Baltimore Belles & Rebels #4: Union for the Chanceaulmes

 

Baltimore Belles & Rebels #4: Union by Denniele Bohannon

Baltimore Belles & Rebels #4: Union by Becky Collis

Our Union block is inspired by one in an 1862 Baltimore album quilt top. The block is signed “S Chanceaulme.” BAQ expert Debby Cooney believes the signer is Sarah Ann Chanceaulme (1841-1922.)

Chanceaulme Album dated 1862

Photos are from the Richard Opfer auction site and Stella Rubin’s inventory. Stella graciously allowed Debby to study and photograph details of this important Civil War artifact for the Baltimore Applique Society. The album quilt is unusual, not only because 1862 is rather late for a BAQ, but as Debby writes in her guest post last year:

The top is “is the only one I know of that references the Civil War. Many blocks present martial imagery and wording that support the Union’s goals of keeping the states together and ending slavery. War motifs include U.S. flags, shields, eagles, drums, and liberty caps. Patriotic phrases are inked on several blocks. Others have adapted iconograph of the French revolution and its slogan Liberte, Fraternite, Egalite.”

See her post here: https://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2024/05/baltimore-album-with-civil-war-imagery.html

In the 1830s Martin was listed as a cabinet maker.

 Union by Becky Collis

The majority of the names are from the Chanceaulme family, related to Martin Chanceaulme (1788-1863). Born in France, he emigrated to Haiti and then to the U.S. before 1819. He and wife Philadelphian Susanna Hamlet (1796-1859) moved to Baltimore in the 1820s. Martin worked there as a cabinetmaker and wood carver, where numerous daughters were born---maybe not Baltimore Belles in the sense of class and famed beauty but we can imagine a popular group of sisters in a Union-supporting family.

List from the 1850 census showing birth places & ages

1849 was not a good year for Baltimore's "mechanics" when

Martin was classified as "insolvent."

The Block

 

Similar blocks from Civil-War-era Album Quilts

The shield in a laurel wreath symbolizing victors & heroes as well as longevity

Do see all the links for free patterns already posted at last week's entry:

https://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2026/04/baltimore-belles-rebels-links-to-free.html

A Union Belle, cased photo from an online auction

Check our Facebook Group: BaltimoreBellesQuilt https://www.facebook.com/groups/1178792650465362

Buy the pattern here as a PDF for $12 at my Etsy shop.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/4421045504/