Windham Fabrics is proud to work with generous assistance from the Daughters of the American Revolution. Carefully tucked away in the archives of the DAR, we find a quilt made ca. 1840
by Hanna Wallis.
Hanna came from a Quaker family and her father Samuel was a "Land King" who bought huge tracts of land in Lycoming Valley PA. His house, built in 1769, apparently still
stands in Muncy PA. Unfortunately, he also turns out to have been a spy for Benedict Arnold which was only revealed long after his death.
Hanna was born 1781, died 1859. Married William Miller so she was actually Hanna Miller by the time she made the quilt. If she made it in 1840 she'd have been almost 60 years old. She
and William had three children who lived to adulthood: Samuel who moved to NY State, Cassandra and Susan, both of whom married and seem to have stayed in Pennsylvania. In 1850, with
the first census to list every person, Hanna is living with her daughter Cassandra and her husband, Hanna's daughter Susan is there too; she's clearly widowed.
Windham Fabrics has carefully recreated the most important and elegant fabrics from the quilt that Hanna worked on some 170 years ago. |
