Bathsheba Phillips Crane's Civil War

In my files of silk quilts I have one attributed to Bathsheba Howard Crane. Notes say 

it's in the Vermont Historical Society but I don't see it in their catalog.

An image search was of no help either.

In 1861 when the Civil War began 50-year-old Bathsheba Howard Crane was living in Boston, Massachusetts, married to Baptist minister Denzel Mansfield Crane (1812-1879) since 1837.

Bathsheba Howard Phillips Crane (1811-1895)

Frontispiece from her 1880 book

 Life, Letters, and Wayside Gleanings, for the Folks at Home. 

The Cranes had three living children, Helen A. in her early twenties and two sons Herbert Webster about 20 and her youngest George Merle about 8 (Charles had died as an infant.)

The 1855 census found them in Worthington with a resident maid Lucy M. Foster.

Bathsheba published an obituary of her husband:

"At the age of 18, he was impressed with the importance of the gospel ministry. He commenced study ... at Franklin and Pierce academies and Brown University, preaching and teaching to meet his expenses." 

A year after their marriage at her home in Newfane, Vermont he was ordained and began a series of Baptist pastorates in Vermont and Massachusetts, where local religious tradition disdained the Baptist faith.

Allison Lockwood (1920-2021) wrote several articles about the Cranes in Northampton for the Daily Hampshire Gazette.

Allison Lockwood

Cannot find that journal.

In 1858 they left Northampton for Boston where he was well-known for his speaking style and conversions. His wife recalled that in the six years they spent in Boston he claimed 189 converts. Crane adapted Baptist ideology to New England mores, campaigning against alcohol and slavery. It is said he joined the free soil antislavery party in the mid 1850s. His church was called the Union Baptist Church because they supported the Union. Separating themselves from Southern Baptists the Union Baptists Missionary Magazine in 1862 resolved:

"That we believe the institution of slavery to have been the principal cause and origin of this attempt to destroy the government, and that a safe, solid and lasting peace cannot be expected short of its complete overthrow."

1863 was not a good year for the family. Nine-year-old George Merle died of diphtheria on January 2nd and the Union Baptist Church burned that year, requiring Rev. Crane to conduct services in City Hall.

The following year the Cranes left Boston for another pastorate and daughter Helen married John R. Haskins in May, 1864. Bathsheba began collecting her letters and writings with an eye to producing a book published in 1880.

 Son Herbert, living in New York City died there on May 14, 1869 of pneumonia at 28.

I doubt Bathsheba Crane made this quilt, which as a pieced, quilted

silk piece looks to be a Quaker quilt from the first half of the 19th century.

Bathsheba is associated with another textile, a woven

coverlet in the collection of the Vermont Historical Society.

The woven coverlet was given to the museum in 1955, where it was displayed in a textile exhibit the following year. It is doubtful Bathsheba wove the coverlet either. She was 14 in 1825 and coverlets were more an item of commerce than home needlework for teenagers. She may have owned this coverlet, woven by a professional weaver.

And perhaps a Quaker friend gave her this lovely quilt.