first 
 European country to weave cotton and 
 wool. In the tenth century Flanders 
 led the world in the manufacture of 
 woollen goods ; English wool was wrought 
 
 in Flanders,, and later the Flemings in- 
 
 [38]
 
 ROSE IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 WOVEN at "The Fireside 
 Industries," Berea, Ky. 
 Loaned for reproduction in color 
 by Mrs. Anna Ernberg of Berea 
 College. "Bonaparte's March" 
 and "Weavers Choice" resemble 
 "Rose in the Wilderness." The 
 yellow in this coverlet is made from 
 hickory bark.
 
 
 mm 
 
 Xfo 
 
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 wS 
 
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 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 troduced wool-weaving into England. 
 Early in the seventeenth century the 
 Puritans brought the art to America, 
 along with their ideals of civil and relig- 
 ious liberty. When the Revocation of 
 the Edict of Nantes drove the Protes- 
 tants from France, they carried their 
 knowledge of textile art into the south- 
 ern part of the New World, and from 
 Massachusetts to South Carolina the 
 sound of wheel and loom was mingled 
 with psalms of thanksgiving for the right 
 to worship God according to the dic- 
 tates of one's own conscience. The 
 women of the old south considered weav- 
 ing a most womanly art; every planta- 
 tion had its weaving-room and the 
 mistress of the plantation often trained 
 
 [39]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 the slaves to spin and weave. Up to 1785 
 only hand-weaving was known. Then 
 science and invention began to create 
 machinery that made the human hand 
 seem an awkward, clumsy thing. But 
 there are some things that science and 
 invention can never wholly displace. 
 An editorial writer in the London Nation 
 says: 
 
 "In certain primitive and necessary 
 things there lies an irresistible appeal. 
 We perceive it in a windmill, a water- 
 mill, a threshing-floor, a wine-press, a 
 cottage loom, a spindle, a baking oven, 
 and even in a pitcher, a hearth-stone, 
 or a wheel. There we see the eternal 
 necessities of mankind in their ancient, 
 
 most natural form, and, whether by 
 
 [40]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 long association with the satisfaction of 
 some need, or simply by their fitness 
 for utility, they have acquired a peculiar 
 quality of beauty." 
 
 This "peculiar quality of beauty" and 
 its "irresistible appeal" will always keep 
 the hand-loom and the spinning-wheel 
 from passing into the musty realm of 
 the obsolete. Moreover, the tide of 
 emigration that brought our ancestors 
 to America still flows between the old 
 world and the new, and with the immi- 
 grants come the wheel, the loom and 
 the manual skill found in many Euro- 
 pean countries where the handicrafts have 
 always been held in honor. Ten years 
 ago a Swedish family settled in the wilds 
 of Edmonson County, Kentucky. Their 
 
 [41]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 farm to-day is a bit of old Sweden in 
 a Kentucky setting, for rugs, clothing, 
 and bed-covering are all homespun, 
 home-dyed, and home-woven. In the 
 mountains of Virginia, North Carolina, 
 Tennessee, and Kentucky women are 
 working at wheel and loom just as 
 their great-great-grandmothers worked. 
 Time and change, like two tired trav- 
 ellers, seem to have paused by the way- 
 side and fallen asleep; and to-day 
 repeats the tale of a century or more 
 ago. Sometimes the life of the low- 
 lands and the life of the highlands meet 
 in a settlement school, and there comes 
 a renaissance of the arts of weaving and 
 spinning. The mountain woman learns 
 
 the worth of her work; old drafts are 
 
 [42]
 
 KING'S FLOWER 
 
 w 
 
 OVEN in Knott Co., Ky.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 brought to light; old secrets of dyeing 
 are unearthed and the mountain cover- 
 let goes forth to teach the world that 
 "Art is not something to be pre-empted 
 by aristocracy." 
 
 In the mountains of Knott County, 
 Kentucky, on Troublesome Creek there 
 is a settlement school, 1 and at one end 
 of the long hall in the main building 
 you will find the slab settle, the slab 
 cupboard, the reel, the big wheel for 
 spinning cotton and wool, the little flax 
 wheel, and a sled loom over a hundred 
 years old. At the loom sits a moun- 
 tain girl and she is called — listen, ye 
 
 lovers of music ! — she is called Dal- 
 
 1 Since this was written the school was burned 
 to the ground and the old loom perished in the 
 flames. 
 
 [43]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 manutha, a name that might have de- 
 scended to her from some Saxon princess ; 
 or perhaps it is Cynthia, name beloved 
 of the Elizabethan poets. She is weav- 
 ing a coverlet, and as she weaves she 
 looks at a yellow strip of paper on which 
 her mother's mother traced the lines 
 and figures of the draft. 
 
 Thoreau says that the value of a 
 thing is determined by the amount of 
 life that goes into it. If Dalmanutha 
 and Cynthia valued their work accord- 
 ing to Thoreau's standards, only a queen 
 or a millionaire could possess one of 
 their coverlets, for almost a year of a 
 woman's life goes into the making of 
 a mountain "kiver." It is just as if a 
 
 painter had to manufacture his can- 
 
 [44]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 vas, brushes, easel, palette, and paints, 
 or the sculptor go to the quarry and dig 
 out a block of marble for his statue. 
 
 In the old days a linen thread was 
 used for the warp, and flax had to be 
 grown, hackled, and spun. Now the 
 coverlet is of cotton overshot with 
 wool, and these materials, too, are a 
 home product. The women work in 
 the field, hoeing the cotton, gathering 
 it when it is ripe, picking it, carding 
 it, and spinning it. The sheep must 
 be sheared and the wool picked, washed, 
 carded, and spun. Then they must 
 dig roots, collect the barks of differ- 
 ent trees, set the "blue-pot" and make 
 the dyes according to ancestral meth- 
 ods. When all this drudgery is finished, 
 
 [45]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 the mountain woman seats herself at 
 the loom; her bodily weariness falls 
 from her like a garment; she is no 
 longer a tired drudge, she is an artist, 
 and she breathes the diviner air of that 
 region where beautiful things are cre- 
 ated. If a sculptor or a painter should 
 enter her cabin door she might greet 
 him as a sister greets a brother; and 
 I think that if the God of Beauty be- 
 came incarnate and walked the earth 
 searching for his most faithful wor- 
 shipper, he would not find what he sought 
 in any studio or art-shop; his search 
 would end on some southern mountain, 
 among gaunt, haggard women toiling 
 for two seasons to make the thread for 
 
 shuttle and loom, spending the short 
 
 [46]
 
 CAT TRACK 
 
 MANY imaginations have exer- 
 ercised themselves on this 
 pattern and the result is many 
 names: "Cat Track" "Snail 
 Trail" "Winding Vine" "Trail- 
 ing Vine" " Twining Vine" and 
 "Dogwood Blossom." Woven by 
 Aunt Betsey Thomas, Pine Grove, 
 Ky. Owned by Miss Elizabeth Dan- 
 gerfield, Lexington, Ky. " Wind- 
 ing Girl" is very similar to "Cat 
 Track," and "Old Roads" is one 
 of its modifications.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 winter days weaving a fabric that will 
 last to the third and fourth genera- 
 tion, and finally christening their work 
 at the springs of fancy with a name 
 that sounds oftentimes like a song or 
 a poem. 
 
 [47]
 
 • 
 
 IV 
 COVERLET NAMES
 
 IV 
 
 COVERLET NAMES 
 
 "What's in a name?" 
 
 T was Juliet, not 
 Shakespeare, who asked 
 "What's in a name?" 
 The man who knew all 
 hearts knew that "a rose 
 by any other name" would not smell as 
 sweet. Call a rose a nettle and at once 
 it loses half its rose nature. What name 
 but rose could fit the full-petaled, fragrant 
 flower we call the queen of flowers ? And 
 the individual name must fit the individ- 
 ual flower. Who cares for a rose called 
 
 the Mrs. James Brown? A rose should 
 
 [51]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN-COVERLETS 
 
 be a Duchess de Brabant, a Devonien- 
 sis, or an Empress of India. A rose 
 whose name is lost is a perpetual vex- 
 ation to the gardener, for with the name 
 goes part of the thing named. If Venus 
 were "Mary Jane," and Juno "Maria" 
 instead of the Goddess of Love and the 
 Queen of Heaven, there would be two 
 plain kitchen-maids. The christening 
 of a child is a matter that calls for 
 divine guidance, for that which we call 
 our "identity" depends largely on our 
 name. If places and people should sud- 
 denly lose their old names and acquire 
 new ones, we would be like the builders 
 of the Tower of Babel when the confu- 
 sion of tongues came on them, and 
 
 when we lose the faculty of remember- 
 
 [52]
 
 THE SALLY RODES COVERLET 
 
 HISTORY unknown. Name 
 of design probably "Nine 
 Snowballs." Owned by Miss Sally 
 Rodes, Bowling Green, Ky.
 
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 ;'-•••■-♦-   
 
 M 
 
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 K "I I M 1 1 K ! I H if 
 
   •* 
 
 
 
 
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 ■iinrimsinnfliiiK 
 
 iwwinn   * 
 
 
 
 Hf -•♦. 
 
 l!«|l:«IVi:»:i ; l-«;^l«
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 ing names, we are like travellers astray 
 on a road that has no guide-posts. 
 There was a time when the whole 
 Aryan race believed that a man's name 
 was not only a part of himself but that 
 it was the part we call the soul, and 
 the importance we attach to names is 
 an outgrowth of this race-belief. 1 
 
 Instead of asking: "What's in a 
 name?" we should exclaim with an- 
 other poet: 
 
 " Who hath not owned with rapture-smitten frame 
 The power of grace, the magic of a name? " 
 
 But only one who has studied the 
 names of coverlet patterns can know the 
 full depth of magic that a name can hold. 
 
 1 See "The Evil Eye," by Frederick Thomas 
 Elworthy. 
 
 [53]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Here are the flowery, leafy, and poetic 
 names. Listen how sweetly they run: 
 Flower of the Mountain (N. C). 
 Sunrise on the Walls of Troy. 
 Rose in the Wilderness (Ky.). 
 World's Wonder (Ky.). 
 Wonder of the Forest (Va.). 
 Wide World's Wonder. 
 Rose of the Valley. 
 Old Roads (W. Va.). 
 Lily of the West. 
 Spring Flower. 
 Fading Leaf. 
 
 Kentucky Snowballs (Ky.). 
 Flowers of Edinboro (Ky. and Tenn.). 
 Winding Vine 
 Trailing Vine 
 
 Dogwood Blossom 
 
 [54] 
 
 (Ky. and Tenn.).
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Rose in the Garden (N. C). 
 Sunflower. 
 Laurel Blossom. 
 Pine Top. 
 Maple Leaf. 
 Snow Drop. 
 Pine Burr. 
 Olive Leaf. 
 
 Islands of the Sea (Conn.). 
 Path of the Sunbeam (Maine). 
 Single Snowballs. 
 Rose of Sharon (Ky.). 
 Lily of the Valley (N. C). 
 Mountain Rose. 
 Peony Leaf (Va.). 
 Pomegranate. 
 Primrose and Diamonds. 
 Governor's Garden. 
 
 [55]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Granny's Garden (Ky.). 
 
 King's Garden (Maine). 
 
 Pansies and Roses in the Wilderness. 
 
 Rose and Diamonds. 
 
 Roses and Pinies in the Wilderness. 
 
 Rosy Walk. 
 
 Snowball and Dewdrop. 
 
 Wandering Vine. 
 
 China Leaves. 
 
 Dogwood Rose. 
 
 Five Snowballs. 
 
 Flowers of Canaan (1827). 
 
 Flowery Vine. 
 
 Folding Leaf. 
 
 Four Snowballs. 
 
 Lemon Leaf (Ky.). 
 
 Mountain Flower (Tenn.). 
 
 Pine Bloom (Ky.). 
 
 [56]
 
 CAT A LP A FLOWER or WORK 
 COMPLETE 
 
 THE former is the North Caro- 
 lina, the latter the Alabama, 
 name. In Kentucky it is some- 
 times called "Lady's Fancy" and 
 "Gentleman's Fancy."
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Catalpa Flower. 
 
 Sixteen Snowballs. 
 
 King's Flower (Ky. and N. C). 
 
 Twining Vine (Ky.). 
 
 Red Rose (Va.). 
 
 Rose in Bloom. 
 
 Rose in the Blossom. 
 
 Orange Trees. 
 
 Rose and Blossoms. 
 
 Rose and Compass. 
 
 Hickory Leaf. 
 
 Snowballs. 
 
 Wreaths and Roses (Tenn.). 
 
 Magnolia (Tenn.). 
 
 Fig Leaf. 
 
 Holly Leaf. 
 
 Leaf and Snowball. 
 
 Rose Leaf and Bud. 
 
 [57]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Rosebud. 
 Reed Leaf. 
 Nine Snowballs. 
 Forty-Nine Snowballs. 
 Blooming Flower. 
 Indiana Frame Rose (N. C). 
 Flowers of Lebanon (Mass.). 
 Flowery Plains (Tenn.). 
 Bachelor's Buttons (Tenn.). 
 Primrose (1813, Conn.). 
 Shamrock (Tenn.). 
 Cluster of Vines. 
 Rose in the Valley. 
 Piney Rose (N. C). 
 Snowball and Leaf. 
 Rose Walk (Sweden). 
 
 [58]
 
 (Ky.). 
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 And the plain, prosaic names and the 
 grotesque ones, such as: 
 
 Ginny Fowle (Va. and Ky.). 
 Doors and Windows 
 Windows and Doors 
 Window Sash (N. C). 
 Locks and Dams (Ky.). 
 Dollars and Cents (Ky.). 
 Rattlesnake Trail (N. Y.). 
 Spectacles (N. C). 
 Sixteen Squares. 
 Sugar Loaf (Tenn. and Ky.). 
 Bachelor's Thumb (Ky.). 
 Rocky Mountain Cucumber. 
 Wild Mountain Cucumber (R. I.). 
 Cat Track (Ky.). 
 Fool's Puzzle (Tenn.). 
 Wandering (Winding) Blades and Fold- 
 ing Windows (Tenn. and N. C). 
 
 [59]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Winding Leaves and Folding Win- 
 dows (Tenn. and N. C). 
 
 Snail Trail (Ky. and Tenn.). 
 
 Log Cabin. 
 
 Double Chain. 
 
 Rattlesnake. 
 
 Dog Tracks (Mass.). 
 
 Sister Blankets. 
 
 Dimity. 
 
 Shuckeroones (R. I.). 
 
 Double Compass. 
 
 Bird's Eye. 
 
 Flowerpot. 
 
 Orange Peeling. 
 
 Bricks and Blocks. 
 
 Double Table. 
 
 Four Times (Va.). 
 
 Green Vails. 
 
 [60]
 
 DOG TRACKS 
 
 WOVEN in 1775. Colors blue 
 and red. Owned by Mrs. 
 Charles Stebbins, Deerfield, Mass. 
 Also called " Virginia Beauty ."
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Hen Scratch (Ky.). 
 
 Buckens and Owls (R. I.). 
 
 Huckleberry. 
 
 Wheels and Squares (Tenn.). 
 
 Forty-Nine Diamonds. 
 
 Stripes and Squares. 
 
 Checkers. 
 
 Cross Roads. 
 
 Hail Storm (N. C). 
 
 Pea Fowl. 
 
 Cat's Paw. 
 
 Summer and Winter Wheel Draught 
 
 (1825). 
 
 Snow Storm. 
 
 Snow Trail. 
 
 Ice Balls. 
 
 Honeycomb (N. Y.). 
 
 Little Window Sash (Va.). 
 
 [61]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Number Two __ 
 
 (Va.). 
 Number Three] 
 
 Snake Shed. 
 
 Alabama Squares. 
 
 White House or American Beauty. 
 
 Arrow (N. C). 
 
 Reed Canes, Panel Doors and Window 
 
 Sash (N. C). 
 
 Windows (Tenn.). 
 
 Window Sashes. 
 
 Here are the various "Beauties": 
 
 Kaintuck Beauty (Ky.). 
 
 Parson's Beauty (N. C). 
 
 Captured Beauty. 
 
 Stolen Beauty (Vt.). 
 
 California Beauty. 
 
 Lasting Beauty (Va.). 
 
 [62]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Virginia Beauty. 
 Petersburg Beauty (Pa.). 
 Rocky Mountain Beauty. 
 Alabama Beauty. 
 North Carolina Beauty. 
 Missouri Beauty (N. C). 
 Royal Beauty. 
 Troy's Beauty (1826). 
 Baltimore Beauty. 
 Boston Beauty. 
 Everybody's Beauty. 
 American Beauty. 
 Four Square Beauty. 
 Richmond Beauty. 
 Beauty of New York (1803). 
 
 Then come the "Fancies," "Favor- 
 ites," and "Delights": 
 
 [63]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Rich Man's Fancy (N. C). 
 
 Young Man's Fancy. 
 
 Gentleman's Fancy. 
 
 Lady's Fancy. 
 
 Little Girl's Fancy. 
 
 Dutchman's Fancy. 
 
 Sally's Fancy. 
 
 Farmer's Fancy. 
 
 French Fancy. 
 
 Frenchman's Fancy. 
 
 Maiden's Fancy. 
 
 Bachelor's Fancy (R. I.). 
 
 Diaman's Fancy. 
 
 Isaac's Favorite (Tenn. and N. C). 
 
 Frenchman's Favorite. 
 
 Mother's Favorite (Tenn.). 
 
 Ladies' Delight. 
 
 Bachelor's Delight. 
 
 [6 4 ]
 
 SEVEN STARS 
 
 WOVEN by Mrs. Elmeda 
 Walker, N.C. In Mc- 
 Dowell County, N.C, this pattern 
 is called " Sea Star" or " Sea Shell." 
 In Union County, Tenn., it is "Isle 
 of Patmos" ; in East Tennessee, 
 " Gentleman 's Fancy." The cover- 
 let from which the design is taken 
 was sent from the Allanstand Cot- 
 tage Industries, Asheville, N.C, 
 by Miss Harriet C Wilkie. Yel- 
 low made from peach leaves.
 
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 nmiui' • w r-«i . u i
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Wheeler's Delight. 
 Solomon's Delight. 
 Queen's Delight. 
 King's Delight. 
 
 Here are the names celestial: 
 The Rising Sun. 
 The Star of Venus. 
 Sea Star (N. C). 
 Sunrise (Ky.). 
 Virginia Star. 
 Blazing Star. 
 Little Blazing Star. 
 Sun, Moon, and Stars. 
 Morning Star. 
 Seven Stars (N. C). 
 Lone Star of Texas. 
 
 Star of the East (N. C). 
 
 [65]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 And the three "Waves": 
 Ocean Wave. 
 Floating Wave. 
 Flourishing Wave. 
 
 Sometimes the name is of a place 
 or a person: 
 
 Old Duckett (N. C). 
 
 Owsley Forks (Ky.). 
 
 Old Virginia. 
 
 Cope (Tenn.). 
 
 Hixson (Tenn.). 
 
 Eve Mast (Tenn.). 
 
 Cassie Rogan (Tenn.). 
 
 South County. 
 
 Brush Valley (Md.). 
 
 Miss Chester (N. C). 
 
 St. Ann's Robe (Tenn.). 
 
 [66]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Baltimore Street (Md.). 
 
 Mary (N. C). 
 
 Ellen Eggers' Counterpane Draught. 
 
 Murphy's Legacy (Tenn.). 
 
 Isle of Patmos (Tenn.). 
 
 Once in a while you find a sentimental 
 name such as: 
 
 Lonely Heart (Ky.). 
 Lover's Knot (Pa.). 
 True Lover's Knot (Va.). 
 Lover's Chain (Pa.). 
 Soldier's Return (Tenn.). 
 Friendship (Ky.). 
 Girl's Love. 
 
 Then there is a collection of "Wheels": 
 
 Penford Chariot Wheels (Ky.). 
 
 [67]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Single Chariot Wheels (Ky.). 
 
 Iron Wheel (N. C). 
 
 Sixteen Wheel Chariot (Tenn.). 
 
 Wheel of Time (Minn.). 
 
 Running Wheel (Ky.). 
 
 Wheel of Fortune (Minn.). 
 
 Methodist Wheel (N. C). 
 
 Charity Wheel. 
 
 Wheels of Fancy. 
 
 Pilot Wheel (Ky.). 
 
 Four Wheels. 
 
 Sixteen Chariot Wheels (Tenn.). 
 
 Single Wheel. 
 
 Wheels and Squares. 
 
 And a casket of "Diamonds": 
 
 Crown of Diamonds (N. C). 
 
 Crown and Diamonds. 
 
 [68]
 
 DOUBLE CHARIOT WHEELS or 
 CHURCH WINDOWS 
 
 THESE names point to an 
 English origin, but the pat- 
 tern is also found in Scandinavian 
 weaving. The four " chariot wheels" 
 separated by the arms of a cross 
 suggest a rose window in an Eng- 
 lish cathedral.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Heart and Diamond. 
 Double Diamond. 
 Nine Block Diamond. 
 Square and Diamond. 
 Cross and Diamond. 
 Eight Block Diamond. 
 Broken Diamond (N. C). 
 Half Diamond. 
 The King's Diamond. 
 
 And more interesting than all others 
 are the political or historical names: 
 
 Indian March. 
 Indian War. 
 Indian Warfare. 
 Indian Camp. 
 Braddock's Defeat (Ky.). 
 
 Battle of Richmond. 
 
 [69]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Maid of Orleans (Term.). 
 
 Bonaparte's March. 
 
 Bonaparte's Retreat. 
 
 Cornwallis' Victory (Ky.). 
 
 Washington's Victory. 
 
 Washington's Diamond Ring (Va.). 
 
 Lady Washington's Delight. 
 
 Martha Washington's Choice. 
 
 Jay's Fancy. 
 
 Lafayette's Fancy. 
 
 Jefferson's Fancy (N. J.). 
 
 Perry's Victory. 
 
 Battle Union. 
 
 Mexican Banner (Tenn.). 
 
 Polk and Dallas. 
 
 Travis' Favorite. 
 
 Whig Rose. 
 
 Jackson's Army. 
 
 [70]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Colonel Jackson's Army. 
 Democrat Victory (N. C). 
 Missouri Trouble. 
 Tennessee Trouble. 
 Confederate Flag. 
 Lee's Surrender. 
 
 And still there remains a mighty host 
 of unclassified names: 
 
 Cuckoo's Nest (Ky.). 
 Tennessee Lace (Ky.). 
 Broken Snowballs. 
 The Globe (Ky.). 
 The Bride's Table (Ky.). 
 The Sea Shell. 
 Double Bow Knot. 
 Irish Chain. 
 
 Weaver's Choice. 
 
 [71]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Weaver's Pleasure. 
 
 Flannery. 
 
 Federal Knot. 
 
 Waffle Weave. 
 
 Scarlet Balls. 
 
 Queen's Patch (Ky.). 
 
 Work Complete. 
 
 Double Muscadine Hulls. 
 
 Winding Girl (Ky.). 
 
 Queen's Puzzle. 
 
 Church Windows (Ky.). 
 
 Young Lady's Perplexity (Ky.). 
 
 Tennessee Circles. 
 
 Tennessee Trouble in North Carolina. 
 
 Leopard Spots (Tenn.). 
 
 New Jersey Dream. 
 
 Kentucky Snowflakes. 
 
 Queen of England (Va.). 
 
 [72]
 
 MISSOURI TROUBLE 
 
 IN the Kentucky mountains this 
 pattern is called by the above 
 name. In North Carolina it is 
 "Spectacles " or "Mountain 
 
 Flower." The Spectacle square 
 forms a part of " Tennessee 
 Trouble"
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Squares of England. 
 Rings and Flowers of Virginia. 
 Lady's Fancy Draught. 
 Mission Draught. 
 Prussian Diaper. 
 Summer and Winter. 
 Queen's Household. 
 Bird's-Eye Coverlet. 
 Block Coverlet. 
 
 Blue and White Coverlet Number 
 Three. 
 
 Capa's Number Five. 
 Compass Diaper. 
 Compass Work. 
 Cross-a-Wise (Ireland, 1769). 
 Flag of Our Union. 
 Flag Work. 
 
 Freemason's Walk. 
 
 [73]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Gardener's Note. 
 
 Single Chain. 
 
 Job's Trouble (Tenn.). 
 
 Spotted Leopard (Tenn.). 
 
 Old Glory. 
 
 Little Checked. 
 
 Federal City (Ky.). 
 
 Catch Me If You Can. 
 
 Forty-Niners. 
 
 The Union Draught (1827). 
 
 Fox Trail (N. C). 
 
 Guess Me (N. C). 
 
 Leopard Skin (N. C). 
 
 Venus. 
 
 Birds of the Air (N. Y.). 
 
 And I do not know how many more 
 
 there may be, hidden — like gems in a 
 
 [74]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 mine — under the failing memories of 
 old mountain women or country folk, 
 whose mothers and grandmothers prac- 
 tised the weaver's art. 
 
 Do you remember the "charm string" 
 you had when you were a little girl, 
 each button holding in its crystal depth 
 a reminder of the one who gave it and 
 the circumstances under which it was 
 given ? As I collected the names of these 
 coverlet patterns it seemed to me I was 
 a child again and the list of names my 
 "charm string." Over and over I tell 
 these names as a devotee tells the beads 
 of her rosary; some are windows through 
 which I look into the lives of my moun- 
 tain sisters, and some are tiny caskets 
 holding "infinite riches in a little room," 
 
 [75]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 a flash of humor, a gleam of tear-drops, a 
 flight of fancy, a poet's imagery, a 
 woman's longing, a page of history. 
 
 "Star of the East," "Rose in the 
 Wilderness," "Rose in the Garden," 
 "Star of Venus," "Wonder of the For- 
 est," "Flower of the Mountain," "Rose 
 Leaf and Bud," "Sunrise on the Walls 
 of Troy," "Rose in the Valley," "Wreaths 
 and Roses," and "Morning Star" are 
 not merely poetical, they are poetry it- 
 self. The weavers who gave these names 
 to their coverlet designs were poets, 
 but they died "with all their music in 
 them" except the few notes we hear in 
 those simple rhythmic phrases that one 
 loves to say over and over with a regret- 
 ful thought of the woman whose soul 
 
 [76]
 
 PINE BLOOM 
 
 WOVEN at "The Fireside 
 Industries " Berea, Ky. 
 Loaned for reproduction in color 
 by Mrs. Anna Ernberg, Superin- 
 tendent of Weaving at Berea Col- 
 lege. Red dyed with madder. 
 Woven on an enlarged scale this 
 pattern becomes " Sea Star" " Sea 
 Shell" "Isle of Patmos," "Gentle- 
 man's Fancy " and " Lady's Fancy " 
 according to the locality in which it 
 is woven.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 held something for which she had no 
 means of expression except the weav- 
 ing and naming of a coverlet. Some- 
 times a design possesses two names, 
 one poetic and the other prosaic. The 
 round flower-like figure which the south- 
 ern mountaineer calls "Dogwood Blos- 
 som" or "Snowball" is "Dog Tracks" 
 and "Catspaw" in the New England 
 States; and "Hen Scratch" is, I am sure, 
 the prosaic name for the beautiful "Sun- 
 rise" pattern. It was a realist and a 
 prosaist who named "Sixteen Squares" 
 and a weaver who belonged to the roman- 
 tic school changed it to "Sixteen Snow- 
 balls." There is a name obvious and 
 a name obscure. I can see the fitness 
 
 of "Sea Star" and "Pine Bloom," but 
 
 [77]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 • 
 
 to find a "Catalpa Flower" in the pat- 
 tern of that name requires the same 
 kind of imagination that could see Arc- 
 turus with his bow in the starry heavens. 
 Perhaps a catalpa tree stood at the door 
 of the weaver's home, and perhaps it 
 bloomed the day she took her coverlet 
 from the loom. (In North Carolina, 
 by the way, "Catalpa" is pronounced 
 "Catawba.") "Shuckeroones," "Rocky 
 Mountain Cucumbers," " Bachelor's 
 Thumb," "Murphy's Legacy," and 
 "Buckens and Owls" belong to the list 
 of the queer and fantastic. "Buckens 
 and Owls" was for a while one of the 
 inexplicables, and "Shuckeroones" still 
 is. I thought "buckens" was an obso- 
 lete word and I looked for it in Halli- 
 
 [78]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 well's Dictionary of Archaic and Pro- 
 vincial Words, published in London in 
 1850, but found it not. Then to the 
 unabridged dictionary, where it is seen 
 in its correct spelling: buckeens. It is 
 an Anglo-Irish word which formerly 
 denoted a young man of the second-rate 
 gentry or a younger son of the poorer 
 aristocracy who aped the manners of the 
 wealthy. Froude uses the word thus 
 in "Two Chiefs of Dunboy": "The 
 buckeens who had been his compan- 
 ions sate the night through drinking 
 whiskey in the hall at Derreen." 
 
 The buckeen and the owl are both 
 night-birds, hence the association of 
 ideas that brings the two words together, 
 
 but why should they be applied to a 
 
 [79]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 coverlet pattern is something no dic- 
 tionary can tell us. 
 
 "Travis Favorite," "Whig Rose," 
 and "Polk and Dallas" doubtless origi- 
 nated in Tennessee. "World's Won- 
 der" is an exclamation of pure delight 
 and self-congratulation. She had toiled 
 long at wheel and dye-pot and loom. 
 She had cut the breadths and sewed 
 them together and hemmed the ends 
 with coarse homespun threads. Then 
 she swept and garnished her room, and 
 spread the new coverlet over the high 
 fluffy feather-bed and retreated to a 
 distance to see the effect. Ah, the snowy 
 white of that foundation, and the rich 
 tracery of dark blue! Was there ever 
 
 anything as beautiful as this latest work 
 
 [80]
 
 THE BLAZING STAR 
 
 THE picture shows well the 
 heavy sombre character of 
 the coverlet. Observe the similarity 
 between this and the "Sunrise" 
 design.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 of her hands? It is the wonder of the 
 world and "World's Wonder" should 
 be its name. 
 
 "Lonely Heart" tells a story of a 
 deserted wife or a maid forlorn. 
 "Flowers of Edinboro" is a Scotch 
 emigrant's sigh for her native land, and 
 if you knew nothing of the origin of 
 these mountain people, such titles as 
 "Queen's Patch," "King's Flower," 
 "Cuckoo's Nest," "Penford Chariot 
 Wheels," and "Flowers of Edinboro" 
 would tell a story of Scotch and English 
 ancestry quite as authentic as the aris- 
 tocratic surnames borne by the weavers 
 themselves. "Young Lady's Perplex- 
 ity" suggests a maiden hesitating be- 
 tween two lovers. "The Forty-Niners" 
 
 [81]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 commemorates the discovery of gold in 
 California. "Rose of Sharon," "Lily 
 of the Valley," "Olive Leaf," and "Isle 
 of Patmos" show the Biblical knowl- 
 edge of the mountaineer. "The Bride's 
 Table" is a rare pattern woven near 
 Athol, Ky. There are squares repre- 
 senting tables, and in the centre of each 
 a round tufted figure which is the bride's 
 cake. 
 
 "Youth and Beauty" and "Lasting 
 Beauty" are names that tap the foun- 
 tain of tears. There are some things 
 that we do not know until we lose 
 them, nor can we really know a thing 
 until we know its opposite. If you 
 want a hymn in praise of youth and 
 
 beauty, you must not expect it of the 
 
 [82]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 young and the beautiful. Only the old 
 know what youth and beauty are, and 
 looking at the faded blue of Rachel 
 Marran Chambers' coverlet and the 
 simple squares of the other Scandina- 
 vian design, I see two women wearied 
 with "care and sorrow and childbirth 
 pain," withered, toothless, colorless, 
 bending over the loom and naming 
 their handiwork in memory of a swift- 
 winged splendor that once was theirs 
 and that will never be theirs again. 
 "Soldier's Return" is a mother's psalm 
 of rejoicing over a son saved from the 
 perils of war and restored to the safety 
 of home. "Catch Me If You Can" 
 paints a picture of a coquette with fly- 
 ing feet and flying curls looking back 
 
 [83]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 to see how near she is to being caught. 
 "Young Man's Fancy" has a familiar 
 sound. Where have we read those 
 words before? Ah, yes! 
 
 "In the spring a young man's fancy lightly 
 turns to thoughts of love." 
 
 We are not daring enough to advance 
 the theory that "Locksley Hall" was 
 read in the mountains where we find 
 this name; but let us suppose that it 
 designates a pattern of English origin, 
 that the English poet in his childhood 
 slept under a coverlet by this name. 
 Perhaps, as his fingers traced the pat- 
 tern, his old nurse told him it was 
 called "Young Man's Fancy," and the 
 phrase lingering in his mind with other 
 
 childish memories was caught one day 
 
 [8 4 ]
 
 YOUTH AND BEAUTY 
 
 A MOUNTAIN coverlet. Woven 
 by Rachel Marran Chambers 
 five generations ago. Owned by Miss 
 Elizabeth Dangerfield of Lexington, 
 Ky., to zvhom it was given by Flor- 
 ence Strong, Athol, Ky., the great- 
 great-granddaughter of the weaver.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 by a tide of poetic inspiration and drifted 
 into the poem of his young manhood, 
 just as the empty shell and the per- 
 fect pearl are brought to shore by the 
 same ocean tide. Smile if you will at 
 this fantastic theory; but "Young Man's 
 Fancy" will always seem to me a link 
 between the English poet who wrote 
 "Locksley Hall" and the Anglo-Saxon 
 woman who spins and weaves in the 
 mountains of Kentucky. Every cov- 
 erlet-lover may theorize in perfect free- 
 dom, as I do, for the field is all our 
 own and no philologist can question the 
 correctness of our conclusions. 
 
 The design called "Owsley Forks" 
 is meant to show the current of a creek 
 
 flowing by the home of a mountain 
 
 [85]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 weaver in Kentucky. She made the 
 creek the theme of her weaving, as 
 Tennyson made a brook the theme of 
 his poem; and who shall say she is not 
 soul-kin to the English poet or to any 
 artist in Japan who looks with wor- 
 shipful eyes toward Fujiyama and then 
 takes up his brush to paint its snow- 
 clad beauty? 
 
 "Work Complete" sounds a note of 
 triumph. I see the weaver gazing at 
 her web as you gaze at your water- 
 color painting, your delicate embroid- 
 ery or your stamped leather. In the 
 curves of that flower-like design there 
 is the satisfactory beauty of work that 
 lasts. To the end of her life she must 
 
 do work that each day will undo, but 
 
 [86]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 here is one completed task never to 
 be done again, and she feels the large 
 content that filled the soul of Milton 
 when he wrote the last lines of "Para- 
 dise Lost." 
 
 "Petersburg Beauty" suggests at 
 once a pretty Virginia girl, but the name 
 was more probably given in honor of 
 some German maiden in the town of 
 Petersburg, Somerset County, Pennsyl- 
 vania, for here in the old days lived 
 many skilled weavers whose names we 
 read to-day in the corners of their 
 double-woven coverlets. 
 
 "Battle of Richmond" will puzzle 
 
 the reader who knows that there was 
 
 no battle of that name during the Civil 
 
 War, though several battles occurred 
 
 [87]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 near the city. But in the annals of the 
 Revolutionary War we find a story of 
 the capture and burning of Richmond 
 by Cornwallis assisted by Benedict 
 Arnold, and the name doubtless com- 
 memorates this event. How strangely 
 life links the small and the great, when 
 the pattern of an old bed-covering can 
 recall one of the battles in a great war! 
 The "Whig Rose" is sometimes 
 classed as an English pattern, but to 
 my mind it is a modification of a 
 Scandinavian pattern which goes by 
 various names — "Lover's Knot" in 
 Somerset County, Pennsylvania, and 
 "Flower Pot" and "Philadelphia Pave- 
 ment" in New York. Every cover- 
 let of this pattern that I have ever seen 
 
 [88]
 
 THE WHIG ROSE 
 
 PATTERN taken from coverlet 
 woven fifty years ago near 
 Paris, Tenn. Owned by Mrs. T. H. 
 Bunch of Memphis, Tenn. The 
 design is a modification of the 
 Scandinavian "Lovers Knot." 
 "Wheel of Fortune" and " Sun, 
 Moon and Stars" closely resemble 
 "Whig Rose."
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 was woven in Tennessee and its name 
 probably commemorates the formation 
 of the Whig party in Andrew Jackson's 
 administration. The complicated nature 
 of "Missouri Trouble" and "Tennessee 
 Trouble" might well be the reason for 
 these names, but the former is a reference 
 to the stormy days of 1850, and the 
 East Tennessee weavers say that " Ten- 
 nessee Trouble" commemorates the 
 trouble that Tennessee had with the 
 Indians at the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century. In some parts of the state 
 the pattern is called "Job's Trouble," 
 and if Job should ever become ac- 
 quainted with its intricacies and diffi- 
 culties he would give thanks to God 
 for having been spared this trouble. 
 
 [89]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 The "Sea Star" pattern probably origi- 
 nated in a seaport town, for the four- 
 cornered figure suggests the starfish, 
 but it wandered down into Tennessee 
 and fell into the hands of a religious 
 enthusiast, who saw things in visions 
 as did John, and there it became "Isle 
 of Patmos." 
 
 To read the political names is like 
 viewing a pageant that shows the 
 whole course of American history with 
 now and then a glimpse of European 
 affairs. Each name is a tableau. You 
 see the wigwam of the Indian and 
 the cabin of the settler; you hear the 
 shrieks of women and children and the 
 march of contending armies; stately 
 
 figures pass before you, diplomat, war- 
 
 [90]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 rior, colonial dame, statesman and phi- 
 losopher; war succeeds war, political 
 parties are formed, and as you ponder 
 each historical picture you see in the 
 background a woman spinning and 
 weaving. Not hers to write odes and 
 epics or to measure her powers with 
 man's in affairs of state. But while her 
 toil-worn hands are busy with the work 
 of home-making, her thoughts are divided 
 between her home and her country, and 
 these coverlet names are pathetic evi- 
 dence that the fire of patriotism burned 
 in her heart as warmly as in the heart 
 of her husband or her son. 
 
 "What can you see in these old 
 coverlets?" ask my friends, half-wonder- 
 ingly, half-contemptuously. 
 
 [91]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 What can I not see? I see poetry, 
 romance, religion, sociology, philology, 
 politics, and history, and if any Juliet 
 asks me "What's in a name?" I answer: 
 "All that's in human life." 
 
 To find the design corresponding to 
 a name or the name corresponding to 
 a design requires the brain and skill 
 of a detective. Sometimes the name 
 serves for the design of a coverlet and 
 the design of a piece of piece-work quilt. 
 The lady who purchased for Miss Ken- 
 yon her beautiful "Lover's Knot" says 
 it was called "Philadelphia Pavement," 
 and I have seen a piece quilt of purple 
 and white calico with that name. "Irish 
 Chain," "Log Cabin," "Sugar Loaf," 
 
 and many others belong to the nomen- 
 
 [92]
 
 TENNESSEE TROUBLE 
 
 OWNED by Mrs. Benjamin F. 
 Proctor, Bowling Green, Ky. 
 Woven by slave labor about sixty 
 years ago in Warren County, Ky.
 
 *mmt/WtJ8 
 
 
 O/
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 clature of both coverlets and quilts. It 
 is part of the charm of names that every 
 one likes to christen something, whether 
 it be a horse or a book, a battle-ship, 
 or a child, and we find the coverlet 
 weavers varying designs and changing 
 names at will. Thus, some one sim- 
 plified the "Sugar Loaf" design and 
 re-named it "Youth and Beauty." 1 
 Sometimes one name does duty for two 
 or three dissimilar designs, and a design 
 
 1 In many instances I have designated the 
 state where a name is found, but this is seldom 
 any clue to the origin of the name. I first found 
 " Youth and Beauty " in Kentucky. A year later 
 I found it in Kingston, R. I. Whether it origi- 
 nated in Kentucky and wandered off to Rhode 
 Island or vice versa no one knows. The few 
 dates given are taken from old drafts, but they 
 indicate only the age of the draft, not the age of 
 the pattern itself. 
 
 [93]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 may have one name in North Carolina, 
 another in Kentucky, another in Ten- 
 nessee, and still another in Virginia , as 
 if it were a criminal fleeing from justice. 
 A friend whose coverlet knowledge is 
 both wide and deep once told me that 
 "Governor's Garden" was "Gover- 
 nor's Garden" always and everywhere. 
 So I took my pen and wrote: 
 
 "In this bewildering masquerade 
 there is one steadfast pattern. 
 Whether you find 'Governor's Garden' 
 in Massachusetts or Kentucky, in Maine 
 or Ohio, it is always 'Governor's Gar- 
 den,' a stately aristocrat with whose 
 name no one dares take liberties." But 
 a few weeks later I learned from some 
 
 East Tennessee weavers that "Gov- 
 
 [94]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 ernor's Garden" is also called "Leop- 
 ard Spots" or "The Spotted Leopard," 
 and later still I found my "stately 
 aristocrat" known in New York as 
 "Rocky Mountain Cucumber," the most 
 grotesque and plebeian of all the gro- 
 tesque and plebeian names! 
 
 Writing on this particular branch of 
 my subject is like walking on shifting 
 sands. When I write a name under 
 a design it is with a hesitating pen, for 
 I know that any statement as to nomen- 
 clature will have to be added to or 
 subtracted from or perhaps completely 
 erased. Usually investigation results in 
 certainty and clear knowledge, but the 
 more you investigate this subject the 
 deeper grows your bewilderment and 
 
 [95]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 the less certainty do you feel about the 
 correctness of your naming. For two 
 years I knew one pattern as "Kentucky 
 Snowballs." Then I learned that it 
 should be "Kentucky Snownakes." 
 Later on I discovered it in East Ten- 
 nessee under the name of "Hail Storm," 
 and somewhere else it is "Colonel Jack- 
 son's Army" — the small white spots 
 resembling the tents of an army en- 
 camped on a plain — and yet again it 
 is "Alabama Squares," and next week 
 or a week after I may learn a fresh 
 name. I have names without patterns 
 and patterns without names, and both 
 distress me, for they are like souls with- 
 out bodies and bodies without souls. 
 
 I feel great pride at the thought that 
 
 [96]
 
 LADIES' DELIGHT 
 
 A COMBINATION of ''Win- 
 dow Sash" and "Double 
 Bow Knot." In the Kentucky 
 mountains it is sometimes called 
 "Gentleman's Fancy." The cov- 
 erlet was woven about sixty years 
 ago near Franklin, Ky. Owned by 
 Mrs. M. A. Cooke, Bowling Green, 
 Ky. Colors, dark blue and white.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 perhaps no one in the world has as 
 many coverlet names as I have; but, 
 dear as these are to me, many of them 
 only increase the sum of life's disap- 
 pointments. There are so many things 
 I would like to see and never shall see: 
 the heather purpling on the moors of 
 Scotland, sunshine on the bay of Naples, 
 the Coliseum by moonlight, violets 
 blooming over the grave of Keats, and 
 to these I must add "Cuckoo's Nest," 
 "Fading Leaf," "Snowball and Dew- 
 drop," and a hundred other missing 
 designs whose names "haunt my 
 dreams" as the odors from those "lilies 
 of eternal peace" haunted the dreams 
 of Galahad. 
 
 [97]
 
 V 
 COVERLET DESIGNS
 
 V 
 
 COVERLET DESIGNS 
 
 "In my mind's eye, Horatio." 
 
 5^H HENCE do they come, 
 
 ^ u   A A   
 
 these myriad designs 
 
 and their fantastic 
 
 names ? 
 
 From 
 
 the 
 
 same 
 
 ethereal region where Shakespeare met 
 Miranda and Rosalind, where Prax- 
 iteles first saw his statues and Shelley 
 heard his "Hymn to the Skylark." 
 The mountain woman, like the Sensi- 
 tive Plant, 
 ". . . desires what she has not, the beautiful." 
 
 There are no paintings on her walls, 
 
 [ioi]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 no bric-a-brac on her mantel-shelf, but 
 over her shine the same moon and 
 stars that woke dreams in the soul of 
 Homer; at her feet bloom the flowers 
 that the poets loved, and in her brain is 
 the creative imagination that is the source 
 of all art; so, though palette, chisel, 
 brush, and the lore of books be with- 
 held from her, the love of beauty, the 
 desire to create beauty, will have its 
 way, and with wheel and distaff, loom 
 and dye-pot, she does an artist's work. 
 
 Certain folk-stories and myths are 
 common to all literature, and certain 
 forms of beauty are common to all art. 
 We find them drifting from one coun- 
 try to another, seeking expression in 
 
 clay or marble or in woven threads. 
 
 [102]
 
 DOUBLE MUSCADINE HULLS 
 
 A COMPOSITE pattern show- 
 ing features of ''Weavers 
 Choice" and the "Double Bow 
 Knot" or "Hickory Leaf" designs. 
 Woven in Tishomingo County, Miss. 
 Owned by the writer, to whom, it was 
 given by William Wade.
 
 mm 
 
 m 
 
 LLCXXUL 
 
 
 
 ao:o:ooi;); 
 
 t v«v-v. 
 
 HP 
 
 $M%i 

 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 The swastika of the Hindoo race is also 
 a Christian symbol and is found in the 
 Roman catacombs of the fourth cen- 
 tury, in Iceland in the ninth century, 
 all over Asia and Europe, on old Greek 
 coins, on Etruscan vases, on the pot- 
 tery of the Pueblo Indian, on the Navajo 
 blanket, and in the decorative work of 
 the Hindoo. In the ruins of Yucatan 
 we see sculptured designs similar to 
 the scrolls and rectilinear frets used by 
 the Greeks and Romans, and if you 
 place side by side the designs used by 
 the Navajo Indian and the Scandina- 
 vian weaver, you would say that artists 
 of the same blood must have created 
 them. The Scandinavian weaver uses 
 
 the straight lines that are the special 
 
 [103]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 mark of Navajo work. The zigzag de- 
 sign that the Navajo uses to represent 
 lightning is found in the textile work 
 of Norway and Sweden, and some old 
 coverlet woven in New England or the 
 mountains of the southern states may 
 show a pattern whose lines will lead us 
 back to the days of the Vikings. 
 
 Over a sofa in my parlor hangs a 
 "Double Muscadine Hulls" in brown 
 and ecru. Every one who sees it says, 
 "That is oriental." It resembles Jap- 
 anese matting, but is closer kin to a 
 piece of Samoan tapa cloth which hangs 
 over the landing of my stairway. Both 
 are brown, both are divided into squares, 
 and both show the leafy design known as 
 
 "Bow Knot." The gorgeous beauty of 
 
 [104]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 "Thistles and Lilies" is Chinese in effect, 
 and the "Bird of Paradise" is like a 
 piece of old English tapestry. 
 
 One day a photograph of "Bona- 
 parte's March" came to me. As I 
 studied it I happened to look down and 
 found "Bonaparte's March" in the rug 
 under my feet. The flower-like "Snow- 
 ball" and the figure that the mountain 
 woman calls "Catalpa Flower" also 
 occur in oriental rugs, and a Navajo 
 squaw might have woven Elizabeth 
 Dean's blue and white coverlet. 
 
 The "Chariot Wheel," a circle with 
 
 two diameters crossing each other at 
 
 right angles, is one of the oldest designs. 
 
 In the pictographs of the Moqui Indians 
 
 in Arizona the symbol for the word 
 
 [105]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 "star" is the hub and spokes of the 
 Chariot Wheel, thus : W . The wheel 
 itself, like the swastika, is almost omni- 
 present. It is the letter theta of the Greek 
 alphabet, it is found in the insignia of 
 the Roman legions, in the Aramean alpha- 
 bet, in the pictographs and syllabary of 
 the Cherokee Indians and the ancient 
 Mexicans, in the Codex Cortesianus, an 
 old Maya manuscript, and on the pottery 
 of the Mound Builders. 1 Thus does 
 one touch of art, like "one touch of 
 nature," make "the whole world kin." 
 
 Once when I was a child of eleven 
 years, somebody placed a kaleidoscope 
 
 in my hand and told me to look through 
 
 1 In the Mexican pictographs it represents a 
 bale of blankets and the diameters are the ropes 
 that tie the bale. 
 
 [106]
 
 SINGLE CHARIOT WHEELS 
 
 DESIGN taken from a cover- 
 let woven in Madison Comity, 
 Ky. Part of the William Wade 
 Collection.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 it. Memory has loosed her grasp on 
 hundreds of childish days, but this one 
 she still holds fast and surrounds with 
 the halo of enchantment. All day I 
 sat gazing through the little tube into 
 a world of form and color that delighted 
 my eye as chords of music delight my 
 ear, and the same witchery seizes and 
 holds me when I look long at some of 
 these coverlets. You know how one 
 slight motion of the kaleidoscope dis- 
 places the pieces of colored glass, dis- 
 solving the pattern at which you were 
 gazing and replacing it with another of 
 equal beauty. So it is with these de- 
 signs. I have only to throw an old 
 coverlet over a chair, sit down and 
 
 fix my eyes on it and behold! I am a 
 
 [ 107]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 child and the coverlet is my kaleido- 
 scope. 
 
 I look at "Single Chariot Wheels" 
 and see first the circular figures that 
 represent wheels. Then I catch sight 
 of a straight line; I follow it up; in- 
 stantly the Chariot Wheels disappear 
 and I see only diagonal lines meeting, 
 crossing, and forming a net-work of beau- 
 tiful squares, four small squares making 
 a large square as in patchwork. I study 
 "The Cross," and at first it seems only 
 a collection of squares, with the sun- 
 burst pattern in some of them, then 
 the cross appears, and longer study 
 reveals the beautiful octagonal figure 
 found in "Lover's Knot." This is very 
 
 elusive. I find it, then lose it, and find 
 
 [108]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 it again only to have it disappear be- 
 fore the " Cross " or the " Sunrise." Place 
 the "Cross" by the side of "Snail 
 Trail" and they seem entirely different; 
 but make an inclined plane of the page 
 on which "The Cross" is found, and 
 look diagonally from the lower left-hand 
 corner to the upper right-hand corner 
 and presto! you have the winding lines 
 of "Snail Trail." To look at "Double 
 Muscadine Hulls" is like walking in a 
 maze where every path leads to some- 
 thing beautiful. I thread my way through 
 "Governor's Garden," finding grav- 
 elled walks edged with box, grassy ter- 
 races, and beds of pinks, and clumps of 
 old-fashioned roses. "Missouri Trouble" 
 
 is as beautiful as a stained glass window, 
 
 [109]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 and "Sunrise on the Walls of Troy" is a 
 Greek poem of form and color. 
 
 The quincunx, five squares or figures, 
 one in the centre and one at each cor- 
 ner, is a frequent feature. "Catalpa 
 Flower" has this quincuncial arrange- 
 ment in the dark groundwork, making 
 a background for the white flowers and 
 the white bars connecting them. If 
 these bars were woven in dark thread 
 instead of white, the appropriateness of 
 the name would be indisputable, for the 
 four "flowers" would appear just as in 
 "Missouri Trouble." This bar with a 
 flower-like figure at each end often ac- 
 companies the "Chariot Wheel." You 
 find it in "Shells of Ocean" slightly 
 
 pointed, in "Ocean Wave" long and slen- 
 
 [no]
 
 THE CROSS 
 
 WOVEN in Union County, 
 Tenn. Owing to the colors 
 of this coverlet, dark brown and 
 ecru, it does not photograph well, 
 but the picture shows the beauty of 
 the design.
 
 r " M ww»wm»iwpi 
 
 ^WW^^^)

 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 der, in "Single Chariot Wheels" short 
 and broad, and in "Double Chariot 
 Wheels" it separates the four wheels, 
 forming a beautiful cross very much 
 like the cross trefle of heraldry. The 
 Tennessee design called "The Cross" 
 shows the couped cross of heraldry, 
 and the cross decussata or St. Andrew's 
 cross occurs in "Tennessee Trouble," 
 "Missouri Trouble," "Irish Chain," 
 and "Lily of the Valley." It is prob- 
 able that designs showing heraldic de- 
 vices are of English origin. "Double 
 Chariot Wheels" undoubtedly is, for 
 it is also called "Church Windows" 
 from its resemblance to a rose window 
 in an English cathedral. But whoever 
 
 tries to trace any heraldic design to its 
 
 [in]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 ultimate source will find himself on a 
 long journey whose end lies in pre- 
 historic darkness. Oriental nations, the 
 Chinese especially, placed certain sym- 
 bolic designs on their shields when they 
 went to war, believing that these were 
 charms to avert the weapons of the 
 enemy. The Greeks and Romans and 
 later the Normans adopted the same 
 custom. In the days of chivalry the 
 device on a knight's armor became the 
 symbol of his family; when one fam- 
 ily intermarried with another the two 
 devices were blended, and this was the 
 origin of "armorial bearings" and the 
 science of heraldry. Thus my thread- 
 bare "Chariot Wheel" coverlet in 
 black, white, and dull red, woven half 
 
 [112]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 a century ago by an illiterate country- 
 woman, speaks to me of strange things 
 in strange lands; of armed warriors from 
 Thrace and the Palatine, of crusaders 
 bound for the Holy Land, of cathedrals 
 where the light falls dim through win- 
 dows of wonderful colored glass, and 
 of kings in gilded chariots going through 
 London town to the place of coro- 
 nation. 
 
 Some of the designs are modern and 
 purely American. "Federal City," for 
 instance, was an attempt to represent 
 the squares and avenues of the national 
 capital. Sometimes an old design is 
 slightly modified and re-named. "Lee's 
 Surrender" is said to be a modifica- 
 tion of the older design, "Braddock's 
 
 [113]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Defeat," and the "Double Bow Knot" is 
 an evolution of the ancient "Sunrise" 
 design so often seen in the oldest cover- 
 lets. I wish I knew the name of the 
 weaver who had originality enough to 
 think of making the sun-rays converge 
 at both points, thus forming the beau- 
 tiful leafy pattern that has so many 
 names. It is curious to observe how 
 a slight variation like this will com- 
 pletely disguise a pattern, and merely 
 enlarging or diminishing a pattern will 
 sometimes conceal its identity. I looked 
 at "Sugar Loaf" and "Doors and Win- 
 dows" many times before I saw that 
 they were the same, only woven on a 
 different scale. 
 
 It is impossible to speak of these 
 
 [114]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 coverlet patterns except in the terms of 
 
 art. Often I find myself thinking and 
 
 writing as if weaving and music were 
 
 sister arts. A draft is like a long bar 
 
 of music and the figures or marks on it 
 
 are the notes. When I see a weaver 
 
 at his loom I think of an organist seated 
 
 before a great organ, and the treadles 
 
 of the loom are like the pedals and 
 
 stops of the musical instrument. I 
 
 look at the threads and the loom seems 
 
 a stringed instrument, too huge for the 
 
 hand of man, but made to be played on 
 
 by every wind of heaven; and whenever 
 
 I begin to study a new coverlet pat- 
 
 * 
 tern, Milton's lines come to me: 
 
 " Untwisting all the chains that tie 
 The hidden soul of harmony." 
 
 [115]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 We think with wonder and admira- 
 tion of the musician who carries in his 
 brain a repertory of harmonies that 
 his fingers express on the strings of his 
 chosen instrument. But the same 
 wonder and admiration that I would 
 feel in the presence of Chaminade or 
 Paderewski comes over me when I 
 stand in the presence of a mountain 
 weaver. Her dress may be unfashion- 
 able, her language plain and ungram- 
 matical, but she is mistress of an art 
 so old that history can tell us nothing 
 of its beginning; her brain holds the 
 complexities of ten, twenty, thirty, or 
 forty harmonies of form and color, and 
 her work endures because it bears the 
 
 marks of that noble craftsmanship 
 
 [116]
 
 A MONROE COUNTY COVERLET 
 
 AN original design woven about 
 sixty years ago in Mon- 
 roe County, Ky., by Mrs. Irene 
 Celsor. A magnifying glass is 
 needed to show the beauty of the 
 pattern. Colors, black, white, and 
 pinkish heliotrope.
 
 Il l\* I 111 I   * 
 « i •■ •   
 
 > I III)!   
 II HIAl ■. 
 I II 111   
 
 - II • I     
 • HI III
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 which William Morris defined as "thor- 
 oughly good workmanship which results 
 from a positive interest and satisfaction 
 in the work." 
 
 "I come of a weaving family," said 
 a Monroe County woman to me, as she 
 displayed some coverlets of highly origi- 
 nal designs and colors. The talent for 
 weaving "runs" in families and mani- 
 fests itself in varying degrees. Some 
 weavers must have a draft to guide 
 them; they are like musicians who play 
 only by note. Others can look at a 
 coverlet or a picture of one, then write 
 a draft and weave it with perfect accu- 
 racy; they are like musicians who play 
 by ear. Others require neither cover- 
 let nor picture to guide them; they make 
 
 [117]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 their own drafts, following an inner 
 vision after the manner of the Navajo 
 artist, and they are the original com- 
 posers, the Mozarts and Beethovens 
 of textile art. Then, too, there are 
 the less gifted ones whose originality 
 goes no farther than making slight vari- 
 ations in some well-known pattern or 
 combining two patterns. 
 
 All musical harmonies are constructed 
 on a basis of seven primary notes, and 
 a like simplicity underlies the har- 
 monies of form and color found in 
 coverlets. At first the patterns seem 
 bewilderingly complex and different, but 
 after much gazing and comparing, the 
 coverlet student will find the different 
 
 units, the pine burr, the sea star, the 
 
 [118]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 catalpa flower, the leaf, the chariot 
 wheel, the king's flower, the dogwood 
 blossom or snowball, the square, the 
 circle, the diamond, and when a new 
 design is brought before him he ana- 
 lyzes it at a glance and determines its 
 relation to other designs. The related de- 
 signs are represented in this book so that 
 the reader may see the "like in like" and 
 "like in difference" and observe how one 
 design is evolved from another. 
 
 The Navajo weaver originates his 
 own designs and never weaves the 
 same design twice. The mountain 
 woman, on the other hand, inherits 
 her patterns. In the old days every 
 mother taught her daughter to weave 
 and every family had its own particular 
 
 [119]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 patterns; but lest the precious knowl- 
 edge might be lost, the patterns were 
 indicated by marks and figures on paper, 
 and these "drafts," as the weavers call 
 them, passed from hand to hand as 
 long as the paper lasted. Eleven 
 "drafts" lie before me and I wish each 
 reader could see the slender rolls of 
 paper and cloths as I see them. I 
 handle them reverently as I would 
 handle a poet's manuscript, for is not 
 each the record of a woman's dream of 
 art? Cloth and paper alike are brown 
 with age and the paper is brittle as birch 
 bark. One bears a date which shows 
 it to be fifty-eight years old; another 
 must be at least twenty years older, 
 
 for the paper falls into fragments as 
 
 [120]
 
 OLD DRAFTS USED IN THE 
 KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS
 
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 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 you unroll it. Old letters were cut 
 into strips an inch and a half or two 
 inches wide. The strips were sewed 
 together with coarse homespun thread, 
 one is pinned with a clumsy old pin, 
 and as the paper began to wear out it 
 was sewed on a strip of homespun cloth. 
 On one side of the paper a long dead 
 mountaineer says: 
 
 "My dere brother I take my pen in 
 hand to tell you that I am well and 
 hope you have the same blessing of 
 health." On the other side the brother's 
 wife has traced a "draft" called "the 
 ginny-fowle." The handwriting on one 
 of the drafts is that of an educated per- 
 son, and this cabalistic direction is writ- 
 ten on one: "Five threads in each split 
 
 [121]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 as fare as the fives in draft/* With 
 such slender memoranda as these old 
 slips of paper it is a marvel that more 
 patterns have not become obsolete, and 
 often a long search has to be made for 
 a wise old woman who can weave a 
 rare pattern and teach the art to the 
 younger weavers. 
 
 There are at least six different methods 
 of writing drafts and the method often 
 shows the nationality of the weavers. All 
 the drafts found about Berea are written 
 in the English method, another proof 
 that the mountaineer is of Anglo-Saxon 
 blood. Drafts written according to the 
 Scotch method point, of course, to a 
 Scotch or Scotch-Irish ancestry. 
 
 The designer's art will never go be- 
 
 [122]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 yond the beauty of these old patterns. 
 The revival of the handcrafts restores 
 to them their former value, and who- 
 ever rescues one design from destruc- 
 tion renders a service to textile art. 
 How many designs there were in our 
 grandmother's day we shall never know, 
 and my list of names is no index to their 
 number, since each pattern has more 
 than one name. Many are already lost 
 beyond recovery and more will be lost, 
 year by year, as the drafts are de- 
 stroyed and the coverlets fall into 
 tatters. What beautiful designs have 
 I seen on ragged, dirty fragments of cov- 
 erlets, and how often have I listened 
 trustingly to the farmer as he says 
 
 cheerfully: 
 
 [123]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 "Yes, ma'am, I'll bring it to you jest 
 as soon as I sell my terbacker." 
 
 "Please, please, don't forget," I plead, 
 "I only want to get a photograph of it." 
 
 He repeats his promise, goes his way, 
 and I never see that scrap of a coverlet 
 again. Thus have I lost a wonder- 
 ful "Magnolia Bloom," a composite pat- 
 tern resembling "Weaver's Choice" and 
 "Forty-Nine Snowballs," and another 
 of Scandinavian origin, whose name I 
 did not know, and whose like I prob- 
 ably shall never look upon again. These 
 three and countless others are lying in 
 barn lofts or dusty garrets, and as ill 
 usage destroys the last shred of each, 
 a form of beauty perishes and the world 
 
 is poorer evermore. 
 
 [124]
 
 FORTY-NINE SNOWBALLS 
 
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 "RESTORED" coverlet, 
 
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 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 The charm of the coverlet pattern 
 may not be at once apparent, but hang 
 a "Whig Rose" or a "Dogwood Blos- 
 som" in the most elegant parlor you 
 can find, and presently that homespun, 
 home-dyed, home-woven fabric will be 
 " the cynosure of every eye." The walls 
 may be hung with masterpieces in oil 
 and water-color, the windows curtained 
 with costly lace, the doorways draped 
 with portieres of oriental silk and the 
 floors carpeted with oriental rugs. Still 
 the coverlet, though worn and faded, 
 will hold its own in the midst of all 
 this magnificence, because the hand that 
 made it was guided by the soul of an 
 artist. 
 
 [125]
 
 VI 
 COVERLET COLORS
 
 VI 
 
 COVERLET COLORS 
 
 "Its loveliness increases." 
 
 N 1 817, the year in 
 which Bryant's "Than- 
 atopsis" appeared, at 
 the beginning of Mon- 
 roe's administration, a 
 book was published with the following 
 
 title: 
 
 The 
 
 Domestic Manufacturer's Assistant, 
 
 and 
 
 Family Directory, 
 
 in the Arts 
 
 OF 
 
 Weaving and Dyeing 
 
 Comprehending 
 
 A Plain System of Directions, 
 
 Applying to Those Arts and Other Branches 
 
 Nearly Connected with 
 
 [ 129]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Them in the Manufacture of 
 
 Cotton and Woollen Goods; 
 
 Including Many Useful 
 
 Tables and Drafts, 
 
 In Calculating and Forming Various Kinds 
 
 and Patterns of Goods 
 Designed for the Improvement of Domestic 
 Manufacturers. 
 By J. & R. Bronson. 
 Utica. 
 Printed by William Williams; 
 No. 60, Genesee Street. 
 
 If the purpose of a title is to give the 
 reader a clue to the character of the 
 book this title is faultless; and utili- 
 tarian as the volume is, it was doubt- 
 less a "best seller" in its time, for in 
 1817 every housewife was a "Domes- 
 tic Manufacturer," and weaving and 
 dyeing were as much a part of the day's 
 work as cooking and dish-washing. 
 Indeed, a coat of arms that would suit 
 the origin of most American families 
 
 [130]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 would be a field of white and azure, 
 — the azure made with indigo — a loom 
 and spinning-wheel rampant and a dye- 
 pot couchant. 
 
 Should you, by good chance, ever 
 find this little book with the long title 
 amongst the rubbish of a second-hand 
 book-store, you will learn from its pages 
 what "woman's work" was a century 
 ago, and you will read with wonder 
 the processes by which our ancestors 
 managed to put color into their sur- 
 roundings; for even Puritanism could 
 not crush out their love of bright hues. 
 There must be brown, drab, gray, and 
 black for matron and man; yes, and 
 blue, scarlet, and green for the maiden's 
 
 gown and kirtle, and for the coverlet 
 
 [131]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 
 that draped the four-poster bed. So 
 every housekeeper toiled willingly over 
 vat and dye-pot; and the joy she had 
 in her completed work was greater than 
 yours as you shake out the lustrous 
 folds of silk and cashmere you have 
 bought from the merchant's counter, 
 for your joy is that of the careless buyer, 
 and hers was the joy of the toiler and 
 the creator. 
 
 When ships from foreign parts came 
 sailing into the harbors of Boston, New 
 York, and Charleston, they carried in 
 their cargoes madder, Nicaragua wood, 
 anotta, Brazil wood, camwood, log- 
 wood, and rocou from South Amer- 
 ica and Central America; fustic from the 
 
 West Indies, turmeric and indigo from 
 
 [ 132]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 the East Indies, tin from the mines of 
 Cornwall, cochineal from Mexico and 
 Central America, and woad from Eng- 
 lish fields where centuries ago the sav- 
 age Britons gathered it and stained 
 their bodies with the juice. 
 
 Your grandmother probably kept all 
 these strange things in her cupboard 
 and used them with the skill of the pro- 
 fessional dyer. From cochineal, madder, 
 Nicaragua wood, Brazil wood, and cam- 
 wood she produced every shade of scar- 
 let and crimson; logwood furnished a 
 black dye; fustic, weld, turmeric, and 
 anotta gave any shade of yellow; woad 
 and indigo made the blue dyes; and if 
 these commercial articles were too 
 
 costly for her purse the forest was just 
 
 [133]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 beyond her door, and, though she was 
 no student of botany, she knew how 
 to gather from plant and tree dye- 
 stuffs as worthy as those that came 
 from beyond the seas. If she wanted 
 yellow dye, she used peach leaves or 
 the leaves of the smart-weed growing 
 in moist places by the wayside. 
 Alder, birch, walnut, hickory, yellow 
 oak, and Lombardy poplar offered their 
 bark, and the sumac its stalks for the 
 same purpose. The butternut, hem- 
 lock, and maple gave her brown dyes, 
 and nutgalls made black or gray. She 
 knew, also, how to produce two or three 
 colors from the same substance by using 
 different mordants such as sal-ammo- 
 niac, alum, copperas, blue vitriol, verdi- 
 
 [i34]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 gris, and cream of tartar; and she melted 
 the block tin of Cornish mines, dis- 
 solved it in aqua fortis and used it in 
 dyeing scarlet, crimson, and yellow. 
 Grandmother did not know it, but the 
 art she dabbled in is perhaps as old as 
 the art of weaving, and some of the 
 materials she used were known cen- 
 turies ago. Traces of indigo have been 
 found in the garments of mummies 
 that were embalmed nearly a thousand 
 years before the birth of Christ. A 
 manuscript book on the art of dyeing 
 written in French in 1380 mentions 
 Brazil wood, indigo, gallnuts, alum, 
 copperas and tin, and an old fifteenth- 
 century manuscript in the convent of 
 
 St. Salvatore in Bologna gives directions 
 
 [135]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 for dyeing with woad, sumac, gallnuts, 
 berries of the buckthorn, Brazil wood, 
 and madder. In these remote times 
 color was something more than a delight 
 to the eye; it had a significance and im- 
 portance unknown to us who live under 
 a triumphant democracy. Among the 
 ancient laws of Ireland was one that 
 prescribed the number of colors that 
 each class could wear, and only kings 
 were allowed to wear seven colors. The 
 clans of Scotland were known by the 
 colors of their tartans, and color was 
 a distinguishing feature of every coat of 
 arms. The curtains of the ark and 
 the garments of the high-priest were 
 gorgeous with color, scarlet, purple, and 
 
 blue; and in the thirteenth century the 
 
 [136]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Jews excelled all other nations in the 
 dyer's art. But neither Egyptian, Ori- 
 ental, French, Tyrian, Italian, or Jewish 
 dyer ever produced colors more vivid 
 and lasting than those which came from 
 the dye-pots of your grandmother's days. 
 Do you know the blue of the ocean 
 in Sir Frederick Leighton's pictures ? — 
 that clear, greenish sea-blue that makes 
 you think of fathom on fathom of ocean 
 depth? I get this same impression of 
 endless depth when I look at the indigo 
 blue of an old coverlet. Place such a 
 coverlet as "Double Roses" or any of 
 the "Lover's Knots" under an electric 
 light, and you catch your breath and 
 burst into admiring exclamation, as the 
 blue designs "standout" from the back- 
 
 [ i37 1
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 ground of dazzling white and the cov- 
 erlet becomes apparently a square of 
 embossed velvet. 
 
 "Lasting Beauty" might be the name 
 of any of these coverlets. Time has 
 his way with the tints of a woman's 
 cheek and a woman's hair, but when 
 he tries his wicked arts on grandmother's 
 indigo blue he stands amazed and baffled, 
 and all he can do to the reds, greens, 
 browns, and yellows that came from 
 the old-fashioned dye-pots is to soften 
 them to a delicate beauty that makes 
 their old age better than their youth. 
 Are you a worshipper of color? Can 
 you dream for an hour over the dull 
 pink and the ivory white of an Iran rug ? 
 
 Do you prowl around in old junk shops 
 
 [138]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 looking for faded tapestry, Belgian or 
 English? Then you should belong to 
 the Cult of the Old Coverlet. Never 
 mind about the lost secrets of the Gob- 
 elin tapestry workers; cease to yearn 
 for that Etruscan blue whose formula 
 perished centuries ago; all the lost 
 colors, and some that were never lost 
 and never will be lost you can find in 
 the threads of those old coverlets, and 
 the artist who mixes the color will tell 
 you her professional secrets. 
 
 Here are some recipes from Knott 
 County, Kentucky, given by Mary 
 Stacey, a mountain woman who is noted 
 for the beauty and variety of her vege- 
 table dyes. They were taken down in 
 
 her own language: 
 
 [139]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 "Indigo Dye. — To two gallons of 
 warm water add one pint lye from 
 wood ashes. Mix one pint of madder 
 with one pint wheat bran, and a little 
 water — enough to wet it. Put this in 
 the bottom of the kettle with a white 
 plate over it. Put the indigo in a thick 
 cloth in the two gallons of water and 
 when it is soft rub out the dye. Then 
 put in the blue yeast saved from the 
 last dyeing. Keep it warm — just milk 
 warm — for four or five days without 
 bothering it. At night draw hot ashes 
 plumb around your jar, and in the day- 
 time keep it setting by the hearth just 
 lukewarm all the time. 
 
 "For a dark blue let the yarn lay in 
 
 several hours. Take it out and air it 
 
 [ 140]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 and put it back. Be sure to wet the 
 goods before you put it in. Rench it 
 in cold water when you take it out. 
 If you want a light blue, dip it over and 
 over till you have the right color. 
 
 "Red. — Have the yarn clean, washed 
 with soap and renched well. Bile it 
 in alum water a small while. Take it 
 out and throw out the alum water. 
 Then make a thin flour starch and put 
 in the madder and put the yarn in and 
 bile it till it makes a good color. Hang 
 it out to dry: Take one pound of mad- 
 der to every three yards of goods, or 
 four pounds of yarn. 
 
 "Green. — Peel off the bark of black 
 
 jack or black oak. Bile your bark 
 
 much as half an hour. Hits awful 
 
 [141]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 strong. Take the bark out and have 
 plenty of water in the kettle. Put in 
 some alum and put your yarn in and 
 bile it awhile, maybe half an hour. 
 Wring it out and dip it in blue dye and 
 then its pint blank like that I colored 
 out thar. 
 
 "Brown. — Take white walnut bark 
 and bile till its a good strong ooze, then 
 take the bark out. Put in the yarn 
 and bile it till its as dark as you want it. 
 
 "Black. — When you take out your 
 walnut put in a big tablespoonful of 
 copperas. A handful of shumake ber- 
 ries makes it glisterin' black." 
 
 Mrs. Frankie Sturgill of Knott 
 County, Kentucky, contributes the fol- 
 lowing recipes: 
 
 [ 142 1
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 "Indigo Dye. — Ought to have wheat 
 bran if you can get it, but corn bran 
 will do. Put in a little grain of flour. 
 Just take wheat bran and madder, \ lb. 
 of madder and a pint of bran, mix up 
 with water, put in kettle. Make a little 
 cotton bag and put the indigo in it and 
 wet it and just keep rubbing out your 
 indigo, like bluing in clothes. You must 
 let this set three or four days in summer 
 and keep the water warm. You can 
 just put your hand on top of it and the 
 indigo will stick to your hands. Then 
 it is ready. Take water and mix up 
 madder and boil all together. Dip in 
 your wool and then take it out and let 
 it air, then dip again, and keep on dip- 
 ping and airing and rubbing in your 
 
 [i43l
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 indigo until it gits as dark as you 
 want. 
 
 " Madder. — Have your wool right 
 clean, washed with soap, and git you 
 some alum. It takes a half pound of 
 alum for five yards of yarn. Just put 
 in enough water that you think will 
 cover five yards. You boil it in that 
 alum water for half an hour and then 
 take it out and air it. Put in your 
 madder and let it boil and then put in 
 your wool and let it boil about an hour. 
 Take out and wring and let it dry. My 
 mother showed me how to do it when 
 I was a little child. 
 
 "Green Dye. — Git this here black 
 jack bark. Have your yarn dyed in- 
 digo blue first. Bile it well and put in 
 
 [ H4]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 a lump of alum as big as your fist. It 
 don't take very much black jack or 
 very much hickory bark, nary one. 
 Bile it in a tolerable large vessel. 
 When you get your ooze biled, take out 
 your bark and put in the wool and 
 bile just a few minutes. 
 
 "Purple. — Git maple bark and 
 copperas. 
 
 "Bile your bark until you git a pretty 
 good ooze and put in just a little grain 
 of copperas, then put in your wool. 
 
 "Brown, Spruce Pine. — Just git 
 bark and put in water and bile and do 
 not put in alum. 
 
 "Chestnut bark makes awful pretty 
 brown and hit never fades, but spruce 
 pine will fade. 
 
 [i45]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 " Copperas makes walnut dye black. If 
 you don't put in your copperas it will 
 be brown." 
 
 "What is an 'ooze'?" I asked. 
 
 "I can't tell you just what a ooze 
 is. You can just come and see. Hits 
 just the dye that you put the wool in 
 and if you want another ooze, you bile 
 more bark and put it in." 
 
 Mrs. Sally Gayheart from the same 
 county gives her methods of dyeing 
 just as she learned them from her grand- 
 mother, who was a Salisbury from " that 
 absent and far away country they call 
 England." 
 
 "Walnut Dye. — You want to git 
 
 your roots and sprouts. Git 'em on the 
 
 new moon in June. Skin 'em from the 
 
 [146]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 root up. Bile 'em about two or three 
 hours. Bile just about one ooze. Put 
 your wool in the ooze and bile it. If 
 it haint dark enough, take out and bile 
 more bark and put it in that. A grain 
 of copperas'll make it darker. If you 
 hang it out in the sun, hit'll turn dark. 
 "Green Dye. — Git hickory bark any 
 time. Better git it when the sap's up. 
 That's heap the easiest time. Bile out 
 your ooze, and put in a little alum. Keep 
 bilin' until it gits strong enough. Put 
 in your wool. You kin tell when hit's 
 green enough." (Just here I asked Aunt 
 Sally to make me a pretty green cover- 
 let. She said, "Hit's right smart both- 
 erment to put in just one kiverlet.") 
 
 "Dye for Cotton. — Just take maple 
 
 [147]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 and chestnut bark." ("How much?" I 
 asked.) "I never pay no 'tention to how 
 much. I just throw it in until I git 
 enough. Hit'll either be coal black or 
 purple, when you bile it enough. 
 
 "Walnut Dye. — Have plenty of 
 white walnut bark. Put a little cop- 
 peras in it. Bile it good and strong and 
 put in yarn. Bile it till it gits as deep 
 as you want it. 
 
 "Purple or Black. — Git maple 
 bark and bile it. Throw in a grain of 
 copperas and put in your wool. Bile 
 it just about so long, if you want purple, 
 and longer if you want black. The 
 longer you bile it the darker it gits. 
 
 "Green. — Git black jack or black oak 
 
 and bile it right good, and put in a 
 
 [148]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 little piece of alum. This makes the pret- 
 tiest green, mighty-nigh, that ever was. 
 
 "Yellow. — Git brown sage, 1 and bile 
 it and put in a little alum. It makes 
 the prettiest yaller that ever was." 
 
 The indefiniteness of these recipes 
 is a proof that they come from the 
 world of art. Do you suppose Turner 
 and Rembrandt could have given an 
 exact formula for any one of their match- 
 less colors? They were guided by a 
 power they themselves did not under- 
 stand, the power we call genius, that 
 works through the medium of a mortal 
 mind, but refuses an answer when we 
 question: "How?" This power guides 
 the mountain artist when she puts an 
 
 1 Sedge grass. 
 [149]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 unknown quantity of bark or roots into 
 an uncertain quantity of water, throws 
 in " a grain " of copperas or ' ' a little piece 
 of alum and boils it "just about so 
 long." 
 
 The following exact recipes are for 
 those who lack the intuitive knowledge 
 of the mountain dyer: 
 
 "Yellow Hickory Bark Dye for 
 Wool. — For one pound of wool put 
 one half bushel of bark in kettle. Cover 
 with water. Boil two hours. Take out 
 and add one table-spoon of alum. Put 
 in wool and boil until strength is out. 
 Peach tree leaves and sage grass will 
 color the same. 
 
 "Spruce Dye for Wool. — For one 
 
 pound of wool, put one bushel of bark 
 
 [ISO]
 
 THE MARY SIMMONS COVERLET 
 
 WOVEN in Warren County, 
 Ky. Owned by Mrs. Mary 
 C. Simmons, Bowling Green, Ky.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 in a large kettle and cover with water. 
 Boil two hours; take out the bark and put 
 in the wool and boil until the strength 
 is all out and then dip in weak lye. 
 
 "Walnut Dye for Wool. — For one 
 pound of wool put one half bushel of 
 bark or roots in a kettle and cover with 
 water. Boil two hours; take out bark 
 and put in wool; boil until strength is 
 out. Add one table-spoonful of copperas 
 to above if you want black, and dip in 
 weak lye." 
 
 This recipe for yellow dye comes from 
 North Carolina: 
 
 "Get the flowers of the Black-eyed 
 
 Susan, boil them and set the color with 
 
 alum." 
 
 The weaver who gave me this recipe 
 
 [151]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 said that a beautiful green used to be 
 made by dyeing the yarn blue with 
 indigo and then dipping it into a yel- 
 low dye made from the leaves of a 
 shrub found in the North Carolina 
 mountains, probably the sweet laurel. 
 I have a tiny sample of yarn, dyed yel- 
 low with the flowers of the Black-eyed 
 Susan, and twisted with it is a piece 
 of brownish-black yarn that owes its color 
 to the "bark from the roots of the 
 butternut." Whoever uses the bark of 
 the yellow oak must know that there 
 are three coats of bark and that the 
 coloring matter is found only in the 
 middle coat. 
 
 Curious color effects are produced 
 
 by weaving a warp of one color with a 
 
 [152]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 woof of another. Dark blue woven with 
 white makes a pale blue; a brownish red 
 woven with indigo blue makes a pur- 
 plish tint, and a soft grayish tint comes 
 from weaving a blue cotton warp with 
 a woof of natural color wool. Madder 
 was generally used to make the red dye 
 of early days, and the weavers of Knott 
 County, Kentucky, use the same mad- 
 der that the Government uses for dyeing 
 the red stripes in the American flag. 
 But occasionally you find among old 
 coverlets a red made from cochineal, 
 and a color expert can easily distinguish 
 this from the madder red. 
 
 A certain Government bulletin on 
 industries in the southern mountains 
 
 tells of a weaver who makes a blue dye 
 
 [i53]
 
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 equal to indigo from a plant known only 
 to herself. This mysterious plant may 
 be the weld, a native of Europe, but 
 found in the eastern part of the United 
 States. The dictionary speaks of 
 "woad or weld," but botany distin- 
 guishes the two, woad being isatis tinc- 
 toria, a member of the mustard family, 
 and weld, reseda luteola, a congener of 
 mignonette. 
 
 Necessity is the mother of more than 
 invention. Necessity forced upon the 
 mountain woman her knowledge of the 
 coloring properties of barks, roots, and 
 herbs, and during the Civil War the 
 \ same hard mother taught the south- 
 erner the uses of many a plant hitherto 
 
 considered useless or merely ornamental. 
 
 [i54l
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 The following list of dyes indigenous 
 to the southern states was given me 
 by Dr. S. D. G. Niles of Tennessee, 
 who copied it from a rare old book, 
 " Resources of Southern Fields and For- 
 ests," by Francis Peyre Porcher, Sur- 
 geon P.A.C.S., published by order of the 
 Surgeon-General, C.S., Charleston, S.C., 
 1863: 
 
 Larkspur: flowers, a fine blue dye. 
 
 Garden Purslane: a desirable blue. 
 
 Wild Indigo: blue equal to com- 
 mercial. 
 
 Yellow Locust: Chinese yellow for 
 silks. 
 
 Wax Myrtle: dark blue, brown, 
 
 black, according to mordant. 
 
 [ i55 ]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Knot Grass: color similar to Japan- 
 ese blue. 
 
 Blood Root Tribe: a beautiful 
 dye. 
 
 The Spider Wort Tribe: the flower 
 is a beautiful blue and Kaempher says 
 a color like ultramarine might be ob- 
 tained. 
 
 Hydrastis Canadensis: brilliant yel- 
 low color. 
 
 Orange or Yellow Root: with indigo 
 yields a rich green. 
 
 Turmein or Golden Seal: with in- 
 digo yields a rich green. 
 
 Yellow Root: plentiful coloring mat- 
 ter, — drab to wool, rich yellow to silk, 
 with Prussian blue strikes dull olive- 
 green. 
 
 [156]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 White Ash: the bark dyes green, 
 blue, and black. 
 
 Onion Tree: with addition of lime 
 to leaves a beautiful green is obtained. 
 
 Meadow Garlic: with addition of lime 
 to leaves a beautiful green is obtained. 
 
 Chess: a good green from flowers. 
 
 Clematis: yellow from both leaves 
 and branches. 
 
 Barberry: root boiled in lye, yellow 
 to wool. 
 
 St. John's Wort: a yellow to woven 
 fabrics from its flowers, and good red 
 dye from leaves. 
 
 Osage Orange: said to be equal to 
 fustic as yellow dye. 
 
 Cockle Burr or Agrimony: leaves 
 
 and stalks a beautiful permanent gold 
 
 [i57]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 color to animal wool, previously impreg- 
 nated with weak solution of bismuth. 
 
 Cynara, Artichoke: dyes yellow 
 color. 
 
 Sassafras: roots with copperas yield 
 drab. 
 
 Yellow Wood: beautiful saffron. 
 
 Iron-Wood: inner bark, permanent 
 yellow. 
 
 Common Nettle: root boiled in alum 
 water, a yellow. 
 
 Sweet Leaf Laurel: yields yellow. 
 
 Love Vine: yellow to cloth. 
 
 Mangrove Tribe: black. 
 
 Burdock: yellow. 
 
 Tallow Tree: leaves, a black dye 
 
 Bugle Weed: black to linen, wool, 
 
 and silk. 
 
 [158]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Dog-Bane : black or brown. 
 
 Cypress: leaves, a cinnamon, boil 
 several hours. 
 
 Black Alder: indelible orange. 
 
 Poke Root: solferino; red ink, alum 
 to fix. 
 
 Red Oak: cream or black, depending 
 on mordant. 
 
 Persimmon: dye with iron black, color 
 depends on mordant. 
 
 Heath Tribes: purple with copperas. 
 
 An old East Tennesseean told me that 
 
 he had a shawl striped with green, and 
 
 the color was made by dyeing the yarn 
 
 blue with indigo and then dipping it 
 
 into a dye made from crab-apple bark. 
 
 He said he had often gathered willow 
 
 [159]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 bark from which a light gray color was 
 made, and he described accurately the 
 wild madder and wild indigo which made 
 a good substitute for the madder and 
 indigo of commerce. 
 
 These home-made dyes are a fascinat- 
 ing study, drawing one back to nature 
 and leading him into the secrets of her 
 laboratory. I like to look at the green 
 leaves of the peach, the golden disk of 
 the Black-eyed Susan or the sedge grass 
 that gilds the autumn fields, and know 
 that the color of sunshine may be dis- 
 tilled from their juices; and since I 
 learned how the hand-woven coverlet 
 came by its splendid hues, I see in field, 
 forest, and garden more than I ever 
 
 saw before. A great transcendentalist 
 
 [160]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 says that everything in the mineral and 
 
 vegetable world has a "spiritual dy- 
 
 namis" that may be extracted from it 
 
 for man's use, and Tennyson speaks of 
 
 "the soul of the rose." 
 
 What is the soul of a rose, unless it 
 
 be the color and the perfume? We 
 
 know how to prison the perfume in an 
 
 imperishable essence; what if we could 
 
 fix the color in a dye that would last 
 
 when petal and calyx had mouldered 
 
 back to earth? The tree from whose 
 
 bark your grandmother made her dyes 
 
 was felled and sawn into boards long, 
 
 long ago. Flower, leaf, and fruit, grace 
 
 and stateliness, its million leafy shadows 
 
 on the grass of spring, the darker shade 
 
 of midsummer and the glory of its au- 
 
 [161]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 tumns, all are gone, but in your cover- 
 let's threads, the soul of the tree still 
 lives. 
 
 There is a startling brilliance in the 
 colors of well-kept coverlets. I have seen 
 them come from the darkness of cedar 
 chest or closet where they have lain 
 for forty, fifty, or sixty years, and " they 
 strike my eye" as the notes of a clari- 
 net would strike my ear. I am glad 
 that Susan Flatcher saw fit to have her 
 name woven into her coverlet, for the 
 woman who made those wonderful scar- 
 lets, the deep blue, and the clear olive- 
 green, deserves to be remembered as a 
 skilled colorist. I wish I knew how 
 Rachel Marran Chambers made the soft 
 
 blue and the russet brown of her "kiver," 
 
 [162]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 and sometime, perhaps, I may go into 
 
 the forest and try to find some root or 
 
 leaf or bark hitherto untried from which 
 
 the world may gain a new color. 
 
 I have said that the unfaded colors 
 
 "strike the eye," but the colors that 
 
 strike both "eye" and "heart" are 
 
 found in the unappreciated, abused, and 
 
 abandoned coverlets that have lain around 
 
 in stables and barns and braved the 
 
 elements year after year journeying to 
 
 town on the tobacco wagon, serving 
 
 between times as a horse-blanket or a 
 
 covering for a pile of potatoes down in 
 
 the cellar. When you see one of these 
 
 outcast "kivers" you will grieve first 
 
 over its ruinous estate, and then you 
 
 will rejoice over its colors. Grand- 
 
 [163]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 mother's dyes were too intense to please 
 the modern taste, but passed through 
 the softening processes of time they 
 turn to tints that make an old coverlet 
 worthy to stand with an oriental rug — 
 blue like the color of eyes washed dim 
 by the tears of a lifetime, brown and 
 yellow that match the leaves of autumn 
 after November's rains have fallen on 
 them, pale red, paler pink, and dull 
 crimson like faded rose-petals, purple 
 like withered violets — and through the 
 rags and tatters of every breadth a 
 glimpse of their former beauty comes 
 to you, just as an old woman's smile, 
 or the ripple of her snowy hair, suggests 
 the freshness of her maidenhood. 
 
 If I wanted to construct a color 
 
 [164]
 
 THE BETTY DEAN COVERLET 
 
 WOVEN in South Carolina 
 probably eighty years ago 
 by Betty Dean of Yorkshire, Eng- 
 land. Owned by her grandson, Dr. 
 H. P. Cartwright of Bowling Green, 
 Ky. A design very similar to this 
 is called "Winding Leaves."
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 scheme that would speak at once to the 
 eye, the heart, and the imagination, 
 I would not turn to Persia or Turkey 
 to find it. I would throw over my 
 sofa a threadbare "Tennessee Trouble" 
 in blue, white, and red; over an arm- 
 chair I would drape a " Double Char- 
 iot Wheels" in black, white, and dull 
 crimson, or a "Forty-Nine Snowballs" 
 in gray, tan, and old rose; and I would 
 curtain the doorway and glorify the 
 piano with Rachel Marran Chambers, 
 "Youth and Beauty," and the old 
 Irish "kiver" whose color hesitates be- 
 tween scarlet and old rose, and as long 
 as their threads held together the pres- 
 ence of these old coverlets would create 
 
 for me an abiding Vision of Fair Color. 
 
 [165]
 
 r 
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 In many coverlets the personality of 
 the weaver is very apparent. The long, 
 broad, heavy, closely-woven one of dark 
 indigo blue and white is the coverlet 
 of the pioneer woman. Such is Betty 
 Elizabeth Dean's and the "Blazing 
 Star." How well I remember the Jan- 
 uary day when I saw the latter! Over- 
 head was a leaden sky, underfoot snow 
 and ice. The telephone rang and a 
 voice said: "There are two coverlets 
 coming your way." 
 
 I ran to the porch and watched the 
 wagons crawl slowly up the street, the 
 longest and most heavily loaded wagons 
 I had ever seen, and over each a "Blaz- 
 ing Star," dark as the winter sky, longer 
 
 and broader than the wagon, and so 
 
 [166]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 thick and heavy that it required a man's 
 strength to fold it and carry it to the 
 photographer. There was something 
 majestic about these coverlets. Their 
 folds hung sombre as a winter cloud, 
 and they were more like a pall over 
 the bier of a king than the covering of 
 a commonplace tobacco wagon. I 
 think the woman who wove these cover- 
 lets was tall, muscular, broad-shoul- 
 dered, stern of face and manner, with 
 iron-gray hair drawn tightly back from 
 her face. But when I look at the 
 cheerful colors and elaborate pattern of 
 my "Tennessee Trouble," I see a 
 happy-faced woman, who wore gay-col- 
 ored muslins, put a flower in her hair 
 
 occasionally, and sang at her spinning 
 
 [167]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 and weaving, and to see this elaborate 
 design in blue, red, and white is like 
 hearing the music of the "Carnival 
 of Venice.' , 
 
 [168]
 
 THISTLES AND LILIES 
 
 PART of the William Wade Col- 
 lection. It was purchased in 
 Clarke Co., Ind. Its lower border 
 is the same as that of the Anne 
 Hay coverlet, and the thistle design 
 shows that the weaver was of Scotch 
 birth.
 
 r
 
 VII 
 THE PROFESSIONAL WEAVER
 
 VII 
 THE PROFESSIONAL WEAVER 
 
 "And taking the sacred woven-cloths out of the 
 treasures, he formed with them an awning, a marvel 
 for men to behold. . . . And the woven texture had 
 pictures such as these : Uranus collecting the stars 
 in the circle {vault) of ather; the Sun driving his 
 horses to the last waning light (sunset point), draw- 
 ing with him the shining light of Vesper {the planet 
 Venus). And black-robed Night was driving the 
 two-horse chariot, without loose-reined steeds (side 
 horses of the four-horse chariot), and the Stars 
 accompanied the goddess (from the East). The 
 Pleiad was travelling through the midway ather, 
 and sword-bearing Orion; and above was the Bear 
 turning his tail about the golden pole." — Euripides, 
 Ion. Bohn's Library Translation, emended by 
 Prof. Milton W. Humphreys, University of 
 Virginia. 
 
 [171]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 3 1 !3L_U It- 
 
 -jOJ-UJ^t 
 
 OMETIMES your grand- 
 mother's coverlet was a 
 collaboration; she did the 
 carding, spinning, and 
 dyeing, and a profes- 
 sional weaver finished the work. These 
 skilled weavers came originally from 
 European countries in which textile art 
 had reached a high degree of perfec- 
 tion. They plied their profession, they 
 taught the secrets of their art to 
 younger men or hired apprentices, and 
 as the population of America increased 
 and the people drifted westward, the 
 weaver, also, moved westward. In all 
 of the older states we find his gorgeous, 
 
 florid creations, and by the removal of 
 
 [172]
 
 IRISH CHAIN 
 
 STUDY the squares of this cover- 
 let and you will find jive de- 
 signs. Observe the "Pine Tree" 
 which appears as a border in many 
 of the double-woven coverlets of the 
 " Lover s Knot" pattern.
 
 LOVER'S KNOT 
 
 OVER a hundred years old. 
 Double-woven, blue and white. 
 Ow?ied by Miss Helen Kenyon, 
 Brooklyn, N.Y.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 families these are scattered far and wide. 
 In the little southern town where I live, 
 I can walk across the street, around 
 the corner or a few squares away, and 
 find masterpieces of weaving done one 
 hundred, seventy-five, or fifty years ago 
 in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indi- 
 ana, Illinois, and the older towns of 
 Kentucky, and if I find an "oldest in- 
 habitant" in any old town I can always 
 gather a few facts that bring me very 
 near to the professional weaver. 
 
 In your grandmother's time the advent 
 of a professional weaver, in any com- 
 munity, must have produced the same 
 excitement that a new fashion from 
 Paris or a new custom from England 
 produces to-day. There were home- 
 
 [i73]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 woven coverlets on every bed, but a 
 great discontent and longing filled the 
 heart of the housewife as she listened to 
 some gossip's tale of those foreign 
 weavers who were making double-woven 
 coverlets — actually two separate cov- 
 erlets, but inseparably joined so as to 
 appear one — and who used designs 
 that made "Governor's Garden," "Sun- 
 rise," and all the other familiar fig- 
 ures seem plain and commonplace. I 
 am sure that every dame who could 
 afford such a luxury made haste to 
 spin the very best quality of thread, 
 dye it with the choicest colors, and carry 
 it to the nearest artist. "Every man is 
 the son of his own work," says Richter; 
 
 which means that a man's work influences 
 
 [i74]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 his character just as his character influ- 
 ences his work. We cannot look at 
 the coverlets of these old weavers with- 
 out wondering what manner of men 
 these were who could make from such 
 simple materials as homespun threads 
 of cotton and wool a perfect image of 
 flower and leaf, bird and beast, as deli- 
 cately outlined as if an artist had drawn 
 it with a pencil. 
 
 There is a kind of brotherhood, the 
 world over, composed of wandering 
 artists, the travelling painter from Bo- 
 hemia, who knocks at your door, and 
 stays only long enough to catch the 
 fleeting beauty of a woman's face, pris- 
 oning it forever in the colors of his pal- 
 ette; the singer who pauses under your 
 
 [175]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 window to sing a song of his native land 
 and then goes his way leaving the song 
 in your heart; the minstrel of the harp 
 or violin who sets his strings a-thrill 
 in the market-place of the town and 
 then goes back to the lonely, .dusty 
 road that the homeless tread ; and — 
 close-kin to these — the professional 
 weaver of your grandmother's day, 
 sometimes an itinerant, sometimes a 
 permanent resident, but always a per- 
 son of much importance. I think he 
 realized his importance, too, for often 
 he wove his name and the name of his 
 town, county, and state into the cor- 
 ner of a coverlet just as an artist writes 
 his name in a corner of a picture. 
 
 I have copied a few names from these 
 
 [176]
 
 COVERLET SHOWING MASONIC 
 EMBLEMS
 
 BOSTON TOWN 
 
 DOUBLE-WOVEN blue and 
 white coverlet owned by Mrs. 
 H. W . Morehouse, Danville, III. 
 The border is called " Boston Town." 
 Woven probably by Gabriel Miller, 
 Bethlehem, Pa.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 coverlet corners and placed them on 
 my page, because when a man's work 
 lasts, his name should not be forgotten. 
 
 Gabriel Rauscher, Pennsylvania. 
 
 John Mellinger and Son, Penn- 
 sylvania. 
 
 J. Gebhart, Pennsylvania. 
 
 F. Metzger, Pennsylvania. 
 
 Ira Hadsell, New York. 
 
 J. Conger, New York. 
 
 J. A. Getty, Indiana. 
 
 Sarah La Tourrette Van Sickle, 
 Indiana. 
 
 William Henry Harrison Rose, 
 Rhode Island. 
 Harmon Goodwin, Maine. 
 
 Mowry, Ohio. 
 
 [i77]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 G. Heilbron. 
 Sam Curry, Kentucky. 
 Sam Gamble, Kentucky. 
 Anne Hay, Indiana. 
 
 These names represent five national- 
 ities; German, English, Scotch, French, 
 and Irish. Mowry lived in Revolution- 
 ary days, and between us and most 
 of the others lies the space of a long 
 lifetime. So if we go to searching for 
 information concerning them, we are 
 likely to run up against the blank 
 wall of oblivion. But the coverlets 
 they wove are still with us, whole and 
 unfaded, and now and then a scrap of 
 biography comes to me carrying a dis- 
 tinct picture of a class of artists as 
 
 [178]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 interesting and as individual as the min- 
 strels of England and the pipers of 
 Scotland. 
 
 Mrs. Hayden Trigg of Glasgow, Ken- 
 tucky, gives me the following account 
 of a weaver who lived in her mother's 
 time and wove here and there in the 
 county of Barren: 
 
 "As early as 1830 there came to 
 this neighborhood an Irish weaver, 
 Sam Gamble by name, who regularly 
 made the rounds, weaving cloth for the 
 different families who lived near by, and 
 tarrying longest where the hospitality 
 of John Barleycorn offered the best 
 inducement. At the 'Old Place,' the 
 home of Mr. Alanson Trigg, he found 
 comfort for both body and soul in the 
 
 [179]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 fine old peach brandy distilled from 
 the fruit of the orchard and stored 
 away in pantry and cellar, and here he 
 would linger for months plying his 
 trade with the assistance of 'Aunt 
 Rose,' the 'Black Mammy,' who spun 
 the thread, filled the bobbins, and 
 threaded the sley. The woolen woof 
 was made from the fleece of sheep that 
 grazed on the neighboring hillside, and 
 probably the cotton thread, too, was 
 a home product. The music of Sam 
 Gamble's shuttle delighted the whole 
 family, for to the negroes it meant new 
 clothes at Christmas time; to the mis- 
 tress it meant fleecy blankets and gay 
 coverlets, and all these were colored 
 
 with dyes made from barks and roots 
 
 [180]
 
 BIRDS OF PARADISE 
 
 WOVEN in New York nearly 
 one hundred years ago. 
 Owned by Mrs. J. M. Galloway, 
 Bowling Green, Ky. Colors, blue 
 and white.
 
 THE JOHN GERARD COVERLET 
 
 DOUBLE-WOVEN blue and 
 white coverlet owned by Mrs. 
 John Gerard, Bowling Green, Ky. 
 Woven in Ohio. The border is sim- 
 ilar to the side border of Anne Hay s 
 coverlet and almost the counterpart 
 of the border on " Frenchman s 
 Fancy."
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 of trees that grew around the 'Old 
 Place.' Sam Gamble's Irish wit and 
 good-nature made him a welcome guest 
 wherever he went, but he left the 
 neighborhood in 1844, and was never 
 seen there again. The oldest inhabi- 
 tants still remember him, and the rec- 
 ord he left behind him is a good one: 
 'What he did, he did well.' Surely, in 
 spite of his fondness for peach brandy, 
 his reward in the hereafter is a glorious 
 certainty." 
 
 Fifty or sixty years ago, Sam Curry, 
 a compatriot of Sam Gamble, practised 
 his profession in the counties of Scott, 
 Fayette, and Bourbon. I have seen 
 three of his coverlets, all double-woven 
 
 in the "Lover's Knot" design, with 
 
 [181]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 the "Pine Tree" border. I never meet 
 this design, so classic in its simplicity 
 and beauty, that I do not think there 
 must have been something fine in the 
 character of the man who loved to 
 weave it. Many a Kentucky family 
 possesses a "Lover's Knot" woven by 
 this Irish artist, but the only personal 
 reminiscence of Sam Curry that I have 
 been able to find is the fact that he was 
 "a terrible drunkard." I wish those 
 for whom he worked had remembered 
 and handed down to us something 
 besides this mention of his human 
 frailty. They might have said that he 
 was a merry soul, that little children 
 followed him and clung to him, and that 
 
 he told them tales and sang to them 
 
 [182]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 when his day's work was over; but 
 Tradition is a foolish old hag who 
 
 ". . . stores her chaff in bins 
 And throws away the grain." 
 
 So all we know of this master of 
 weaving is that he was a drunkard and 
 that the "Lover's Knot" pleased his taste. 
 
 If the coverlet is not inscribed with 
 a name, a place, and a date, the design 
 may give you a clue to the national- 
 ity of the weaver. Whenever I see the 
 flower of the thistle or the tiny bells 
 of heather, I say: "A Scotchman wove 
 that." The Bird of Paradise, so fre- 
 quent in old English tapestries, shows 
 that the weaver was of English birth. 
 The "Lion and Eagle" coverlet was 
 
 the work of an English immigrant who 
 
 [183]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 loved both the land of his adoption and 
 the land of his birth. I used to think 
 that if two coverlets showed the same 
 design it was a positive proof that the 
 same hand wove both, but I found 
 later that the designs of the profes- 
 sional weaver, like the mountain de- 
 signs, were common property; Gabriel 
 Rauscher and John Mellinger both used 
 the "Almira" design, and the "Double 
 Rose" design is found in the work of 
 Conger, Heilbron, the two Mellingers, 
 Metzger, Gebhart, and Rauscher. The 
 coverlets woven by these men are either 
 double-woven or of tapestry weave, and 
 double-weaving seems to have been an 
 open secret in Europe at the time these 
 
 weavers lived, for we find double-woven 
 
 [184]
 
 THE ANNE HAY COVERLET 
 
 DOUBLE-WOVEN coverlet, 
 blue and white, woven by Anne 
 Hay, Scott County, hid. Owned by 
 Anne Hay's granddaughter, Mrs. 
 W. B. Mayes, Bowling Green, Ky.
 
 LION AND EAGLE 
 
 DOUBLE - WOVEN coverlet 
 owned by Mrs. William H. 
 Matthews, Pittsburg, Pa. Observe the 
 British lion and the American eagle.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 coverlets of English, Irish, Scotch, 
 French, and German manufacture. I 
 had a theory that only men did double- 
 weaving, but Anne Hay's double-woven 
 coverlet upset my theory and a year 
 later I discovered Sarah La Tourrette 
 Van Sickle, who was in her youth 
 a mistress of double-weaving. Anne 
 Hay was a Scotch maiden who came 
 to this country and settled in Indiana. 
 Her granddaughter remembers the 
 loom which was brought from Scot- 
 land, and which may yet be standing in 
 the weaving-room at the old home- 
 stead. Anne Hay married an Oldfield, 
 and on his death she married James 
 Getty, a weaver, probably the J. A. 
 
 Getty who wove the Lockport, New 
 
 [185]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 York, coverlet with the date of the 
 Declaration of Independence in one 
 corner. It is also probable that Anne 
 Hay wove "Thistles and Lilies," as the 
 border is the same in both coverlets, 
 and the dates are only a few years apart, 
 1850 to 1858. 
 
 When I discovered the John Mel- 
 linger coverlet I wrote to a friend in 
 Pennsylvania, and he at once identified 
 John Mellinger as an old acquaintance 
 of his boyhood, known then as "Thread 
 Jock," because of the threads that 
 always stuck to his coat. 
 
 While I was writing this chapter I 
 strayed into a loan exhibit one day to 
 see the old coverlets. A dingy half- 
 coverlet caught my glance. The 
 
 [186]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 "Double Rose" design reminded me 
 at once of the Mellingers and Rauschers, 
 and when I looked in the corner I was 
 not surprised to find the name of Ga- 
 briel Rauscher. I sought the owner of 
 the half-coverlet, found that his wife 
 was a Rauscher, and learned how the 
 German Rauscher came by the French 
 name Gabriel. The Rauscher family 
 came to America from Elsass, or Alsace, 
 in Lorraine when that province was 
 under French rule. The coverlet had 
 been cut in two in order that a brother 
 and a sister might share this heirloom. 
 
 A writer in one of the bulletins of 
 the Art Institute of Chicago says that 
 such coverlets as "Bird of Paradise" 
 
 and similar designs were not woven 
 
 [187]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 after 1861. The outbreak of the war 
 did silence the looms for a while. As 
 one writer pathetically expresses it: 
 
 "When the war began, no more yarn 
 was brought to the weavers. The men 
 went to war and the women went to the 
 fields, so the looms had to quit work." 
 It is impossible to say when the last 
 double-woven coverlet was made. We 
 only know that as the abandoned looms 
 fell into decay and rust and the weavers 
 passed away, double-weaving became a 
 lost art in this country. Instructions for 
 doing double-weaving could be found in 
 certain text-books, but those who tried 
 to put the teaching into practice met 
 with failure. How the art of double- 
 weaving was revived in this country is 
 
 [188]
 
 THE DOUBLE ROSES 
 
 TAPESTRY weave. Colors the 
 same as the John Mellinger 
 coverlet. Owned by Mr. Henry 
 Reiff, Oakland, Ky. Susan Fletcher 
 spun and dyed the thread. 

 
 CHANTICLEER 
 
 WOVEN when Berlin was 
 a Mennonite settlement. 
 Owned by Mrs. E. L. Painter, Mt. 
 Vernon, Ohio. In 1844. James K. 
 Polk of Tennessee and George M. 
 Dallas of Pennsylvania were the 
 Democratic candidates for the presi- 
 dency and vice-presidency, and about 
 this time the "Rooster" was made 
 the emblem of the Democratic party.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 best told in the words of Mr. William 
 Wade: 
 
 "Shortly after I got my 'Lover's 
 Knot' from Somerset County, Pa., I 
 was impressed by its ' tuck-in-a-bility,' 
 it being so much softer and more pli- 
 able than coverlets even lighter in weight. 
 On investigation I found it was because 
 the coverlet was really two separate 
 fabrics. I asked Mrs. Hill of Berea 
 and the Hindman folks about that 
 peculiar weave, and learned that there 
 were four different weaves, single, six- 
 shaft, eight-shaft, and double. I went 
 on finding double-woven coverlets in 
 Pennsylvania, Indiana, and New York. 
 Then I set out to find somebody who 
 
 knew how to do double-weaving. For 
 
 [189]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 a long time I was knocked from pillar 
 to post. Some weavers in Wisconsin 
 thought they knew it, but I soon found 
 they did not. I discovered an old 
 woman in West Virginia who evidently 
 understood it, but she was verging on 
 her second childhood and could not 
 teach it. All the time I was making 
 this search I knew it was done in 
 Europe, especially in the Scandinavian 
 countries, so I looked up a Norse book 
 on weaving and had enough translated 
 to show me that it would not suffice to 
 teach it. About this time I made the 
 acquaintance of Miss Grace Tabor of 
 New York, a charming writer on art, 
 gardening, etc. She was much inter- 
 ested in the double-weaving and joined 
 
 [190]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 me in my search for a weaver. At 
 last she wrote to me: 'Eureka!' She 
 had found Mrs. Anna Ernberg, a native 
 of Sweden — (the daughter of an officer 
 of the Swedish Army) — and an expert 
 in all kinds of weaving. 
 
 "I have long thought that if the cov- 
 erlet industry at Berea is to pay, it 
 must get away from single-weaving, as 
 that has come to be a 'fad' and the 
 market will soon be overstocked. I 
 brought Mrs. Ernberg to the notice of 
 President Frost of Berea, and she was 
 engaged to succeed Mrs. Jennie Lester 
 Hill, under whose superintendence the 
 Department of Fireside Industries had 
 become justly famous. Mrs. Ernberg 
 is to give lessons in double-weaving to 
 
 [191]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 a weaver from Knott County, Ken- 
 ', tucky. This weaver will carry the 
 knowledge to her mountain home, and 
 in time double-weaving may be as fre- 
 quent here as it is in Europe." 
 
 Looking at the designs of these cov- 
 erlets is like walking in strange gardens. 
 Here flits the Bird of Paradise, here 
 bloom thistles, roses, lilies, and clem- 
 atis, and the wild cactus shows both 
 flower and fruit; here are flower and 
 leaf conventionalized beyond recogni- 
 tion, and in the coverlet's border you 
 will find things as interesting and 
 mysterious as the hieroglyphics of 
 Egypt. History, politics, and masonry 
 jostle each other; there are churches 
 
 and dwellings; the architecture of Bos- 
 
 [192]
 
 BIRD OF PARADISE 
 
 WOVEN in Genessee County, 
 N.Y. Part of the William 
 Wade Collection. Notice its re- 
 semblance to English tapestry.
 
 THE IDA P. ROGERS COVERLET 
 
 WOVEN in Washington 
 County, Pa., about eighty 
 years ago. Double-woven, blue and 
 white, all in one piece. Owned by 
 Airs. S. G. Rogers, Bowling Green, 
 Ky.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 ton Town and the architecture of the 
 Orient, palm trees and pine trees, an 
 American eagle and a ridiculous jacka- 
 napes, and a friend tells me of one 
 border that must have been inspired by 
 "A Midsummer Night's Dream," as 
 it consisted of donkeys with cupids 
 hovering around. Doubtless an unfor- 
 tunate love affair had taught the weaver 
 that Cupid doth make donkeys of us 
 all. 
 
 But after puzzling and wondering 
 over the elaborate patterns of the pro- 
 fessional weaver, I turn lovingly back 
 to the old homespun, home-woven 
 "kiver." I am sure these professional 
 weavers loved their work, but they 
 wrought for money's sake as well as 
 
 [193]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 for art's sake, and their work lacks 
 the quality that our spiritual sense 
 apprehends when we touch an old cov- 
 erlet made by the toil-worn hands of 
 a patient woman who wove with her 
 threads a thought of love for the home 
 that would be beautified, and another 
 thought for the husband and children 
 who would sleep warmer through all 
 life's winters under her blue-and-white 
 coverlet. 
 
 Miss Grace Tabor says that such 
 coverlets as "E Pluribus Unum" are to 
 the textile world what Raphael's "Trans- 
 figuration" is to the world of art; but 
 when I look at "E Pluribus Unum" and 
 its companions, their historical signif- 
 icance wholly overshadows their art. 
 
 [194]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 There are no New Worlds to-day. 
 All the strangeness and wonder of the 
 earth are gone. But the designs and 
 inscriptions on some of these cover- 
 lets recall the day when every wind 
 that blew eastward across the ocean 
 brought with it a story that passed from 
 lip to lip till it was told in every language 
 of the Old World. It was a fairy tale 
 of the centuries, the tale of a New World 
 where there were no popes, no priests, no 
 kings, no nobles ; where the land reached 
 from ocean to ocean and the poorest 
 man could have his share of it for the 
 asking; where the mountains had their 
 summits in the sky and the rivers began 
 and ended no man knew where. There 
 was gold in the mines; a fountain of 
 
 [195]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Perpetual Youth, an El Dorado, and 
 above all, Freedom, the right to wor- 
 ship God according to the dictates of 
 conscience; the right to life, liberty, 
 and the pursuit of happiness. And for 
 love of liberty and right men left the 
 homes of their forefathers and braved 
 the perils of the sea to reach the shores 
 of this New World. 
 
 A New World! There is something 
 in these words that makes the heart 
 
 leap. We are all searching for new 
 worlds or trying to turn old worlds 
 
 into new ones, and we know how the tales 
 
 of the early explorers must have stirred 
 
 men's hearts two or three centuries 
 
 ago, and how the magic of " America " 
 
 continues to charm to our shores 
 
 [196]
 
 E PLURIBUS UNUM 
 
 >ART of the William Wade Col- 
 lection. The owner consid- 
 ered it the finest piece of weaving he 
 had ever seen.
 
 FREEDOM'S HOME 
 
 TJART of the William Wade Col- 
 
 lection.
 
 v '   
 
 •"? ., -S   
 
   
 
 fREEHOM S HOME 
 
 ONTARIO no SJ
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 "the oppressed of all nations.'' The 
 immigrant of to-day may not find all 
 he is seeking, but the immigrant of 
 those early days did find the fulfilment 
 of his heart's desire, and as the Puri- 
 tan knelt on the rocky shores of Mas- 
 sachusetts and offered thanks to God 
 for the boon of freedom, the weaver 
 likewise set up his loom and expressed 
 his gratitude and his patriotism by 
 weaving into a coverlet the emblems 
 of his country or his party. It was no 
 accident that placed the Bird of the 
 Morning in the corners of the cover- 
 let woven in Berlin County, Ohio, in 
 1844. This coverlet is a paragraph 
 from American annals telling us that 
 
 about this time the Democratic party 
 
 [197]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 was formed and chanticleer with flap- 
 ping wings was made the party device. 
 The man who wove the word "Lib- 
 erty'' thirty-six times into the fabric 
 of his coverlet must have loved lib- 
 erty as Patrick Henry and Thomas 
 Jefferson loved it. I find in " E Pluribus 
 Unum" and "Freedom's Home" all that 
 Francis Scott Key and Samuel Smith felt 
 when they wrote "The Star-Spangled 
 Banner" and "My Country, 'Tis of 
 Thee"; and when I read on the cover- 
 let's border the name of the woman 
 who chose the pattern and ordered the 
 weaving I think she was a truer Daugh- 
 ter of the American Revolution, a truer 
 
 Colonial Dame than the Daughters and 
 
 Dames of to-day, who would smile in 
 
 [198]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 aesthetic scorn at the thought of sleep- 
 ing under a bed-spread displaying this 
 somewhat grotesque mixture of stars, 
 shields, flags, spread-eagles, arrows, 
 domes, and patriotic' mottoes. Mon- 
 cure D. Conway says that the history 
 of tobacco is the history of American 
 liberty. But read again the historic 
 names beginning with Indian Warfare 
 and ending with Lee's Surrender, then 
 study these inscriptions and designs, and 
 you will see the history of American 
 liberty told again in the old hand-woven 
 coverlet. 
 
 Of the weavers whose names are pre- 
 served in this book, only three are liv- 
 ing; William Henry Harrison Rose, 
 
 the last of the professional weavers 
 
 [199]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 of Rhode Island, Sarah La Tourrette 
 
 Van Sickle of Indiana, and Harmon 
 
 Goodwin of Maine. The world in 
 
 which these weavers once lived has 
 
 passed away, and they themselves are 
 
 like apparitions in the world to-day. 
 
 One who had recently penetrated the 
 
 seclusion that surrounds William Henry 
 
 Harrison Rose says of him: 
 
 "When I called at this weaver's 
 
 home, I was admitted by an old 
 
 woman of small stature, who informed 
 
 me that she was a sister of the weaver, 
 
 and that he was in the field a short 
 
 distance from the house. She blew a 
 
 blast on a cockleshell, which notified 
 
 the weaver that he was wanted at 
 
 the house. In a few minutes I beheld 
 
 [ 200]
 
 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 
 
 o 
 
 WNED by Mrs. William J. 
 Fender, Lockport, N.Y.
 
 LIBERTY 
 
 A PENNSYLVANIA coverlet. 
 History unknown. Notice the 
 picture of General Washington in 
 the corner.
 
 . .
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 an old man, with long white hair and 
 flowing white beard and bare feet, 
 approaching the house. He carried a 
 scythe over his shoulder, and for an 
 instant I was startled, as the old man's 
 appearance was the most perfect pic- 
 ture of Father Time I have ever seen. 
 The house is as singular as the people 
 who live in it. A low stone wall runs 
 across the front of the yard, with a 
 large white boulder at each corner. On 
 the top of the wall are shells bleached 
 to snowy whiteness by the rains and suns 
 of many years. A wooden fence sep- 
 arates the yard from the garden, and on 
 every post hung two white shells. In 
 the yard there are seven bird-houses 
 
 of modern architecture. The weaver 
 
 [201 ]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 and his sister have lived here for more 
 than eighty years. Once a year he 
 goes to Providence, a carpet bag in his 
 hand, carpet slippers on his feet, and a 
 rope tied round his waist. As he walks 
 the city streets the hurrying throng 
 pauses to look after him, for he seems a 
 being from the Ages Long Since Gone." 
 
 The old Rhode Islander learned the 
 art of weaving from his grandfather, 
 who was a pupil of William Reed, a 
 celebrated English weaver. Rose is an 
 original designer and possesses many 
 rare drafts, which he occasionally loans 
 to fellow-weavers of whose honesty he 
 feels assured. 
 
 Harmon Goodwin is also an original 
 
 designer. Two of his original drafts 
 
 [ 202 J
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 bear the names, "Path of the Sun- 
 beam" and "The King's Garden," by 
 which tokens we know him to be a poet 
 also. 
 
 The word "Liberty" may not be 
 woven into any of Sarah La Tourrette's 
 coverlets, but you may read it between 
 the lines of family history that tell how 
 these French Huguenots chanced to 
 come to America. Taking the name 
 La Tourrette as a clue we can go back 
 through five centuries of French his- 
 tory to the time when the De La Tour- 
 rettes were Keepers of the Little Tower. 
 There is a tradition that a De La Tour- 
 rette came to this country with La 
 Salle, and it is certain that about 
 
 eighty-eight years after the Revo- 
 
 [203]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 cation of the Edict of Nantes a younger 
 son of one branch of the Tourrette 
 family came to America and settled on 
 Staten Island in 1773. In the same 
 year a son John was born and this son 
 was the father of Sarah La Tourrette. 
 John La Tourrette was a weaver by 
 birth and training. More than three 
 centuries ago the Tourrettes practised 
 the weaver's art in a crude way. In 
 Florida in 1566 there were weavers by 
 that name. They probably belonged 
 to the ill-fated colony that settled on 
 St. John's river in 1564 and were ex- 
 terminated by the Spanish governor, 
 Menendez. 
 
 Between 1750 and 1760 the Tour- 
 rettes acquired, in France, the art of 
 
 [204]
 
 LA FRANCE 
 
 COVERLET of dark blue, white, 
 green, and old rose. Woven 
 in France three generations ago. 
 Owned by Mrs. Hubert W . Bessey, 
 Stuart, Fla.
 
 IP 
 
 k />   v ^uv^i:. 
 
 HafcMy*. 
 
 m't
 
 FRENCHMAN'S FANCY 
 
 PART of the William Wade Col- 
 lection. The border seems to 
 show the flowers and fruit of the 
 wild cactus slightly conventional- 
 ized.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 double-weaving, and it is said of John 
 La Tourrette that he could weave any 
 fabric from coverlets to the finest table 
 linen, and goods for wearing apparel, 
 and he also made his own loom and 
 designed many patterns. He estab- 
 lished himself in Indiana in the neigh- 
 borhood of Covington and set up a 
 factory with four large looms. Before 
 the Civil War laid a paralyzing hand 
 on all industry a thousand double- 
 woven coverlets were sent out from this 
 factory, and most of these were woven 
 by Sarah La Tourrette, on whom the 
 mantle of her father's skill had fallen. 
 
 Memory must stretch her wings for 
 a long backward flight when Sarah La 
 
 Tourrette begins to talk of her youth, 
 
 [205]
 
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 for she is now eighty-nine years old; 
 but her mind is unimpaired and she 
 loves to talk of the time when she was 
 young and strong and the fame of her 
 weaving went abroad in the state. She 
 used to weave on an average three 
 coverlets a week, and if a customer was 
 impatient for his order to be filled she 
 could make one a day. (The price 
 for a double-woven coverlet, by the 
 way, was ten or twelve dollars.) Forty 
 pounds of homespun linen thread were 
 required to string the loom, and John's 
 wife, Mother La Tourrette, used to 
 spin this thread. Two thousand 
 threads came down from the cross- 
 piece of the loom, and when Sarah 
 
 was working she could hardly be seen 
 
 [206]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 by a person coming in at the other end 
 of the building. 
 
 Charles K. Bright, a nephew of Sarah 
 La Tourrette, gives me the following 
 description of the way the professional 
 weaver wove his florid patterns: 
 
 "The patterns consisted of heavy 
 card-board, about six inches by two 
 feet, and punched full of holes, the 
 size of a lead pencil, and one hundred 
 and eighty of them joined together 
 like the straw-carrier of a threshing 
 machine, or moved on the principle 
 that the bundles of grain are fed into 
 the modern threshing machine. These 
 were changed to make different figures 
 or flowers, which were called 'Lafay- 
 ette's Fancy,' ' Rose-of-Sharon,' etc., 
 
 [207]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 etc. There was a sort of needle for 
 every hole in the pattern, and in each 
 of these there was a stout cord the 
 size of fine fish-line, and at the other end 
 of the cord was attached a lead weight 
 eight inches long and the size of a 
 small pencil. This labyrinth of cords 
 and weights resembled somewhat the 
 profile of a monster fashionable lady in 
 hoop-skirt, trimmed with flounce or 
 ruffle of eighteen hundred medium- 
 sized pencils. As the weaver bore down 
 on the * treadle' with his foot the 
 needles were inserted in aforesaid holes; 
 when the foot was raised the weights re- 
 leased the needles; the other foot was 
 then used, and other needles and holes 
 
 brought into use, and so on alternately, 
 
 [208]
 
 LOVER'S CHAIN or LOVER'S KNOT 
 
 DOUBLE-WOVEN, blue, white, 
 and a very peculiar -pinkish 
 red. Woven by Sam Curry. Owned 
 by Mrs. S. II. Yancey, Lexington, 
 Ky.
 
 fifty*. 6 -w 
 
 IF I v 
 
 
 
 
 a '   
 
 en 
 
 ■LB 
 
 
 Wto* "3 •Gfi.V L^PJ"J2* Will * H*K *1 
 
 
 
 
 NUU. 
 
 
 ,.*0O* "O"
 
 THE FLORA WOODBURY COVERLET 
 
 OWNED by Miss Flora Wood- 
 bury, Danville, III. Double- 
 woven, red, white, and blue. Made 
 in 1855. Observe the likeness to 
 "Irish Chain."

 
 it 
 
 u 
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 day in and day out, almost 'ad in- 
 finitum.' " 
 
 But all that the unlearned reader 
 gains from this explanation is a clearer 
 impression of the difficulty of the work 
 and a deeper admiration for the weaver 
 who could thread her way through this 
 labyrinth" and produce a texture like 
 Double Roses" or "Bird of Paradise." 
 Perhaps Jacquard patterns and looms 
 like John La Tourrette's were known 
 in Euripides' day, for how else could 
 Creusa have woven into her web "a 
 Gorgon fringed with serpents?" 
 
 The Tourrette name is an honorable 
 
 one in France. A Tourrette daughter 
 
 once married into the nobility of Italy, 
 
 and one of her descendants is the pres- 
 
 [209]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 ent Count de Portales of Florence, 
 
 Italy. The Indiana Tourrettes, on the 
 
 contrary, call themselves "plain 
 
 people," and their only boast is that 
 
 their ancestors have fought in every war 
 
 for liberty this country ever had. Sarah 
 
 La Tourrette might be a Colonial Dame 
 
 and a D. A. R., for her grandfather 
 
 fought in the American Revolution from 
 
 1776 to 1783; her father served in the 
 
 second war with England from 181 2 
 
 to 1 8 14, and her three brothers fought 
 
 on the Union side in the Civil War. 
 
 The house that John La Tourrette 
 
 built is standing yet; a few yards away 
 
 from it is the old loomhouse, and in 
 
 the loft is one of the looms at which 
 
 the beautiful French girl used to stand 
 
 [210]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 weaving such patterns as "Jefferson's 
 Fancy," "Broken Snowballs," "Single 
 Snowballs," "Double Compass," "Ris- 
 ing Sun," "Laurel Blossoms," "La- 
 fayette's Fancy," and "Blazing 
 Star." The coverlets that Sarah wove 
 are in possession of many families in 
 many states; but if one of them should 
 be brought to her, she would know it 
 at once and name the pattern without 
 hesitation. The memory of her hard 
 toil at the loom has destroyed her appre- 
 ciation of her own work, but she says: 
 'The old loom, like the old oaken 
 bucket, is 'dear to my heart.'" Mother 
 La Tourrette is dead these many years 
 and there is no one to spin the linen 
 thread. Sarah's dim eyes can no longer 
 
 [211]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 see through the mysteries of a Jac- 
 quard pattern, and no hand will ever 
 again set in motion the machinery of 
 that loom, yet the weaver will cherish 
 it till death, as an old warrior cher- 
 ishes his sword or an old musician his 
 violin. Scattered all over the older 
 states you find these disused looms. 
 I think of them standing in dusty lofts 
 and deserted cabins, and then I think 
 of Tom Moore's lament over the harp 
 of Tara: 
 
 " The harp that once thro' Tata's halls 
 The soul of music shed, 
 Now hangs as mute on Tata's walls 
 As if that soul were dead." 
 
 To me the unstrung loom is as 
 
 deeply poetic as the unstrung harp. 
 
 [212]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Scott sang the passing of minstrelsy, 
 and there should be another Scott or 
 another Moore to sing the Passing of 
 the Last Weaver and the Lay of the 
 Ancient Loom. 
 
 [213]
 
 VIII 
 THE STORIED COVERLET
 
 VIII 
 
 THE STORIED COVERLET 
 
 "7 cannot tell how the truth may be, 
 I say the tale as 'twas said to me." 
 
 HE handicraftsman will 
 tell you that a cov- 
 erlet is "a cotton 
 foundation overshot 
 with wool," and this 
 definition will suffice for those to 
 whom "A primrose by the river's brim" 
 is "a yellow primrose" and nothing 
 more. But around some of these old 
 coverlets hangs a fringe of memories 
 and traditions, little stories of life, love, 
 
 and death, and listening to these the 
 
 [217]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 faded cover becomes "a weird palimp- 
 sest" under whose threads we read 
 through the mazes of the pattern the 
 record of "a spectral past." 
 
 A daring colorist was she who wove 
 the mountain coverlet, and blended 
 the rich blue with dull scarlet like 
 the coals of a smouldering fire. Tra- 
 dition says that during the Civil 
 War some Union soldiers raided the 
 mountains and one of them carried 
 away this coverlet as contraband of 
 war. Perhaps the red and blue, like 
 the colors of the national flag, pleased 
 his taste, and perhaps he thought that 
 taking an old woman's bed-cover was 
 a safe and easy form of loot. But the 
 
 "kivers" of the mountain woman are 
 
 [218]
 
 A MOUNTAIN "KIVER" 
 
 THE age of this coverlet is un- 
 known, but as it was "con- 
 sidered old before the Civil War" it 
 must be at least a hundred years old. 
 Owned by Miss Elizabeth Danger- 
 field, Lexington, Ky., to whom it 
 was given by the wife of James B. 
 Howard, of Breathitt County, Ky.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 to her what ancestral portraits and 
 family silver are to the woman of the 
 lowlands. The owner of the "kiver" 
 followed the marauders, forced her way 
 into the presence of the commanding 
 officer, and asserted her right to search 
 the camp for the lost treasure. I think 
 the officer must have recognized in this 
 woman something that made her kin 
 to him and to his soldiers, for he gave 
 her permission to make the search and 
 she left the camp in triumph, bearing 
 away her coverlet, a red and blue "badge 
 of courage." The marks of fire are on 
 this old bed-cover and through its bar- 
 baric colors flames the spirit of fierce 
 daring that comes to the mountaineer 
 
 from the days of Hengist and Horsa. 
 
 [219]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Among my photographs I have one of 
 a fraction of a coverlet which in its en- 
 tirety was once a cherished heirloom 
 in the family of the present owner. In 
 the division of their father's estate four 
 sisters contended for the possession of 
 this coverlet. Each had an equal right 
 to it and not one of the four would relin- 
 quish her claim. Finally an old friend 
 of the family was called in to arbitrate 
 the matter. Following Solomon's ex- 
 ample he decided that the precious 
 fabric should be cut into four parts and 
 one-fourth given to each sister. The 
 sense of justice in these sisters was 
 stronger than their love for beauty and 
 they consented to the mutilation of 
 the coverlet. I fancy each one watch- 
 
 [ 220 ]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 ing the cutting with a jealous eye and 
 carefully measuring her fourth to see 
 if, perchance, she might have an inch 
 or so less than her share. 
 
 This story lacks the quality of sweet- 
 ness, but under the apparent sordidness 
 of the four women I see the strong 
 sense of right, the stern determination 
 to have one's right which we call "the 
 spirit of '76." I am sure those four 
 sisters were true Daughters of the Amer- 
 ican Revolution and I hope their love for 
 justice yet lives in their descendants. 
 
 With two Mohawk Valley coverlets 
 goes a tale of the great-grandmother 
 who fled from the tomahawk and fire- 
 brand of Butler and his Indians and 
 
 came as a bride to Pennsylvania over a 
 
 [221 ]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 hundred years ago. When Butler 
 attacked the Cherry Valley settlement 
 her father's house was burned and the 
 family fled to the forts for protection, 
 carrying with them as much of their 
 household goods as they could rescue. 
 There was a coverlet in process of 
 weaving, and before the Indians applied 
 the torch to the cabin they took the 
 web from the loom and later cut it 
 into strips for belts. Besides looting 
 and burning the house, they carried 
 away two little boys. Sad memories 
 to cluster around a fabric woven for 
 warmth, comfort, and beauty! If one 
 lay down to rest under such a cover- 
 let, his sleep might be broken by dreams 
 of fire, murder, and rapine. 
 
 [ 222 ]
 
 THE MARTHA SHEPHERD COVERLET 
 
 WOVEN in Belmont County, 
 Ohio, in the latter part of 
 the Revolutionary War, by an Eng- 
 lish weaver, — Mozvry. Owned by 
 Martha Shepherd's great-grand- 
 daughter, Miss Lucy Wheeler, Dan- 
 ville, III. In Virginia a similar 
 pattern is called " Windows and 
 Doors."

 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 A great-great-granddaughter of Martha 
 Shepherd sent me the picture of her cover- 
 let, and a story that takes us back to 
 heroic days. 
 
 Martha was one of ten children born 
 to Thomas Shepherd and his wife Eliz- 
 abeth Van Metre. Thomas was a mill- 
 wright, the founder of Shepherdstown, 
 Virginia, and the man for whom the 
 town was named. His oldest child was 
 a son, David, born in 1734. David 
 emigrated to the western country in 
 1773, and at the age of thirty-nine 
 was appointed Commissary of Ohio 
 County. In 1774 he pre-empted a claim 
 at the forks of Wheeling Creek and 
 erected a stockade which he called 
 
 Shepherd's Fort. When the Indians 
 
 [223]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 were ravaging this part of the country 
 in 1777, Governor Patrick Henry ap- 
 pointed him County Lieutenant with 
 headquarters at Fort Henry, now Fin- 
 castle. In the family history where 
 Col. David Shepherd's gallant deeds 
 are recorded, the only mention of his 
 sister Martha is that she was born in 
 a certain year and married in a certain 
 year, but from the following story we 
 learn that the spirit of the warrior and 
 frontiersman lived also in this maiden 
 of colonial days. 
 
 After the Shepherd family moved to 
 Ohio, it was Martha Shepherd's cus- 
 tom to go at intervals to Fort Henry, 
 taking a load of ginseng. She would 
 
 ride one horse and lead another to bring 
 
 [224]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 back the merchandise she would get 
 in exchange for the ginseng. On one 
 occasion she did not return as quickly 
 as usual. When she was three days over- 
 due the family began to be extremely 
 anxious. It was spring-time and all 
 the streams were out of their banks. 
 Hostile Indians and British were nu- 
 merous, and as the Shepherd family gath- 
 ered around the fire on the night of 
 the third day, they thought fearfully 
 of all the horrible things that might 
 befall a young woman travelling alone 
 through the wilderness, and decided 
 that early the next morning they would 
 go in search of her. Suddenly out of 
 the darkness they heard a familiar voice 
 
 calling, first like an owl: "Whoo-oo!" 
 
 [225]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 and then saying: "Hurry up, and let 
 down the bars!" 
 
 Joyfully they hurried up; down came 
 the bars, and a tired little woman was 
 lifted from her horse and carried into 
 the house. She had "just stopped over 
 for a few days in Fort Henry." The 
 courage of a race is not to be estimated 
 solely by the courage of its sons, and 
 when we think of this fearless pioneer 
 girl riding alone through the virgin for- 
 est, fording swollen streams and brav- 
 ing yet greater dangers, we see the 
 reason for that miracle of conquest 
 wrought by a band of ragged Ameri- 
 can rebels over the redcoats of King 
 George. 
 
 On the back of one picture is this 
 
 [226]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 inscription: "Spun and woven by 
 
 Lucetta , my grandfather's first 
 
 wife." 
 
 Here is the history of the "first wife," 
 whose title to remembrance lies only 
 in the things she spun and wove. 
 
 She was a New Hampshire girl to 
 whom Love came earlier than he comes 
 to most of us. She was but sixteen 
 and he eighteen, and the road to the 
 marriage altar stretched long before 
 them, for the home must be built, the 
 purse filled, and childhood outgrown 
 before the wedding day could be set. 
 "Work and wait," said Love, and six 
 years they obeyed the command, walk- 
 ing happily down Courtship's Lane. 
 
 Six springs, six summers, six autumns, 
 
 [227]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 and six winters were hers to spend in 
 preparation for the time when she would 
 joyfully leave the empire of her maiden- 
 hood and enter on the wider sovereignty 
 of wifehood. 
 
 When May came over the bleak New 
 England hills, she might walk in the sun- 
 shine and gather to her cheeks the 
 same pink that flushed the flowers of 
 the trailing arbutus. When the apple 
 orchards wooed the bee, she might sit 
 under the blossoming boughs and dream 
 of the time when her life would flower 
 even as the tree. When the noonday 
 sun of summer shone hot on field and 
 garden, she might gather into her body 
 the same magical essence that turns 
 
 the flower of May into the fruit of Octo- 
 
 [228]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 ber; and thus strengthened she could 
 smile fearlessly in the face of winter 
 and make every north wind and every 
 snow yield her a tribute of health. Surely 
 she would not be found unready for the 
 marriage day. 
 
 When she told her father of her 
 betrothal he said: 
 
 "You may have all that you can spin 
 and weave." 
 
 It was a liberal permission for chose 
 days when frugality was one of the 
 cardinal virtues, and at the seasons 
 of sheep-shearing and flax-gathering the 
 farmer may have regretted his gen- 
 erosity to this daughter of industry, 
 for through all the lovely changes of 
 
 the seasons she spun and wove, and 
 
 [229]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 the noise of loom and wheel drowned 
 every whisper from the lips of nature. 
 When the years of waiting ended and 
 the bride left her father's house she 
 carried with her as dowry forty woolen 
 sheets, and blankets, linen sheets, 
 towels, pillow-cases, table-cloths, che- 
 mises, and other things in due propor- 
 tion; also many woven coverlets, one 
 of which lies to-day in stately beauty 
 on the bed of her husband's grand- 
 daughter — not hers, alas ! 
 
 I know she displayed her stock of 
 household goods to the admiring eyes 
 of friends just as the modern bride 
 displays her superfluous silver and cut- 
 glass, her imported lingerie and Paris 
 
 millinery, and we need no historian to 
 
 [230]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 tell us of the solid satisfaction that 
 
 filled the heart of the bridegroom as 
 
 he watched Lucetta storing away her 
 
 linen and woolens on his closet shelves. 
 
 Poor little bride! There was no one 
 
 to tell her that a woman's life consist- 
 
 eth not in the abundance of the things 
 
 that she hath; no one to preach to her 
 
 the joyful gospel of Christ who 
 
 would have us live as the birds of 
 
 the air and the flowers of the field. 
 
 When she went to church on Sunday 
 
 and sat in the high-backed pew by her 
 
 mother's side, she was likely to hear a 
 
 sermon whose text was from Proverbs, 
 
 and the woman lauded by the preacher 
 
 was that woman who rose up early and 
 
 worked late, who laid her hands to the 
 
 [231]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 spindle and the distaff, who clothed 
 her household in scarlet and made her- 
 self coverings of tapestry and clothing 
 of silk and purple, who made fine linen 
 and sold it, and delivered girdles to 
 the merchants. Doubtless she and her 
 lover exchanged shy glances, and he 
 thought with pride how much she was 
 like this woman of the Bible whose 
 price Solomon placed above rubies. 
 
 The maiden who toils six years for 
 love's sake has a right to expect hap- 
 piness, and it is pleasant to know that 
 Lucetta had hers. The story runs 
 that she was much beloved by her 
 husband's family, and that she and 
 her husband were like two children 
 
 playing at housekeeping. But their 
 
 [232]
 
 BETTY TEAGUE 
 
 PILLOW top from the Allan- 
 stand Cottage Industries, Ashe- 
 ville, N.C. Woven by Mrs. Cumi 
 Woody, N.C.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 joy was like the flower of an hour. In 
 a little while a strange weakness stayed 
 the hands of the young wife. A color 
 came into her face, but it was not the 
 token of health. The light in her eyes 
 was the brilliance of a fast-wasting 
 taper, and the warmth in her blood 
 was the fever that precedes the chill 
 of death. A day came when she spread 
 her bed with snowy sheets and soft 
 blankets and crept between them never 
 to rise again. 
 
 Perhaps as she lay under the blue 
 and white coverlet watching the gray 
 sand of life and the gold sand of love 
 run low in the glass, her aching heart 
 told her that a woman's life is more 
 than spinning and weaving, and a 
 
 [233 1
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 woman's body more than woolen sheets 
 and woven coverlets. 
 
 She who had never lingered over 
 any task was not long at the task of 
 dying. One morning her face lay thin 
 and white against the linen pillow-case. 
 The neighbors came with soft footsteps 
 and whispered words, carried the bed- 
 clothes out into the sweet spring sun- 
 shine, and robed her body for the 
 grave. The next day her light coffin was 
 borne to the graveyard, and the chief 
 mourner went home alone, alone. 
 
 With every cup of sorrow Life mer- 
 cifully proffers us more than one cup 
 of nepenthe, and surely the young hus- 
 band needed to drink all of his to the 
 
 last drop. Her linen covered the table 
 
 [234]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 at which he ate his solitary meals with 
 no grace save a groan. When he dried 
 his face on one of Her towels some 
 tears must have mingled with the cleans- 
 ing water. When he lay warm be- 
 tween Her woolen sheets did he not 
 shiver and cry aloud at the thought of 
 Her lying cold under earth and sod 
 and graveyard stone? How could he 
 forget Her? But — 
 
 "Of all strange things this is the strangest yet, 
 That we can love and lose and then forget" 
 
 He was young. There were other 
 maidens crossing his path and thwart- 
 ing him when he would have remem- 
 bered. He looked into their eyes and 
 saw what he had seen once before in 
 Her eyes. Another spring brought new 
 
 [235]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 life to the earth, and above the steady 
 
 throb of sorrow and regret he felt the 
 
 impulse of that old primal law which 
 
 says: 
 
 "... a man must go with a woman* 
 
 Besides — Great Heavens! How his 
 house needed a housekeeper! So in 
 less time than it took the first wife to 
 die there was another courtship, an- 
 other wedding, and the desolate house 
 became a home once more. 
 
 The second bride brought to her 
 
 husband no dowry but health and a 
 
 care-free habit of mind that made her 
 
 walk lightly over the responsibilities 
 
 and burdens that life thrusts in our 
 
 way. The days of her courtship were 
 
 short and easy. No need for her to 
 
 [236]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 toil when the fruit of another's toil 
 hung within reach of her hands. Joy- 
 fully she stepped into the vacant heart 
 and the vacant house. Wifehood was 
 hers, and motherhood, too. Ah, happy 
 home! But on All Souls' Eve I know 
 a lonely little ghost flitted out from 
 the old graveyard and stole into the 
 house that once was hers, paused 
 beside the bed where the new wife 
 slumbered under Her sheets, Her cover- 
 let, and then fled forlorn and bewil- 
 dered back to the place of ghosts. 
 
 In the old graveyard you may read 
 the epitaph: 
 
 "Fare thee well, my kind husband" said she; 
 
 "Now from thy fond bosom I leap 
 With Jesus my bride-groom to be, 
 My flesh in the tomb for to sleep." 
 
 [2371
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Poor little childless first wife, so 
 soon displaced, so soon forgotten! 
 There are no children or grandchil- 
 dren to visit the old graveyard where 
 her flesh sleeps, but as long as the 
 threads of her "Cross and Circle" hold 
 together, Lucetta will be remembered, 
 for a coverlet is a better memorial than a 
 gravestone, even though it be of granite. 
 
 "A foundation of cotton or linen 
 overshot with wool?" Not for 
 Lucetta's coverlet this barren defini- 
 tion. Its warp is not mere linen 
 thread. It was spun from the substance 
 that we call human life, and the colors 
 of its woof are the rainbow hues of a 
 woman's hopes and joys. 
 
 [238]
 
 THE DEBORAH PARKER COVERLET 
 
 TAN and white coverlet, all wool. 
 Woven in 1798. The design 
 is Scandinavian. Owned by Mrs. 
 Charles Stebbins, Deerfield, Mass. 
 Name of design unknown. The 
 corner shows the "Sunrise" pat- 
 tern.
 
 IX 
 THE ANCIENT COVERLET
 
 IX 
 
 THE ANCIENT COVERLET 
 
 Though I look old, yet am I strong and lusty." 
 
 ^SOT only are the colors 
 of the coverlet won- 
 derfully lasting, but 
 there is a quality in 
 the homespun thread 
 that resists the moth of time, and in 
 all my searching I have found but one 
 really worn-out coverlet. 
 
 Walking across a farm one spring 
 day I passed the cabin of the negro 
 tenant. On a clothes-line in front of 
 
 the house hung a curious object. Was 
 
 [241]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 it a coverlet or a calico quilt? I went 
 nearer and discovered it to be a little 
 of both. The foundation was a ragged 
 calico quilt. To reinforce its waning 
 strength Aunt Dinah had quilted over 
 it a blue and white coverlet which hung 
 in melancholy tatters against the back- 
 ground of faded patchwork. The sep- 
 arate tatters were so small that the 
 design of the weaving could not be 
 determined, and as I gazed sorrowfully 
 at the strange sight of a coverlet in 
 ruins, I tried to imagine what hard 
 usage had reduced that robust fabric 
 to a mass of worthless rags. For with 
 only tolerable care the life of a cover- 
 let is longer than the allotted life of 
 
 man. I find on every hand coverlets 
 
 [242]
 
 GOVERNOR'S GARDEN 
 
 SPUN and woven in 1810. The 
 warp is linen overshot with 
 blue wool. Owned by Mrs. Charles 
 Stebbins, Deerfield, Mass.
 
 ■wvvv.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 that have been used for seventy-five 
 years or more and are still perfectly 
 preserved. 
 
 The hundred-year-old Governor's 
 Garden has served three generations 
 as a best bed-spread, "being kept very 
 choice, carefully folded in newspaper, 
 and used only on state occasions.' , 
 There is nothing in its general appear- 
 ance to contradict the belief that it may 
 last another hundred years, but perhaps 
 when a coverlet does go to pieces, its 
 going is like that of the "One Hoss 
 Shay." 
 
 The owner of the one-hundred-and- 
 
 forty-y ear-old coverlet, whose yarn 
 
 was spun in Scotland, says: " To-day it 
 
 is unfaded and not threadbare any- 
 
 [243]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 where except on the hem. The blue 
 is as bright as ever and the white is 
 clear and unyellowed by age." 
 
 I have heard of a double-woven 
 coverlet that was cut into carpet rags 
 — (a woman who would destroy a 
 family coverlet to make a rag-carpet 
 would be capable of using her grand- 
 mother's tombstone for a biscuit block 
 or a door-step) — and another of which 
 nothing remains but a tattered corner 
 bearing the weaver's name and a date: 
 
 H. W. Tilton. 1835 
 yet I find it hard to think of any 
 lawful usage wearing out a double- 
 woven coverlet. 
 
 We read the dates on these old cover- 
 lets and exclaim: 
 
 [244]
 
 A VARIATION OF "LOVERS KNOT 
 
 OWNED by Mrs. Henrietta L. 
 Dunlap Painter, Mount Ver- 
 non, Ohio. The wool for this cov- 
 erlet was spun in Scotland in 1750 
 by Mrs. Painter s great-grandmother, 
 then a girl of sixteen.
 
 Tr
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 "Some smack of age in you; some 
 relish of the saltiness of time!" and 
 half-forgotten history, page by page, 
 unrolls before us. 
 
 In 1720, when Benjamin Henry's wife 
 was threading her shuttle in her Ver- 
 mont home, Franklin was a boy in his 
 teens, George I was on the throne, and 
 England was still the beloved "mother- 
 country"; France was gaining a foot- 
 hold in the New World, and in conflicts 
 with the French and the Indians the 
 colonists were whetting the swords that 
 fifty-five years later they were to draw 
 in defence of American liberty. 
 
 In 1762 the American colonies were 
 groaning under the Acts of Trade, the 
 
 Navigation Laws, and the Writs of 
 
 [24s]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Assistance; Patrick Henry was making 
 fiery speeches in defence of the people's 
 rights, and about this time an Irish 
 immigrant in the Old Dominion was 
 weaving Miss Dangerfield's coverlet by 
 a pattern which she had brought to 
 "Ameriky" from the "ould counthry." 
 In 1775, in the village of Ayr, a peas- 
 ant boy was following the plough and 
 dreaming of the time when he would 
 sing a song "for Scotland's sake." In 
 France the reign of Louis XVI was just 
 beginning; Marie Antoinette was amus- 
 
 
 
 ing herself in ways forbidden to roy- 
 alty; the peasants were eating the bark 
 of trees, while nobles and priests lived 
 in reckless splendor; Voltaire was writ- 
 ing; the people were thinking, and above 
 
 [246]
 
 OLD IRELAND 
 
 THIS coverlet was woven in 
 Bath County, Pa., one hun- 
 dred and fifty years ago. The for- 
 mer owner was an Irish woman 
 who died, the last of her race, at the 
 age of ninety. According to family 
 tradition the coverlet was woven by 
 her grandmother, who brought the 
 pattern from Ireland. The present 
 owner is Miss Elizabeth Danger- 
 field of Lexington, Ky.
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 the music and laughter of the Court 
 of Versailles you could hear a murmur 
 that later grew into the tumult of the 
 Commune. In America, too, the 
 people were thinking, and now and 
 then a man would put the burden of 
 his thought into heroic words. It was 
 in this year that Patrick Henry said: 
 "Give me liberty or give me death!" 
 that Paul Revere made his midnight 
 ride; that the minute-men assembled 
 on the common of Lexington, and in 
 the dark hour just before the dawn the 
 first blood of the Revolution stained 
 the dust of the road to Concord. In 
 1775 old Israel Putnam left his plow; 
 Ethan Allen demanded the surrender 
 
 of Ticonderoga "In the name of the 
 
 [247]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Great Jehovah and the Continental Con- 
 gress," and Washington took command 
 of the army whose victories were to 
 destroy the power of kings and light 
 the lamp of liberty in a New World. 
 
 A glorious page of history is that 
 which holds the record of 1775! And 
 while the God of Nations was trying the 
 souls of men and sending them forth 
 to battle, in every Puritan home the 
 women were fighting their battles with 
 distaff and loom and needle, and the 
 work of their hands was so established 
 that some of it stands to-day. Where 
 are the silken covers of Marie Antoi- 
 nette's couch? Torn to pieces and scat- 
 tered to the autumn wind by the mob 
 
 that attacked Versailles on that wild 
 
 [248]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 October night. But not a thread is 
 missing from the blue and red cover- 
 let that a certain Puritan housewife 
 wove in 1775. 
 
 When the tan and white coverlet 
 with the sunrise pattern in its corners 
 was taken from the loom, America was 
 standing doubtful and hesitant in the 
 period of uncertainty that always comes 
 after struggle and acquisition. She was 
 face to face with the liberty for which 
 she had fought and bled, and wondering 
 what she would do with it after all. In 
 France the crimes committed in the 
 name of liberty had made that name 
 hateful to many. Marat, Danton, and 
 Robespierre had quaffed the wine of 
 
 death from the same cup they had 
 
 [249]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 pressed to the lips of Louis and Marie 
 Antoinette. Weary of their orgy of 
 liberty, the people were standing bewil- 
 dered. The hour called for "a head 
 and a sword," and in answer to the 
 call came a young Corsican officer, 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, who was to 
 build a military despotism on the 
 ruined throne of the Capets. John 
 Adams was president of the United 
 States and Thomas Jefferson vice- 
 president. Talleyrand was playing his 
 game of diplomacy with the American 
 envoys, Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry. 
 Captain Decatur was cruising the seas 
 and capturing the privateer ships of 
 France; the people were finding the 
 
 problems of liberty as hard as those 
 
 [250]
 
 SUNRISE 
 
 OVEN in 1720 by Mrs. 
 
 Benjamin Henry, Halifax, 
 Ft. The great age of the cover- 
 let shows plainly in the picture, 
 the light spots being places where 
 the wool is worn of from the 
 linen foundation. This resembles 
 " Sunrise on the Walls of Troy," 
 which is sometimes called "Jeffer- 
 son's Fancy."
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 of tyranny had been, and when the 
 Alien and Sedition Laws were passed, 
 only Virginia and Kentucky had faith 
 enough in liberty to vote against them. 
 A troubled, unrestful year was 1798, 
 but in older lands there was time for 
 the poetry of Wordsworth, Cowper, 
 Goethe, and Schiller, the philosophy of 
 Kant, and the art of Canova, Flaxman, 
 Thorwaldsen, Reynolds, Gainsborough, 
 and Turner, and everywhere time for 
 the ancient business of falling in love, 
 giving in marriage, and going to house- 
 keeping. It is a matter of authentic 
 record that in this year a New Eng- 
 land girl, Deborah Parker, was mar- 
 ried, and an important part of her 
 bridal outfit was a tan and white cov- 
 
 [251]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 erlet made of wool which was taken 
 from the sheep's back, dyed, spun, and 
 woven on the home farm of the bride. 
 . It is one hundred and fourteen years 
 old in this year of 191 2, and still it holds 
 both usefulness and beauty as in the 
 day when the young wife made her 
 bridal bed and draped it with her cher- 
 ished coverlet. 
 
 Will any work of your hand or of 
 mine last as long? 
 
 When Waity Staples wove her tap- 
 estry coverlet of snowy white the ques- 
 tion of foreign trade was vexing the 
 nation; the English were capturing 
 American vessels and impressing Ameri- 
 can seamen. Napoleon was Emperor of 
 
 France. His star had reached its zenith 
 
 [252]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 and was beginning to go down ; Josephine 
 was divorced; behind him lay the splen- 
 did victories of the Pyramids, Aboukir, 
 Marengo, and Jena; before him lay 
 defeat, abdication, and exile. James 
 Madison was president of the United 
 States, and the clouds of the Second 
 War of Independence were gathering on 
 the horizon. Thomas Jefferson in the 
 seclusion of Monticello was dreaming of 
 the great university that became an im- 
 mortal reality a few years later. In 
 England the musical cantos of "Mar- 
 mion" and "The Lady of the Lake" were 
 on every lip, and in America, Emerson, 
 a child of seven, played in the commons 
 around Boston. 
 
 "What should we speak of when we 
 
 [253]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 are as old as you?" asks Arviragus in 
 "Cymbeline." 
 
 A certain awe comes over me as I 
 think that if I were as old as that Ver- 
 mont coverlet woven by Dame Henry, 
 and if the trailing years had not blurred 
 the writing on the tablets of memory, 
 I should be talking of Bonaparte and 
 Elba, of the flight to Varennes, of Lord 
 Nelson and Trafalgar, of General Wash- 
 ington and Cornwallis, of Lafayette and 
 Benjamin Franklin. And if but one of 
 those ancient webs lay before me in 
 some dark hour when the senses are half- 
 asleep and only the imagination wakes, 
 I might see the gleam of Charlotte 
 Corday's dagger, the flash of the queen's 
 
 necklace; I might hear the roar of the 
 
 [254]
 
 THE WAITY STAPLES COVERLET 
 
 PURE white tapestry weave cov- 
 erlet made in Illinois in 1810 
 by Mrs. Waity Staples. The cen- 
 tral design resembles that of Miss 
 Dangerfield's Irish coverlet.
 
 ! 
 
 S 
 
 It ■•: • • 15 
 
 
 ~^J=- 
 
 
 u --
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Commune or the clangor of the bell 
 that proclaimed Liberty to all the na- 
 tions, and the clumsy old bed-covering 
 would seem like Aladdin's magic car- 
 pet bearing me back to that glorious 
 century when a nation in the Old 
 World and another in the New turned 
 their faces towards democracy. 
 
 [255]
 
 X 
 THE HEIRLOOM UNAPPRECIATED
 
 X 
 
 THE HEIRLOOM UNAPPRECIATED 
 
 " What we do not understand, we do not possess." 
 
 I HE mania for collect- 
 ing things is a delight- 
 ful form of madness. 
 Did you ever pick up 
 a dusky painting in an 
 old junk-shop and later discover it to 
 be a masterpiece? Did you ever buy 
 an old violin for a song and find the 
 soul of music in its battered frame? 
 Are your pilgrim feet set in the path 
 whose ultimate shrine is a battered 
 mahogany sideboard or a four-poster 
 
 bed? Do you collect facts instead of 
 
 [259]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 things, and are you trying by a chain 
 of genealogical facts to prove your kin- 
 ship to Lord Baltimore or William the 
 Conqueror? Or are you searching for 
 some lost ancestor whose name is the 
 only evidence needed to establish your 
 claim to a vast fortune? 
 
 If you are a collector of anything 
 whatever, you can understand how 
 one is drawn into the Quest of the 
 Woven Coverlet. Here, as in any other 
 pleasant madness, are mystery, romance, 
 surprise. The past becomes as vital 
 and clear as the passing hour; names 
 of melody sing themselves in your 
 brain; beautiful colors and forms fill 
 your vision; you see beauty sacredly 
 
 cherished or fallen and profaned; and 
 
 [260]
 
 NINE DIAMONDS 
 
 PILLOW top from the Allan- 
 stand Cottage Industries, Ashe- 
 ville, N.C. Woven by Mrs. Cumi 
 Woody, N.C.
 
 .****
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 you hear stories that bring to mind 
 Cinderella in the kitchen, royal prin- 
 cesses disguised in beggars' rags, queens 
 in exile, poets starving in garrets, and 
 many another instance of worth and 
 beauty unappreciated by an ignorant 
 world. 
 
 "Yes, I have two coverlets," said a 
 friend in answer to my question. 
 "But they are on the cook's bed, and 
 so dirty I am ashamed to show them 
 to you." 
 
 "I used to have three or four," said 
 
 another, "but I gave them away to 
 
 the family servants, and now my 
 
 daughter is trying to buy one for a 
 
 couch cover." 
 
 "I used to have two," said a third, 
 
 [261]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 "but I covered the ironing board with 
 one and it was scorched to pieces." 
 
 "Those old blue and white cover- 
 lets?" said a fourth. "Why, last sum- 
 mer, when I was at home, down in 
 Georgia, the dog was sleeping on one 
 under the back porch." 
 
 "Yes, I have one," said a fifth, and 
 she brought out a gorgeous "Whig 
 Rose" in black, red, olive-green, and 
 ecru; and that piece of weaving fit for 
 a queen's portiere was serving as a 
 mattress cover on a servant's bed. 
 
 I knocked one day at the door of an 
 
 old-fashioned house; an old-fashioned 
 
 woman opened the door and greeted me 
 
 with outstretched hands. I entered 
 
 and walked through the old-fashioned 
 
 [262]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 u 
 
 parlor. On the beautiful mahogany 
 table lay a sampler worked in many 
 colored silks; on the sampler stood a 
 wonderful old lamp resting on a brass 
 pedestal and shaded by an exquisite 
 cut-glass globe; this lamp, the mis- 
 tress of the house said, was made in 
 the days when lard oil was used for 
 illuminating. On the high, ivory-white 
 mantel were glass candlesticks. In one 
 corner stood a mahogany sofa, hand- 
 carved and built on lines of perfect 
 grace and beauty. Around the sofa 
 and table stood chairs with oddly curved 
 legs, and backs too beautiful to lean 
 against. It was the parlor of our 
 grandmother's day, the day of ruffled 
 
 shirt-bosoms, gold-headed canes, and 
 
 [263]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 fine manners; and as the mistress of 
 
 the house began to talk, her words 
 
 were of a day still farther off, for she 
 
 told the story of her great-grandfather, 
 
 twice married and the father of thirty 
 
 children — a seafaring man, captured 
 
 at the outbreak of the Revolutionary 
 
 War, carried to England and held a 
 
 prisoner for three years, suffering all 
 
 the cruelty that English captors could 
 
 heap on a "rebel subject," and finally 
 
 escaping and returning to Virginia to 
 
 live the life of a tobacco planter on his 
 
 vast estates. It was like a chapter from 
 
 "To Have and To Hold," and while 
 
 I listened I thought: "Surely there must 
 
 be a coverlet in this family." 
 
 There were two. From the depths 
 
 [264]
 
 THE ANTHONY WAYNE COVERLET 
 
 OWNED by Mrs. H. C. Tor- 
 rance, Pittsburg, Pa. The 
 mother of Mrs. Torrance inherited 
 it from a niece of Gen. Wayne. 
 This niece inherited most of her 
 uncle 's property, and it has always 
 been believed that the coverlet was 
 one of his possessions. The plate 
 shows the worn condition of the 
 coverlet. A very fine piece of weav- 
 ing.
 
 
 iWii ft flits t mm^j J&fc^JJUJe 
 
 ^fcos ^#5§s SPjPIs ^^^^^S^^' 
 
 ^^Hwe^si 
 
 *9Q 
 
 on 
 
 1 1 
 
 i ii
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 of an old oak chest upstairs she brought 
 them forth, and we carried them out 
 of doors, where the rays of the setting 
 sun could light up the splendid color 
 and the glorious designs, "Lover's 
 Knot" and " Double Bow Knot," both 
 dark blue and white. 
 
 "I had another one," said my host- 
 ess. "It was red and green, but I 
 did not know the value of it and I sold 
 it to a negro woman for a dollar, and 
 never got the dollar. No, I can't trace 
 it up, for the woman who bought it is 
 dead and her husband went away from 
 this place years ago." 
 
 A tragic story this! And I doubt 
 
 not that in her mind, as in my own, 
 
 that green and red coverlet will always 
 
 [265]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 be like the hound, the bay horse, and 
 the turtle-dove that Thoreau lost and 
 never found. 
 
 When the Kentucky farmer starts to 
 town with a load of tobacco he usually 
 covers the precious commodity with a 
 tarpaulin, which is the proper cover 
 for tobacco and a sign of the farmer's 
 wealth and thrift. But there is no 
 picturesqueness about a tarpaulin, and 
 the wagons that keep me looking out 
 of the window and flying down the 
 street all winter are those of the farm- 
 ers who cannot afford tarpaulins. O, 
 for a brush and skill to paint a pic- 
 ture of these wagons crawling slowly 
 along the 'pike under the winter sun- 
 shine, over the winter snow, while every 
 
 [266]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 color an artist ever dreamed of shows 
 startlingly bright or delicately faded 
 from the rag carpets, calico quilts, and 
 old coverlets that only partly hide the 
 "vile weed" of the rich brown color 
 that King James so hated. As these 
 wagons trail by my house, a cry goes 
 up from some watcher: "There goes a 
 coverlet!" I rush out signalling to the 
 man on the wagon and begging him 
 to let me see that old coverlet, while 
 passers-by stare amazedly at the sight of 
 a bare-headed woman standing in Ken- 
 tucky mud or melting snow, imploring a 
 tobacco farmer to sell her a ragged, 
 filthy bed-cover. It was thus that I 
 became the possessor of "Tennessee 
 
 Trouble," a pattern I had long desired 
 
 [267]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 to see. It was a pitiable-looking object, 
 
 and when I brought it into the house 
 
 and spread it on the parlor floor I felt like 
 
 a knight who had rescued a fair maiden 
 
 from captivity. Man and beast, earth, 
 
 fire, and water seemed to have worked 
 
 their evil will on the once lovely thing. 
 
 Five inches had been torn from the 
 
 end of one breadth and three inches 
 
 from another. One breadth was torn 
 
 in two and there was a jagged rent on 
 
 one edge as if a dog had clawed it. 
 
 Three large holes had been burned in 
 
 it, the selvedge was ragged, in some 
 
 places the wool was completely worn 
 
 off from the cotton foundation, leaving 
 
 a large bare spot like a piece of white 
 
 paper, and its colors were obscured by 
 
 [268]
 
 THE DOWNFALL OF PARIS 
 
 WOVEN in North Carolina 
 three generations ago. Some 
 vandal cut this coverlet into thirty- 
 two pieces, but it was "restored" by 
 sewing the pieces together. I first 
 saw it on a load of tobacco, and the 
 owner of the tobacco, Air. Kirk 
 Bailey, Richelieu, Ky., kindly 
 loaned it to me for illustrating pur- 
 poses. The name of the design 
 commemorates the 31st of March, 
 
 1814, when the allied armies en- 
 tered Paris accompanied by the 
 Emperor of Russia and the King of 
 Prussia, or perhaps the yth of July, 
 
 181 5, when for the second time the 
 allies took possession of the French 
 capital and Napoleon s power was 
 finally broken.
 
 5 
 
 ' .   " »' > 
 
 \ ■• 
 
 R* 
 
 
 ' 
 
 '' •».3
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 mud and dust, stained with tobacco, 
 and faded by long exposure to untoward 
 weather. But the cleansing waters 
 whitened and brightened it, countless 
 patches and darns made it whole, and 
 now its soft colors and elaborate pat- 
 tern delight the eye as it reposes on the 
 back of an easy chair, where after all 
 life's hardships it is having an old age 
 
 "Serene and bright 
 And lovely as a Lapland night." 
 
 In like manner I rescued "Forty- 
 Nine Snowballs" and restored it to 
 usefulness and beauty after it had suf- 
 fered the degradation of serving as a 
 horse-blanket in the stable and a cover 
 for potatoes down in the cellar of a 
 
 farm-house. 
 
 [269]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Desecration and humiliation are not 
 always the lot of the ancestral cover- 
 let. The owner of the "Waity Staples" 
 coverlet declares that she welcomes a 
 spell of sickness because it gives her 
 an opportunity to use that beautiful 
 white spread. The owner of the Mon- 
 roe County coverlets says that five hun- 
 dred dollars could not buy them from 
 her, but I usually find that the degree 
 of appreciation accorded to the family 
 coverlet results merely in its being care- 
 fully put away. The family portraits 
 are honorably placed on the walls; the 
 old mahogany sideboard graces the 
 dining-room, and the family silver 
 stands on its polished top, while the 
 
 family coverlet, the contemporary of 
 
 [270]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 all these things and the most beauti- 
 ful of all, is hidden away in the dark 
 recesses of closet or chest; and in 
 ignorance of the noble beauty of grand- 
 mother's work, we buy factory-made 
 textiles to decorate our homes, while 
 servants and dogs slumber on our ances- 
 tral coverlets! 
 
 To my mind there is more of prestige 
 in an old coverlet than in anything else 
 that comes to us from the hands of the 
 dead. Whenever I find one I try to 
 construct its biography, asking these 
 questions : Where and when was it made ? 
 Who spun and dyed the thread? Who 
 did the weaving? Who was the original 
 owner and who is the present owner? 
 
 As these questions are answered the 
 
 [271]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 history of the coverlet is found to be, 
 in brief, the history of the family own- 
 ing it. 
 
 Where, reader, is your family cover- 
 let? In a dusty garret corner, per- 
 haps, or buried from sight under the 
 rubbish of the lumber-room. Wherever 
 it is, go bring it out to the air and sun- 
 shine. Spread it over that damask- 
 covered couch, and stand off a little 
 distance so that you may study the pat- 
 tern. How queer it looks surrounded 
 by the furniture and bric-a-brac of a 
 modern parlor! It is like an anachro- 
 nism on a page of history or an obsolete 
 word strayed from the time of Shake- 
 speare into present-day fiction, and its 
 
 weight is as "the weary weight of all 
 
 [272]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 this unintelligible world." You think 
 of your silken, down-filled coverlet and 
 wonder how any one could sleep under 
 a fabric as coarse and heavy as this 
 coverlet. But its weight once matched 
 the strength of the hands that spun, 
 dyed, and wove it, and if your imagina- 
 tive faculties are not wholly wasted 
 away, this old bed-cover ought to bring 
 you face to face with your foremother, 
 as worthy a dame as any whose names 
 are on the visiting cards that fill your 
 silver card plate. Unless you are a 
 Daughter of the American Revolution 
 or a Colonial Dame, you probably do 
 not know your foremother's name, and 
 if she, or a woman like her, came into 
 
 your parlor, you would hesitate about 
 
 [273 1
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 asking her to be seated. Your hands 
 are soft, white, and jewelled; her hands 
 were hard and knotted, and her wedding 
 ring was worn to a thread by labors 
 that you would scorn. Your speech 
 has the elegance of one who has stud- 
 ied in school and college; hers was plain 
 and ungrammatical. You hold familiar 
 converse . with great minds in the 
 worlds of science, philosophy, history, 
 art, and literature; she learned her 
 science, philosophy, and history from 
 the Bible. "The Pilgrim's Progress" was 
 her only fiction, all the poetry and 
 music of her life lay between the covers 
 of the hymn-book, and she never had 
 a glimpse of the land of art except when 
 
 she dyed her woollen thread and wove 
 
 [274]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 her coverlets, or pieced a calico quilt, 
 or embroidered a sampler. 
 
 There was nothing aesthetic about 
 her life, and the word "aesthetic" was 
 unknown to her, but her love of beauty- 
 was deeper and sincerer than ours; lux- 
 ury had not enervated the sinews of her 
 soul or her body, and the record of her 
 tireless industry and her dumb for- 
 titude are like an epic poem. Some 
 call themselves high-born if they can 
 trace their ancestry back to a red- 
 handed warrior or a degenerate king. 
 But when pride of blood, place, or 
 wealth swells our heart, it is well to 
 remember that every family tree has 
 its roots in the life of the common 
 
 people, and though coronets and 
 
 [275]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 Norman blood are not named in your 
 pedigree, a hand-woven coverlet may 
 be your genealogical chart, proving 
 that your life sprang from the life of 
 a woman who was girded with strength 
 and who never "ate the bread of idle- 
 ness," and this is noble birth. 
 
 A link between the present and the 
 past, between the Old World and the 
 New, between you and your fore- 
 mother, that is what your coverlet 
 should be to you. Cherish it accord- 
 ing to its real worth, and if you are 
 incapable of doing this, let it pass 
 into worthier hands than yours; for a 
 wave of wholesome taste is sweeping 
 over the world, and the law that brings 
 
 to us our own is lifting the hand-woven 
 
 [276]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 coverlet out of obscurity and neglect 
 into an atmosphere of loving appre- 
 ciation. The old Dutch dame "builded 
 better than she knew" when she wove 
 her blue and white coverlet. I think 
 of her again in the colonial house, in 
 the low-ceiled room where the pewter 
 dishes caught the light that came 
 through the tiny panes of glass; then 
 the picture fades and another comes 
 to replace it. 
 
 I see a reception hall in an Ameri- 
 can palace home. It is not common 
 air, but music and perfume that those 
 breathe who cross that lighted thresh- 
 old — music from lips in whose melody 
 kings have delighted, perfume from a 
 
 thousand flowers, though it is winter, 
 
 [277]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 and outside the snow is falling, falling 
 on the uniforms of the tall policemen 
 who watch lest an unbidden guest stray 
 into the festivity, and on the ragged 
 shawl of the beggar who looks with 
 evil, envious eyes at the glowing win- 
 dows and thinks hungrily of the crumbs 
 that fall from the rich man's table. 
 
 If the sturdy Dutch woman crowned 
 with her braided hair should appear 
 on the brilliant scene she might not 
 recognize her great-granddaughter in 
 the fragile, elegant creature who holds 
 out a slender hand and smiles faintly 
 at each new guest. But she would 
 surely know her own handiwork hanging 
 there in the arched doorway between a 
 
 Japanese carving and an Alma-Tadema. 
 
 [278]
 
 A BOOK OF HAND-WOVEN COVERLETS 
 
 It has covered the sleep of bride and 
 groom, it has warmed the new-made 
 mother and babe, it has lain in straight 
 solemn folds on the rigid limbs of the 
 dead, and now the hand of a foreign 
 ambassador is thrusting it aside, and, as 
 he passes, the jeweled star on his coat 
 touches the homespun folds of the old 
 blue and white counterpane. 
 
 [279]
 
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