Quilt Code at DAR
Quilt Code at DAR
Members and guests of the Col. Wm. Prescott Chapter NSDAR sat in rapt attention as Susan Howard presented “Hidden In Plain View; The Secret Story of Slave Quilts and the Underground Railroad” at 1:00 PM on Wednesday, June 19, at the Chapter House, 119 High Street, Newark, NY.
“ This area of Wayne County has so many rich and varied historic events to be proud of,” Susan Howard said. “One of those local events is being part of the underground railroad. The “hidden In Plain View” or “The Quilt Code” is the ingenious method the slaves used to aid each other in locating safe places in the North. They look for the special quilt innocently airing on an underground station’s back porch.”
Susan Howard, a retired 4th Grade teacher from the Canandaigua School System, has always had an interest in history, especially, local history. She read a book about quilts that piqued her curiosity. The book told of the different methods of quilting and mentioned the “quilt code”. She delved into the topic, talked with many other people, and now shares her new found knowledge to expose the untold story.
Information about the Log Cabin pattern’s yellow center square passed orally from slave to slave, from plantation to plantation during religious meetings and clandestine meetings in the dark of night. Great care had to be taken to only share the code with like-minded slaves, as there were some that preferred to relay any escape plans to the plantation owner.
Although Howard is not a quilter, she has a Sampler Quilt of several coded squares pieced by Anne Johnson of Canandaigua, NY, to display as she orally stitches the pieces of the secret story of slave quilts and the underground railroad