Thanks to the late Judy Roche of Belfast, the museum has recently acquired the oldest known and dated Maine quilt.

Dating from the early 1800s, the oldest known Maine quilt is British in style and features a distinctive central medallion surrounded by several frames or borders. Maine State Museum Collection 2023.6.1

The quilt’s muted blues, browns, and pinks were much more vibrant when an unknown quilter made it in 1804. The quilt is British in style, with a central medallion surrounded by several frames. The interior frame features whimsical free-form applique motifs, some of which resemble modern memorial ribbons. Along with the date of 1804 and the initials L ♥ R, the maker embroidered the number 4. Perhaps it was her fourth quilt.

It is not surprising that an early Maine quilt would resemble British quilts of the day. In the 1790s, just a few years before the quilt was made, 95% of Maine’s Euro-American residents were British or of British descent. Most of Maine’s quilters followed London fashions and sewed quilts the way they had been taught.



This newest, and oldest, in the museum’s quilt collection will make its public debut in the upcoming exhibition Maine Quilts: 200 Years of Comfort and Community, slated to greet visitors in the reopened museum in late 2025.

This detail shows a ribbon-shaped piece of fabric stitched directly on the quilted background, using a technique called applique. The maker included similar enigmatic symbols throughout the quilt.