Ella Mae Packard of Lisbon doesn’t know what drew her to the roadside auction in 1975. Packard was on a road trip to Damariscotta with her husband, Robert.

“We were going to Round Top for ice cream, and there was an auction across the street,” Packard remembered. “We don’t go to auctions as a rule, and I don’t remember what else was being auctioned.”

There, she was drawn to an album quilt in the shoo-fly pattern and what is believed to be a companion quilt. She bid $5 and won the album quilt. She took the companion quilt for $1.

Upon inspection of her purchase, Packard realized the signature blocks — which is what makes it an album quilt — dated 1854-1864, which is seven years before the Civil War through close to the end of the conflict.

“Someone did a good job. This was all handsewn,” Packard, who has a masters degree in textile and design, pointed out.

Along with the signatures and dates, the women included the town where they lived as the quilt was being constructed, Duxbury, Mass.

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Since that summer day, the quilt had been in storage for safe keeping. Around the beginning of July, Packard decided the quilt should go back to its rightful home and she and her husband contacted the Duxbury Rural and Historical Society, offering to donate the quilt.

“It has no connection to my family, so there is no reason for me to hold on to it,” Packard said. “We’re just sending this to where it belongs.” 

On Sunday, July 21, Packard and her husband, along with daughter, Valerie Giles, from North Andover, Mass., and Giles’ son, Cole, donated the quilt to Erin McGough, Collections Manager at the historical society.

“It’s absolutely a Duxbury quilt,” McGough said a few days after receiving the quilt from the three generations of Packards.

McGough confirmed the names are historically prominent in the seaside community, and even one of the museums in Duxbury was the home of Elizabeth Bradford, who signed the quilt “E.H. Bradford” on December 6, 1859.

“Friends and family would make squares for this type of quilt and gift it to a person for a wedding, a birth or as they moved away,” McGough said. “Making this quilt was very much an act of love and devotion.”

The historical society will try to determine to whom the quilt was given and will preserve the quilt as best possible. Though one mystery may never be solved: How did the 159-year-old-quilt end up in Maine?

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