New Hampshire coverlet maker, Hannah Leathers Wilson, (1787-1869) will be honored posthumously this month by the National Museum of the American Coverlet in Bedford, Pennsylvania. She is being called the "celebrated weaver of the year." During her lifetime, that little-known weaver from Farmington, NH (and later, Tuftonboro, NH) made 184 coverlets. The whereabouts of 27 of her blue and white coverlets is known but the remaining 157 are yet to be found. Eight more coverlets have come to light since Donna-Belle Garvin, her primary researcher, presented a paper revealing Wilson's identity at the 1996 Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife. Before Garvin began to weave clues together, the coverlet maker's identity was unknown.
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| Example of a coverlet made by Hannah Leathers Wilson, courtesy of Donna-Belle Garvin, NH Historical Society |
Wilson's coverlets have been collected by the Shelburne, Smithsonian, Old Sturbridge Village, and Henry Ford Museums, as well as the New Hampshire Historical Society, and the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada.
For more information, please see "Mystery Weaver Uncovered," a file set up some years ago at my website but re-posted to this blog on August 12, 2018:
http://quiltsandmusings.blogspot.com/2018/08/mystery-weaver-uncovered.html
Many thanks to Donna-Belle Garvin for providing the information and updates for this news release.
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