HISTORIC AND RARE PIECED LINSEY-WOOLSEY 'VARIABLE STAR' REVOLUTIONARY WAR QUILT FROM THE FAMILY OF WILLIAM MCCOMB, PENNSYLVANIA OR OHIO, CIRCA 1792

According to family tradition, the quilt executed circa 1792.

A pieced quilt composed of indigo blue, oxblood, olive green, brown and gray of linsey-woolsey and incorporating a red, broadcloth men’s cavalry cloak, with stand-up collar, set on the bias within the body of the quilt; the whole secured with box-quilting; the top with an added border of plaid linsey woolsey, the reverse in a light olive-green linsey-woolsey, three borders reinforced with plaid and striped lengths of linsey woolsey which lap over the edges from the back to the front of the quilt.

Descended in the family of the maker to the present owner:
William McComb (1757-1835) m. in 1779 Rebecca Kearsley (1762-1848);
To their eldest daughter, Jane McComb (1781-1821) m. in 1798 to William Patterson (1775-1846)
To their sixth child, Thomas Patterson (1809-1891) m. in 1828 to Myranda Codner (1808-1881);
To their daughter, Mary Patterson (1843-1920) m. in 1867 to Clemuel R. McGuffey (1841-1908);
To their oldest child, Frances Hoyt McGuffey (1869-1952) m. in 1894 to Mary Stoner (1872-1898);
To their oldest son, Orton Stoner McGuffey (1895-1958) m. Hazel White (1893-1988);
To their son, James White McGuffey (1922-2004) m. Anne Backus (1929-2011);
To their daughter, the present owner.

Small losses and holes on the top side of quilt. Some patches and period repairs. Losses on back. Moth holes. In good condition overall.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

William McComb (1757-1835) enlisted on July 20th, 1776 with Captain James McConnell’s company under Colonels Wallace and Morgan from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.  McComb Pennsylvania militia group was present at Fort Washington when Continental troops were overrun by General Howe’s forces. Continental forces were forced to surrender and McComb was one of the 2,837 soldiers taken as prisoners of war. The loss was an overwhelming blow to the Continental forces. Private William Darlington, a soldier from McComb’s company testified a nearly a month after they were captured. He described being imprisoned with nearly 800 men in a house without windows in the dead of winter, periods of starvation, meager rations, beatings, and high mortality rates. He wrote:

“…that those prisoners who had any good wearing apparel, such as buckskin breeches or good coats, were necessitated to sell them, to purchase bread to keep them alive; that the enemy seemed to take a kind of infernal pleasure in their sufferings.”
McComb did not escape imprisonment like Darlington. He was imprisoned on the notorious prison ship the HMS New Jersey, known for the inhumane treatment and high mortality rate of its inmates.  McComb was one of the lucky survivors of his comrades. Out of the original captives taken at Fort Washington, only 800 men were left when they were paroled eighteen months later in 1778.  

He most likely returned to Cumberland County, Pennsylvania after his parole where he married Rebecca Kearsley (1762-1848) in 1779. McComb reenlisted in 1780, and served with William Crawford engaged in combat with Native American allies of the British in Sandusky on the western frontier of the American Revolution.  After the war, McComb returned to Lurgen Township, Pennsylvania to his family --- he and Rebecca would go on to have a family of sixteen children. In 1818, McComb claimed his land grant as a result of his service in Truro, Franklin County, Ohio and settled on a tract on Big Walnut Creek.

According to family history, during his service in the war, he killed an enemy soldier and claimed his cloak as a trophy of war. The cloak was laid out around 1792 by his wife Rebecca who made a quilt out of the garment. The red broadcloth cloak, displays typical 18th century construction being composed of a large quadrangle shape that is curved at the hem, and flanked on either side with rectangular pieces at the shoulders and two smaller triangular shapes to make up the front. The lack of hood implies that this was most likely a man’s short cloak. The cape (that would have hung over the shoulders) is pulled up and flattened into a semi-circle.

[1] Virginia Shannon Fendrick, American Revolutionary Soldiers of Franklin County, Pennsylvania (Chambersburg, PA: Historical Works Committee of the Franklin County Chapter, 1944), pp. 153-154;
[2] Deposition of William Darlington, December 15, 1776, v3:1234.
[3] See the Deposition of Samuel Young and William Houston, December 15, 1776, American Archives: Documents of the Revolutionary Period 1774-1776, v3:1234.
[4] Ketchum, Richard M. The Winter Soldiers (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1973), p. 130 ; Also see David Hackett. Fischer, Washington's Crossing (Oxford, England /New York : Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 113.
[5] Fendrick, American Revolutionary Soldiers of Franklin County, pp. 153-154; Jane Dowd Dailey, The Official Roster of the Soldiers of the American Revolution Who Lived in the State of Ohio, vol. II (Ohio: State Society Daughters of the American Revolution of Ohio, 1938).