30. Woodbourne Quilt

The beautiful “Woodbourne Quilt,” named for a Dorsey family home in Goshen, was made in the “compass rose” or “mariner’s compass” pattern in the 1850s. Thirty-two compass points are represented in four rings of progressively smaller diamonds, the three largest in red and the outermost in blue-green. Framing the eight roses in the field is a border of red swags tied with blue-green bows in the same printed fabrics.

According to family tradition, the quilt was begun by Susan Maria Waters Dorsey (1817-?)

and finished by her sister-in-law Harriet Woodward Dorsey Blunt (1818-1862), who inherited the Woodbourne house from her father in 1840. The quilt is “signed” by both with “S.M. Dorsey/ 1852”and “H.W. Blunt” stitched into the heavily quilted cream-colored field.

The Harriet Blunt descendants who donated the quilt in 1984 also provided a collection of illustrations, some drawn on the backs of letters and invitations, that were used to design the names and patterns stitched onto the field - birds, fish, flowers, leaves, hunting scenes, and elaborate medallions. A “companion” quilt, made in a star pattern by Susan’s sister-in-law, Mary Maccubbin Waters Waters, but utilizing some of the Woodbourne quilt designs, can be found in the collection of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Washington, D.C.

Woodbourne is located at 21000 Blunt Road, east of Germantown. “Harry” Woodward Dorsey purchased the property in 1817, incorporating an original log house within the extant brick and frame dwelling. His daughter Harriet married Samuel Blunt in 1818; on her death in 1862, her son William inherited Woodbourne.

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