It’s rare that a handmade item comes to the Historical Society complete with a story about its making. In fact, although we have Asa Pitcher’s adze and Mabel Athearn’s pudding bowl, we have no idea who split the sapling and trimmed the rungs to fashion the 10-foot ladder found in Alex Katz’s shed. Or who made the little wooden high chair that held generations of Young babies. Or who carefully mended the broken handle of the pie basket in our collection.

So when a handwoven coverlet appeared a couple of years ago, a bedspread made for a four-poster bed that Margaretta Thurlow had safely stored away for her 90-plus years, we were thrilled to read the following description she’d fastened to it:

“Spread about 135 years old. Made by great-grandmother Hannah Hall Fernald from wool sheared from the family sheep; taken to Belfast for carding and dyeing by great-grandfather William Fernald.” Below, in Margaretta’s neat script, “Anyone having information about a carding mill in Belfast, please contact: Mrs. Royce W. Thurlow, Fernalds Neck Road, R.F.D. 1, Box 83, Lincolnville, ME 04849.”

The coverlet itself has a lot to tell: 90-inches wide and about 90 inches long, it was made in three panels, each 30-inches wide, which were then sewn together; the seams are nearly invisible. It’s woven in an intricate overshot pattern using very fine cotton thread and that wool the couple grew. The cotton thread was most likely a commercial product, but the wool they sheared, had carded and dyed dark blue could well have been hand-spun by Hannah.

She would have used either a “walking wheel”, the tall, graceful-looking wheel that is depicted in scenes of Colonial domesticity, or the smaller flax wheel, operated by a foot pedal. The coverlet’s wool is two-ply meaning two thin strands were twisted together to make a stronger yarn. Plying yarn takes twice as long as spinning a single strand.

But those were only the first steps in Hannah’s coverlet. Next she had to warp her loom. I like to think that loom was similar to the one I weave on, a hefty “barn” loom, its mortices and tenons held together with pegs or wedges, its reed really made of reed, unlike my metal one. Perhaps her husband William made it, but I’ll bet his father, Nathaniel Fernald, made it for his wife, Patience.

By the time Hannah was thinking about weaving a coverlet with her sheeps’ wool, handweaving was probably not the necessity it had been in her in-laws’ days. The old loom was likely out in the barn, covered in dust and hay and cobwebs. Those big looms were dismantled when they weren’t being used, but when used were often set up in a shed or barn during the summer.

She needed 24 warp threads for every inch of width, so to weave a 30-inch panel – 720 ends, each one 10 yards long to weave the three panels. Are you following this? You don’t need to, except to know that it was a huge job for one woman, working only when the light was good; i.e. during the day when she found an hour for herself. After the whole 10 yards of thread was wound onto the back beam Hannah had to thread each of the 720 threads through the eye of a linen heddle on one of the four harnesses suspended from the loom’s frame.

I couldn’t determine which pattern she used; there are hundreds of overshot patterns, but hers most closely resembled one called “Johann Speck’s Design” or maybe “Whig Rose”. If a weaver is reading this who recognizes the pattern, please let me know!

I can consult A Handweaver’s Pattern Book to find the threading and treadling drafts for hundreds of weaving patterns. I wonder where Hannah found hers. I imagine another weaver had it written down and passed it on to her, that these old patterns were passed around the way oral history traveled, person to person, in person.

Wooden shuttles to carry the thread across the warp were naturally handmade. I have several, and some have initials carved into them – the weaver’s? The shuttle maker’s? Overshot patterns are woven using two threads: one is the same white cotton as the warp, and the other, the pattern thread, is the heavier wool. In this case, Hannah’s sheep’s wool dyed dark blue. They alternate, a pattern row of the wool followed by a cotton row of “tabby” (plain weave, over one, under one) that securely locks warp threads in place.

You have to see it.

So Hannah, after the shearing, carding, dyeing, spinning, warping, and threading then sits at her loom and weaves the intricate pattern so perfectly that when she takes off the cloth and cuts it into three pieces, all of them line up exactly. She sewed them together with needle and thread, neatly hemmed the ends, sewed fringe around three sides, and from the look of the worn places, put it on her four poster bed where it resided for the next many years. A large area at the head of the coverlet has worn and is stabilized with a cotton flannel patch on the wrong side.

What more does the coverlet tell us about Hannah?

Well, obviously she was an accomplished and experienced weaver. This wasn’t her first effort. Most likely her mother wove, and so would have Patience Fernald, her mother-in-law. As a little girl she’d have helped by winding the quills of weft (did I say that the weft is the thread you weave with, that it goes over and under the warp threads to making the cloth.) The shuttles carry the weft, Hannah’s dark blue wool, across the warp. It’s wound on a bobbin that fits into the shuttle.

In Hannah’s day a piece of corn husk was rolled into a long, narrow tube and the weft yarn wound onto that – a quill. A wooden device, a quill winder, was part of a weaver’s equipment. Hannah used hundreds of quills to weave her coverlet. Winding them was a task often given to little girls.

Hannah Hall was born in 1807, her husband William Fernald in 1806. They lived at the end of Fernalds Neck, probably in the old farmhouse with a view of Megunticook Mountain and the lake, the house we pass on our way down to hike the preserve.

In 1850, when Hannah was 42, her household consisted of her in-laws, Nathaniel and Patience Fernald, 81 and 80 years old respectively, her husband William and four children 14-20 years old, one every two years. You see that a lot in the big old families, nature’s birth control. Just about the time a woman weaned one she got pregnant with the next. According to the census a 9 year old child with a different last name lived with the family as well, perhaps an orphaned relative.

By 1860, their nest had emptied out a bit; only two sons, ages 26 and 30 still lived with them, along with a 17 year old girl, a servant.

In 1870, Thomas, their youngest son, was 36, married to Lucy Lamb. Along with their own three children, ages 2, 5, and 8 they lived with Hannah and William in the old homestead. Two other men were living in the household, as well.

My first guess was that Hannah might have woven her coverlet sometime in the 1860s. She was in her 50s by then, her own child-rearing years behind her, but apparently the next generation hadn’t yet started to fill up the house. Her in-laws had passed away; her household chores must have been lighter. Perhaps at least one of their sons had gone to war; I didn’t check Lincolnville’s Civil War roster.

That would make the coverlet over 150 years old.

However, when Margaretta wrote out her tag (which she didn’t date) she said the coverlet was 135 years old. Note that her address at that time was “R.F.D.” When did we go to the new 911 street addresses?

So now I suspect that might put the date she wove it earlier, maybe in the 1850s. This is just as likely; warping a loom is really a two-person job, one to pull tightly on the warp while the other winds it onto the beam. In that decade Hannah’s mother-in-law was still alive; she might have helped her warp. Still, imagine how that little Cape must have been bursting at the seams with four teen-agers, four adults, and the random child they’d taken in. Time to herself to weave? I don’t know.

William died in 1874 and Hannah in 1888. Perhaps it was Lucy Lamb Fernald who carefully preserved the coverlet her mother-in-law wove, seeing that its story got told, and that it ended up in the responsible hands of Margaretta Warren Thurlow.

Stop by the Schoolhouse Museum some afternoon this fall, M-W-F, 1-4 p.m. and see Hannah’s handiwork.

School

The 2019-2020 school year is officially underway. The total enrollment is at 221 students, including 16 incoming kindergarteners and13 students transferring to LCS from other schools.

This week there are several chances to come out to the LCS fields to watch some exciting sports. Soccer on Wednesday and Friday, with the games starting at 3:45 p.m. And on Thursday the boys and girls Cross Country teams have their home meet, starting at 4 p.m., girls run first.

Library

The Book Group will meet Tuesday at 6 p.m.to talk about “The Guest Book” by Sarah Blake.  The book chronicles  a prominent a New York family (that summers on their own island near Vinalhaven)  from the twenties to modern day.  Everyone is welcomed. 

Watercolor Journaling is Wednesday 4-6 p.m. Newcomers are welcome—bring your own supplies.  

The Wednesday evening presentation at 7 p.m. is “Neuroscience and the Brain’s Inner GPS” with John Williams.  John will give an illustrated talk about this fascinating topic, reviewing the Nobel prize winning work of the neuroscientists who discovered grid cells in the brain help a person know things such as where they are in a room, their location in time, and even their position in society. 

Lincolnville Center Indoor Flea Market

If it’s the third Saturday in the month it’s Flea Market time. Stop by the Community Building, 18 Searsmont Road, between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. to visit with friendly vendors showing their wares, an eclectic group of exhibitors. Plan on Saturday morning breakfast there as well, with hot, homemade breakfast casseroles, muffins, and coffee.

Pickleball

Note that the time has changed for Saturday Intro to Pickleball and Open Play: 9-11 a.m. Occasionally it may get rescheduled to Sundays.

The PB players have raised enough to purchase 2 portable net systems, 4 loaner paddles and a storage box. The box has been placed courtside so people can play “when the spirit moves them”.  Players can initiating open play when convenient to them!  

Contact Greta (763-4863 or email her) with any Pickleball questions.

Grange Supper

This Saturday, 5-6 p.m. there’ll be a Grange Public Supper and Variety Show. $10 for adults, ages 5-12, $5, under 5 and over 90 get in free! All proceeds benefit the Grange Restoration Fun. Contact Rosemary Winslow, 763-3343 for more information. As usual, it’s a good idea to arrive promptly at 5 or even a little earlier. Those beans, casseroles and homemade desserts are good!

Mushrooms

Mike, visiting here from California, sent me a photo from up on the trail on Megunticook yesterday: “Look what I found!” It was a patch of black chanterelles, the hard-to-see dusky black trumpets that hide in the leaf litter of our forests. On an excursion into the woods with his family a couple of weeks ago we’d found a few. It was exciting because none of them had ever gone mushroom hunting, much less eaten the finds.

“Do you have a bag? Bring me some!”

Before long another photo came: “Is this edible?” It was, a patch of coral mushroom. He carried them down in his backpack, and they arrived in good shape.

He’s flying back home this morning so won’t be here to enjoy them, but I’m planning a mushroom feast in the near future.