Wednesday, April 2, 2025

Eliza Trigg Brents's Civil War

 

Kentucky Historical Society
Attributed to Susan Mary Cheatham Smith Montgomery (1846-1910)
Silk quilt pieced over paper templates in a hexagon design
with added embroidery on the borders. 



Kentucky had a reputation for "fine and costly quilts" after 1840 or so. Twenty-three year old Eliza Trigg Brents seems to have been among the most skillful and productive of the makers. Above the black-bordered hexagon is a typical Kentucky show quilt but not by Eliza. We have no surviving quilts attributed to her. But we have evidence in fair records that she made many award-winning quilts over the years.


Prize records Kentucky State Fair in 1863
(Eliza's name is Brents with an S.)
She won premiums for a silk quilt and a worsted (wool) quilt plus
a piece of embroidery that year.



Again two entries: a silk comfort and a patch-work
woolen quilt


Perhaps her worsted quilt looked like this one
attributed to Mary Redman Parris of Cynthiana, Kentucky by Jeffrey Evans Auction.
There certainly was a Kentucky style. Much mosaic piecing and added embroidery...



Attributed to Sallie Pinnick of Columbia, Kentucky,
Recorded by the Florida project and the Quilt Index.

....Until crazy quilt fashion took over in the 1870s and changed
the emphasis from piecing over paper templates to crazy randomness.
Kentucky style still favored the embroidered border.



This may be Eliza with her husband and children about 1870
in front of the house her father bought her as a wedding gift.

When the Civil War began in April 1861 32-year old Eliza Trigg Brents was 5 or 6 months pregnant with her first (recorded?) child although she'd been married for 7 years to 43-year-old Samuel Worley Brents. 

His first wife had died after childbirth leaving two surviving children. At War's beginning Eliza's stepchild Mary Elizabeth was about 12 and Samuel II about 8 years old.





Eliza Trigg, a native of Barren County, Kentucky, had lived in the county seat Glasgow all her life. She was from a wealthy family; the Trigg National Bank with the arch is pictured above in the early 20th century. When she lived there Glasgow had about 500 citizens, a good many of them enslaved by the Trigg family as the 1860 census Slave Schedule shows:

TRIGG, A(lanson) (farmer): 1 male 60, 1 male 55, 1 female 49, 1 female 48, 1 female 32, 1 female

                35, 1 female 17, 2 females 1, 1 female 12, 1 female 9, 1 female 5 (unnamed born 15 Apr

                1855), 1 female 7, 1 female 6 (Agnis born 1 Aug 1854, daughter of Permelia), 1 female 5,

                1 female 3, 1 female 2 (unnamed born 1858), 1 female 3, 1 male 13, 1 male 10, 1 male 9,

                1 male 8, 1 female 4, 1 male 12, 1 male 8, 1 male 5 (unnamed born 15 Mar 1855), 1 male

                1, 1 male 3, 1 male 23, 1 male 21, 1 male 20, 1 male 18, 1 male 16. 

      

Samuel and Eliza were probably also slave holders. A reference to a boy who died in 1853:

"BRENTS, Linsey, age 12 yrs, male, slave, born and resided Barren Co, Samuel Brents owner, died of unknown cause 1853."

 
Linsey might have been an early victim of the worldwide cholera epidemic of 1853-4, which was fatal to people enslaved by the Triggs as this schedule of African-American deaths in 1854 Glasgow shows.

TRIGG, Aggy, female, age 70 yrs, born VA, slave of A(lanson) Trigg,1 Apr 1854,old age

TRIGG, Aggy, female, age 62 yrs, born VA, slave of A Trigg, cholera 25 Oct 1854

TRIGG, Anderson, male, age 5 yrs, slave of A Trigg, 15 Apr 1854, scarlet fever.

TRIGG, Barney, male, age 50 yrs, born VA, slave of A Trigg, 23 Oct 1854, cholera

TRIGG, Fanny, female, age 5, slave of A Trigg, 1 Aug 1854, consumption

TRIGG, George, male, age 75 yrs, born VA, slave of A Trigg, 1 May 1854, old age

TRIGG, Joe, male, age 8 yrs, slave of A Trigg, 15 June 1854, consumption

TRIGG, No First Name, female, age 3 months, slave of A Trigg, 15 Apr 1854, flux

             



Alanson Munson Trigg (1795-1873) bought this house,
which still stands, for Eliza in 1854.

Western Kentucky University Collection
Late-19th-century quilt with initials of Emily G. Marks (1839-1923) in the center.
The fabrics look to be wools; the worsteds Kentuckians often fancied
for their show quilts. 

Which side were the Triggs and Brents on? With Kentucky's civilians it's tough to tell.

(1833-?)

Union Army Major J. A. Brents (apparently only distantly related) spent time in Barren County. In his 1868 memoir he recalled: "Glasgow is a pretty town: the Union people are very clever. There are many disunionists in the county." 


The S.W. Brents family may have been among the "disunionists." It looks like Eliza's brother Alanson Curd Trigg was one of "Morgan's Boys," perhaps killed fighting in 1863. Another clue to the Brents's loyalties is their son born in July, 1861 who was christened John Hunt Morgan Brents.



April, 1917
Obituary for J. Morgan Brents from the Scottsville, Kentucky Citizen Times.

Morgan Brents spent much of his adult life in Seattle. He was named for the famous guerilla but the Confederate raiders did not occupy Glasgow until the end of 1862---a name change?


John Hunt Morgan (1825 -1864)

John H. Morgan became a scourge in the area with his guerilla fighters known as Morgan's Raiders. 


Morgan's Christmas Raid through Kentucky in 1862
Eliza's son Morgan was born 18 months before the Glasgow Raid.

Mary Moss Brents Caldwell (1865-1930)
Eliza's daughter Mary Moss arrived in the last year of the War.

Through these years Eliza continued to stitch prize-winning quilts she showed in fair season. In 1863 her "worsted patch-work quilt" won a second prize at the the Kentucky State Fair. After the war she won four premiums for embroidery and quilts at Barren County's 1867 fair and the following year three at the Simpson County fair for the best patch-work woolen quilt, best silk quilt and best silk comforter.

Confederate Memorial erected in 1905

There were enough "disunionists" in Glasgow that the women of the Kentucky Women’s Monumental Association sponsored a Confederate memorial installed at the courthouse.

The 1880 census shows Eliza living with her family. Husband Samuel is a boarding house keeper---apparently they rented out rooms in that big house. Morgan and Mary Moss are teenagers at school. They had one male servant Robert Chapple and Eliza's mother Mary Trigg lived next door.

Daughter Mary Moss inherited her mother's artistic talent.

1897 Louisville Courier-Journal

Eliza died at 58.


Where are Eliza Trigg Brents's prize-winning show quilts today? We might guess that daughter Mary Brents Caldwell inherited them. A research trip to Glasgow to talk to some of the older residents might reveal some lost masterpieces.

Silk show quilt from 1848 with Julia D.L. Bass's name in the center.
These show-off quilts often showed off the maker's name.




Wednesday, March 26, 2025

Liberty's Birds #1: Bluebird

 


Liberty's Birds #1: Bluebird
by Denniele Bohannon

This year's applique Block-of-the-Month series features the diary of Sara T.D. Robinson written her first year in Kansas where she and her husband came from Massachusetts to fight slavery. Kansas; Its Interior and Exterior Life. A Full View of Its Settlement, Political History, Social Life, Climate, Soil, Productions, Scenery, Etc. was published in 1856.
Look for 9 free patterns on the last day of  months March to December in 2025.

Kansas Museum of History
Sara Tappan Doolittle Lawrence Robinson (1827-1911)
about the time she moved to Kansas in the mid 1850s

Sara lived on the same crest of a rocky ridge overlooking the Kansas plains that I do. One hundred and seventy years and a few miles separate our houses on Mount Oread (once called Hog Back Ridge.)

Our houses on the edge of the ridge.

This view from Sara's first Lawrence home looking north is a photo by Alexander Gardner taken ten years after her arrival. The town pictured on the Kansas River was more advanced than in Sara's initial years on Mount Oread. Many things changed since her first months here when she kept her diary. Birds and botany, however, are similar in my neighborhood today.

Bluebird by Elsie Ridgely

Emily Jane Hunt (1839-1921) came from Massachusetts.
Sara referred to her younger friend as "E." in the diary.

One major difference: I live in a comfortable '70s modern house; Sara lived in a primitive construction project---a frame house being built around her. Also living in the house, she mentioned a "family" of 5---husband Charles, friend Emily Hunt and a Mr. W. the "elderly" handyman working on the house and keeping the women company when Charles traveled, which was often. When Charles was home visitors came to talk politics with him and frequently spent the night.

Food and building supplies were at a premium. Note the lack of trees on the hill. The woods across the river on the Delaware Tribe's land were full of cottonwood and other trees unsuitable for lumber. 

Bluebird by Becky Collis

Sara from a well-to-do Massachusetts family was not one to complain. Easterners would pity us....



Eastern Bluebird

Eastern (not Western) Bluebirds are one of our spring joys, the
same birds that delighted Sara.

Bluebird by Susannah Pangelinan

The Block



The inspiration applique---looks 20th century


Cattle on the hill overlooking Lawrence, Sara's view

See the introductory post here:
https://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2025/01/2025s-applique-block-of-month-starts-in.html

And read Sara's book online here:

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

Mary Gaddy Inman's Civil War Quilt?

 

The North Carolina project recorded this quilt forty years ago. 
A great-granddaughter who'd inherited it attributed it
to Mary Gaddy Inman of Robeson County.


Mary Catherine Gaddy Inman (1829-1902) is buried in the Whiteville Memorial Cemetery
with her husband Benjamin Hardy Inman (Inmon?)
(1825-1896.)

The couple had five children and the great-granddaughter recalled one was named Christian Orella. She also told the documenters that the squares were made during the Civil War by a group of friends and finished at a quilting party when the war was over.

That child was actually named Christine Orilla Inman (1863-1946) but that error is a small detail. The story of the quilt as an album stitched during the War and then quilted after 1865 is more than a detail. And it is not likely to be true as everything about the quilt's appearance, style, quilting and especially fabric look to be after the dominance of solid fugitive colors in Southern quilts.

The colors have lost their brilliance with the blue-green
 shifting towards tan and reds completely losing their color. The 
bright yellow-orange, chrome dyed, is one of the solids that 
was not so prone to fade, a rarity in Southern solids after the Civil War. 

Two post-1880 Southern quilts with similar color loss
and utilitarian quilting.


The Inman quilt is a beauty in its own right despite the wear.


 Quilts do not need a false connection to the Civil War to make them valuable artifacts. 



I drew a pattern I call Southern Crabapple, based
on one in Mary's sampler.
Print this out on an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet.


Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Petticoat Press # 3 Pathfinder for Jane Cannon Swisshelm

 



Petticoat Press # 3: Pathfinder for Jane Cannon Swisshelm by Elsie Ridgley

Minnesota Historical Society
Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm (1815-1884)

Jane was born in western Pennsylvania into a family of strict Scottish Presbyterians. She met her future husband James Swisshelm (a Methodist) at a quilting party.


"He was handsomely dressed...a man of giant strength," she recalled. He decided she would be his wife and they married in 1836. Religion, James's mother and two difficult temperaments were obstacles to happiness. If the traditional woman's novel relied on the "Marriage Plot" at the time, these tales of female writers rely upon the "Divorce Plot." Jane's story is no exception. She remembered her marriage as twenty years "without the legal right to be alone one hour."

She left her husband, taking their daughter Mary Henrietta. James divorced her for desertion in 1857. Our divorce plot here requires the talented woman to make a living for her family with her writing. Jane was drawn to newspaper editing, giving herself a platform for her strong opinions, which were primarily antislavery and pro-woman's rights. She moved to Minnesota and started a few newspapers in the fifties.

Pathfinder by Becky Collis

Jane's St. Cloud, Minnesota Democrat offices

Before the Democrat she edited the St. Cloud Visiter, which she insisted on spelling in odd fashion. The woman was stubborn.

Head of the household in Stearns, Minnesota, 1860

Pathfinder by Becky Brown

Woman listening to Congressional debate, later in the century

We might term all these female reporters pathfinders but who was first and who was significant are always debatable. We recall Jane Swisshelm, however, as a true pathfinder in the history of women reporters and columnists because it is well documented that she was the first female admitted to Congress's all-male Press Gallery.

Getting the news out of the Capitol

In 1850 she'd been listening and analyzing the rhetoric from the Ladies Section but there she had no access to telegraph lines and noisy chatter made hearing debate difficult. She asked editor Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune who had recently hired her to use his influence with the Taylor/Fillmore administration.

Just another day of violence in the Senate in 1850

As she recalled, she obtained a personal interview with Vice-President Millard Fillmore to successfully request entrance.

Greeley's clout must have been important.

With that important coup Jane played true to herself. She was, we have to say, her own worst enemy. She decided that in this new position of power she would further the antislavery cause by attacking revered Senator Daniel Webster, who'd betrayed the abolitionists and was well known to have mixed race children of mistresses he supported.


She published it. Greeley fired her as a regular columnist, she lost her pass after one day and a woman in the press gallery continued to be a rarity.

1915

Petticoat Press # 3 by Denniele Bohannon

During the Civil War she continued to write for Greeley, moved to Washington City where the action centered and obtained a clerkship in the quartermaster general's office while volunteering as a nurse in local hospitals.  After Appomattox she began another newspaper there The Reconstructionist. Never able to weigh her idea of right versus popular response Jane charged ahead with very few skills in reading the public mind.

Fired in 1866

After the war she moved to Chicago
Jane and Mary Henrietta (Zo) living on Vernon Avenue in Chicago, 1880

She wrote daughter Zo when a late-life visit was proposed that she would not be coming. Mother and daughter would just argue, she worried, and she took the blame: "You never know when I am going to hurt someone’s feelings or do something to make myself ridiculous."

Jane was an accomplished needlewoman, embroidering 
 Zo's 1881 wedding dress, now in the Minnesota Historical 
Society Collection.


But the woman seemed able to get into an argument at the drop of a needle. In 1956 a story about Jane recalled her anger when people wondered whether the hand embroidery was "self-trim" (purchased machine embroidered insertions.)


Jane was a talented writer and editor but she seems to have suffered from---shall we say today---a neurodivergent personality style. She really had a hard time reading other people and the consequences of her actions with them. A bit on the autism scale?

The Block


Pathfinder (BlockBase #2317) was published by the Chicago Tribune's Nancy Cabot column in 1935. The fictional Nancy told us it was from Southern Missouri but she is not a reliable source. Pathfinder is a good name for Jane Swisshelm who is remembered as the first woman writer given access to the Congress's press gallery, a "first" that may indeed be accurate.


Petticoat Press # 3 by Jeanne Arnieri

Further Reading

Hoffert, Sylvia D. Jane Grey Swisshelm: An Unconventional Life, 1815–1884. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.

McCarthy, Abigail. "Jane Grey Swisshelm: Marriage and Slavery." In Women of Minnesota: Selected Biographical Essays, edited by Barbara Stuhler and Gretchen Kreuter, 55–76. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1998.

Swisshelm, Jane Grey. Half a Century. Chicago: Jansen, McClurg, and Company, 1880.
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=lbViAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&authuser=0&hl=en&pg=GBS.PP1