Over 150 years ago, a young woman on a farm at Falling Spring created this unique and charming quilt.
Her name was Rebecca Jane Burr. Family history relates that during the Civil War, Rebecca hid her quilt in the attic rafters for safekeeping. In 2016, two of Rebecca’s great-great-granddaughters brought this family heirloom back to Greenbrier County, donating Rebecca’s quilt to the North House Museum in Lewisburg.
Elizabeth Williams and Caroline Williams, both of Michigan, returned to the North House Museum recently, to see their quilt again, to donate photos and historical documents to the Museum archives, and to meet Fawn Valentine, quilt historian. Fawn had studied Rebecca Jane Burr’s quilt, compared it to other quilts of the same general type and era, and wrote an article for the 2017 edition of The Journal of the Greenbrier Historical Society. The article explores the quiltmaker’s family and life within a context of Greenbrier County history, and points out a number of unusual features in Rebecca’s quilt, which is currently on display at the North House Museum, 814 Washington Street W, Lewisburg.
