Harriet Newell Trefethen Skillings's Civil War

  

Name quilt organized as a fundraiser on Peaks Island, Maine

in 1875, ten years after the Civil War.

https://www.fifthmainemuseum.org/2023/01/05/harriet-trefethen-skillings-the-peaks-island-sewing-circle-their-signature-quilts/

Harriet Newell Trefethen Skillings (1821-1903) lived her long life on the islands in Casco Bay, east of Portland, Maine

 Peaks Island is about 30 miles from Portland, a half hour by ferry today.

In 2023 the local Historical Society, the Fifth Maine showed the quilt top above, which had been found in a thrift store, traced to the island and to Harriet's supervision in 1875. 

Harriet's tourist home Oak Cottage. The family believed the house was begun in 1864.

 (1819-1902)

After marrying Robert Franklin Skillings in 1842 she left her Trevethen family home on House Island and moved to Peaks, where she gave birth to nine children. When the Civil War began Harriet was about 40 with several surviving children including a couple of boys too young to join any Maine regiments. Her last child, born in 1864, she named Lincoln.

1880 Census Peaks Island.

Lincoln Skillings and brother Henry are still at home.

Harriet and Robert were active in creating a church on the island with this quilt and another playing a role in the fundraising. During the Civil War she'd worked with a sewing group as so many other women did. In 1873 she reorganized the Peaks Island Sewing Circle with the goal of building a parsonage for the New Brackett Church, a Methodist-Episcopal group. The Sewing Circle owned the house and leased it to the minister. To build their treasury they made at least two sampler tops.

The one pictured was found at a Massachusetts flea market and traced to the island.

Harriet's attributes in a memorial poem.

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