The "Mayflower Quilt"

 The “Mayflower” Quilt

Patricia L. Cummings

The Oldest Known Wholecloth Quilt Brought to America

Perhaps the earliest known quilt found in North American museum collections is one that at one time was dubiously called, “The Mayflower Quilt.” Described as being made of linen, the wholecloth quilt was carried aboard the “Angel Gabriel” galleon by the Cogswell family.  Members of the family included John Cogswell (43) and his wife, Elizabeth (41), and 7 children: William (18), Mary (16), John Jr. (13), Hannah (11), Abigail (9), Edward, (6), Sarah (3), and Elizabeth, (an infant). They hailed from Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire, England and the “Angel Gabriel” departed from Bristol, England in 1635.

Lovely Lane Museum, Baltimore, Maryland, now owns the quilt. Robert Shindle, Museum Director, noted in an e-mail to me that no facts have ever been found to support an association of the quilt with the “Mayflower,” a ship that brought passengers to Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620.  

Indeed, no record can be found of this particular galleon ever being called “Mayflower.” Originally, it was called “Starne” and was built for Sir Walter Raleigh to carry him from England to South America. After his unsuccessful attempt to find gold in Spanish-held territory along the Orinoco River, he was beheaded. Later, the vessel acquired the name “Jason.” Records show that at one point, it served to transport cargo such as cotton, lead, and raisins to the New World. The galleon was renamed “Angel Gabriel” in mid-1619.

Museum Acquires Quilt

According to Shindle, the quilt was purchased from Mrs. Susan Litch Williams for $85 dollars by Reverend N.T. Whitaker on September 1897 on behalf of Rev. John Franklin Goucher, then President of the Woman’s College of Baltimore (later Goucher College). Then the quilt was given by Dr. Goucher’s daughters to a church, now known as Lovely Lane Methodist Church, when it was in the process of opening a museum in 1954. Rarely seen by the public, the quilt was published in a 2006 calendar previously offered for sale by the museum

More Information Found

The “Angel Gabriel,” a 240 ton galleon made of wood and sails, carried 25 or more passengers on its final voyage to New England, a trip that was part of the “Great Migration” of Puritans to the New World from 1620 to 1640.

On August 14, 1635, the ship was anchored near Pemiquid Point, Maine for the night. The passengers disembarked by rowboat, carrying enough gear to stay on dry land, including the quilt. At 6:30 a.m. the following day, ferocious winds caused by the “Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635” smashed the ship to smithereens and washed the shipwreck out to sea leaving only scattered floating debris on the surface of the water. The vessel was never seen again, in spite of continued and concerted attempts by searchers who continue to seek out any remains.

Angel Gabriel: The Elusive English Galleon / Its History and the Search for Its Remains by Warren Curtis Riess (Bristol, Maine: 1797 House, 2001), mentions the journal account of Reverend Richard Mather, written in 1635:  “[…] most of the cattle and other goods, with one seaman and three or four passengers, did also perish therein, besides two passengers that died by the way,” (“Richard Mather’s Journal,” Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay from 1623-1636, ed., Alexander Young (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1846).

Galleon Survivors and Their Descendants

Today, a plaque mounted on a rock at Pemaquid Point, Maine is dedicated to the Cogswell family which later settled in Ipswich, Massachusetts. A similar plaque honors the memory of Ralph Blaisdell (42), his wife (age unknown), and their son, Henry (3) of Lancashire, England who later first went to York, Maine and later settled in Salisbury, Massachusetts. Family descendants of those shipwrecked still live in New England. 

One such person is Barbara Bean Stevens, a resident of Groton, New Hampshire. She is a direct descendant of John Burnham who at the age of 10 was allowed by his mother, Mary Andrews Burnham, to accompany his uncle, Robert Andrews, the captain of the “Angel Gabriel,” along with John’s two brothers, Thomas and Robert Burnham. In information written for the Groton Historical Society in their Winter Newsletter (Vol. IV, Issue 4, 2006), Stevens provided information to Louise Traunstein, Groton Historical Society Archivist and Newsletter Editor.

Stevens recounted she had read in several historical accounts that during the hurricane,  noted ships were lost at sea, ocean swells were over 20 feet high, and Indians (Native Americans) had to climb trees for safety. Hundreds of trees were uprooted and dwellings destroyed as gale force winds continued for five to six hours. Unlike the Cogswell family, the sea captain and his nephews escaped only with their lives and nothing else.

A treasured piece of the past, the “Mayflower Quilt” name evokes a time when Christian believers gathered up their most valuable possessions and ventured from their familiar surroundings to seek religious freedom in the New World. We are very lucky that this quilt was saved and has been preserved in a museum setting. It is an early example of a quilt from a time when quilters simply used needle and thread to work surface designs in pleasing patterns. Perhaps, though, it is time that the quilt was called, “The Angel Gabriel” quilt.

                                                                            ###

Patricia L. Cummings is a writer and quilter whose many articles have been published by The Quilter magazine and other publications. She writes books about Redwork embroidery, quilt history, and other topics.