A Prince William woman decided to provide a unique contribution to the community.
When county resident Marta Norris visited the Haislip-Hall Farm, an 1850s restored at Brentsville Courthouse Historic Centre, she noticed that an antique bed at the site lacked a quilt, and she wanted to take part.
During her visit to the property, she took a tour of the historic center, looking at the hard work that went into restoring the house to its original condition.
“When I saw this place, and Lisa was telling us about the determination of the workers to do everything so precisely, the way it was 200 years ago, I just had to do something. The contribution on my part was just a little drop in the bucket,” stated Norris in a release.
More on Norris’ journey to make the quilts, from a release:
The mission Norris set for herself required research, persistence and hard work. The quilt needed to mirror quilts made in the 1850s. Struckmeyer helped with the research and found a photo of a quilt that fit the bill on the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History’s website.
The example found was a quilt that was probably started by Rachel Young Roseberry when she moved with her family to Brentsville from New Jersey in 1853, according to the website. Roseberry’s quilt, known as an “album quilt,” was made with the intention that family history and other notations would be inscribed, in ink, in the quilt’s white spaces.
Once Norris and Betty Ratliff, who helped Norris with the quilt, had an example to follow, they were able to get to work. They found white, red and green fabric that matched the period at a specialty quilting store and decided on a pattern that would be consistent with the time they wanted to represent.
Norris stated that the quilt took two months to complete, as she dedicated two to three hours each night to it, according to a release.
“It’s a great addition to the Haislip-Hall House. We’re trying to interpret that house from the 1850s. It really helps us interpret not only that building, but also the town during that time period,” stated Brentsville Courthouse Historic Centre Site Manager Bill Backus in a release.
