Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library

Applique Quilt with Masonic Symbols
1850-1877
Jane D. Haight Webster (1808-1877)
USA: Indiana, South Bend
Appliqued and embroidered cotton
overall: 88 3/4 x 88 in.; 225.425 x 223.52 cm
Gift of Donald E. Mohn
86.69

Masonic Quilt; appliqued and embroidered center medallion has Masonic arch, all-seeing-eye, "G", candleholder, mosaic flooring, and steps; other motifs include coffin, ladder, stars, Euclid's 47th theorem, square and compasses, and others; white background with designs in green, red, blue, and gold. Pieced and appliqued by hand. Sixteen blocks are 15" square; central medallion is 30" square. Hand-quilted at 13 stitches per inch. Single border has an appliqued floral vine. Straight-applied binding; thin cotton batting. Off-white backing.

The idea of communicating with the hereafter, with its hint of immortality, fascinated Americans from the 1850s well into the 1900s. Spiritualism also attracted the interest of the maker of this quilt, Jane Haight Webster. Family history relates that Mrs. Webster, both a medium and a clairvoyant, saw Masonic symbols and devices in a trance and then recorded them on this quilt. Her technique was also unusual. Most quiltmakers constructed appliqué quilts block by block, only joining all the blocks together after the appliqué was complete. Mrs. Webster sewed her colorful images onto blocks but then, in several places, added appliqué or embroidery after the blocks had been joined. This suggests that she felt it was important to record the images in a specific way. In choosing symbols and shapes for her quilt, Mrs. Webster employed the iconography of several different forms of Freemasonry. Her husband belonged to the St. Joseph Masonic Lodge in South Bend, Indiana.