Newark Album in the American Museum in Britain

The American Museum in Britain in Bath, England owns

an album quilt top with this image of Miss Liberty.

It's dated 1862 and she looks like she is fighting a war.

Twenty-five blocks include two American patriotic images.

(All their quilts are American)

This block looks more like a memorial block than an 

album signature block

"Henry L. Ketchum?

August 25th 1862

Newark NJ

He Giveth His Beloved sleep."

The photos on their website are large enough to read. 

Could that be Nancy L. Hitchens or Ketcham?

The patriotic image inclines one to think it is a soldier's memorial.

But Henry/Nancy has no rank or regiment.

Nearly every block is inked.

The website has excellent photos of some of the blocks.

The central block is beautifully embroidered and appliqued.

The Bible has a printed version of the 23rd Psalm

beginning with "The Lord is my shepherd" and ending with

"I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

From the online catalog:

"The central block is by far the finest. The Bible pages are printed with Psalm 23, with the page edges delineated by tight lines of embroidered stitches. Embroidery threads have been used to shape the appliquéd flowers, with the fuchsias above the Bible enhanced further by applied pieces of pink velvet."

"I laid me down and slept; I awakened

For the Lord sustained me.

July 2? 1862

Newark N.J.

William L Hitchens (?) Ketcham (?)"

Another Psalm

Another Ketcham?

"The theme of sleep is common to many blocks on this quilt top. Quotations from several sleep-related psalms, often used at funerals, suggest that this quilt was made to commemorate someone who had died. The date of 1862 on certain blocks and the inclusion of Lady Liberty holding the Union flag could imply that the deceased was a casualty of the Civil War – perhaps a soldier fighting for the Union or someone sympathetic to its goals."

William's block

The name on this one has bled so badly that it's difficult

to read in a photo. Could those words have to do with a soldier's

company?

At the top

"To a Friend from a friend."

Martha L. Conger's block has butterflies, a bird

and odd inscriptions:

"Martha L? or S? Conger

Newark.

New Jersey

Tired mother. 

Sweet Mother

B???? Sleep"

Interwoven basket signed Emily P.H.(?) Stackhouse

I did some cursory searching for these people in Newark with more success than usual. I found an Emily Stackhouse listed as a dressmaker with a shop at Quitman & Spruce in an 1875 directory. And William S. and Nancy L may indeed be Ketchams, married in 1839.

William & Nancy Estile Ketcham lived into the 1890s. They were members of the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Newark and buried in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in Newark, as is Martha S. Conger (1834-1890), Emily P. Stackhouse (?-1914) and others mentioned on the quilt. 

Mt. Pleasant is a prestigious, large cemetery in Newark.

Amelia S. Taylor

Amelia Taylor (1818-?) is also at Mt. Pleasant 

Julia T. Marshall

Mrs.? Cornelia Putnam

Buried at Mt. Pleasant d. 1924

No inking on this block.

It certainly looks as if this was made for some deceased honoree but the graveyard information indicates that everybody I could find was hale and hearty in 1862 and lived another thirty or more years.

https://americanmuseum.org/object/album-quilt-top/