Quilt, Pieced Le Moyne Star

Date1830-1845

Maker Catherine Knepper Walk (1802-1872)

OriginAmerica, Pennsylvania, Franklin County, Quincy Township

MediumPlain and printed cottons

Dimensions77 x 81 1/2" (196 x 207 cm)

Credit LineGift of Mrs. Grace Bishop

Object number2005.609.4

DescriptionThis is a rectangular quilt pieced from printed cottons and white cotton. Fifty-five eight-pointed stars, each about 6 1/4" inches in diameter, alternate with white cotton quilted in a clamshell pattern. The quilt has a 7 1/2" wide border of brown-ground floral printed cotton. The covering is quilted in clamshells, diagonal parallel lines, and chevron patterns in 7-9 running stitches per inch. It is backed and bound in white plain-woven cotton.
Label TextBy placing colored stars against a white cotton ground, Catharine Knepper Walk created the appearance of stars floating on the surface of this covering, which is quilted in clamshells, diagonal parallel lines, and chevron patterns. This pattern is often called Le Moyne Star.

ProvenanceThe quilt descended in the donor’s family where it had always been attributed to Catharine Knepper Walk, wife of George Walk (1792–1839). They married in 1824. Catharine lived her entire life in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, where her grave is marked by a simple tombstone at the Mount Zion Cemetery in Quincy. In 1850 the forty-five-year-old widowed Catharine was head of a household that included her two sons, John and Samuel. John was a farmer. By 1870 she was living in John’s household.