1850s quilt comes home to tell its tale

She calls it ''quilt serendipity."

Former selectwoman Sandra Munsey told an audience Monday that a quilt made in Medfield in 1850 and recently reunited with the town by way of eBay seemed to want its story to be known.

''There are some quilts that want to tell a story," she said. ''You just feel something about them."

Since the Medfield Historical Society bought the quilt through the online auction site for $2,500 in October, Munsey has been researching it, and she believes the early history of the town is contained in its 56 squares.

''It's not just a bed covering; it's a document," she said during a presentation at the United Universalist Church that was attended by about 50 people.

The item is known as a ''signature quilt" because signatures in ink appear on most of the squares. The quilt probably was a wedding gift, and, as was the custom, members of several families signed it as a token of friendship, she said. Signatures from five families are present.

''Quilts where you can get information and detail about them are few and far between," she said after the program. Using a town history and other historical documents such as letters, she said, she has tentatively identified 50 of the 51 names on the quilt. ''That's nothing short of a miracle."

Among the family names present on the quilt are Allen, Ellis, and Fiske. ''These were prominent families from the town, active in the town's history, literally going back to the first settlers."

Munsey said she believes the quilt was created as a gift for the marriage of Harriet Ellis to J.R. Campbell, which records date at 1850.

The town learned of the quilt's existence last summer when a resident alerted George Gray, president of the Medfield Historical Society, that it was for sale on eBay.

The quilt was in North Carolina and the price was $2,500. ''We've never spent that much money on anything that I'm aware of," Gray said.

The cost ''was a concern," he said, ''but this was such a major piece of history to get back into the town."

There were no dissenters among the society's 11 trustees on the decision to buy the quilt, he noted.

The quilt is 90 inches by 90 inches and contains an X-shaped pattern on its squares. The most common colors on the quilt, which remains largely intact, are pink, yellow, and blue.

The Historical Society held a quilt show last weekend to exhibit its newest acquisition and raise funds to cover its purchase. On Saturday and Sunday, the society presented 89 quilts with connections to Medfield at Town Hall and the Dwight-Derby House. The show raised more than $1,000, Gray said.

Munsey, who became the first female selectman in Medfield in 1977, has lived outside the town for more than a decade. She currently lives in Sandwich, but friends knew to contact her when they learned about the quilt.

''It's been a total high for me to do this research," Munsey said. She noted that she hopes to record her findings permanently, perhaps in a publication of the Medfield Historical Society.

Munsey and members of the Historical Society said they want to learn what other items might be held by the North Carolina family that sold the quilt.

The eBay dealer who represented the family has said they have photos of the Medfield families who signed the quilt, Gray said.

The dealer, however, has declined to disclose the identity of the family or to sell the photos, he said.

Around 1650, the Rev. Ralph Wheelock, a Puritan preacher and educator from England, founded Medfield to take some of the surplus residents of the crowded town of Dedham.

The current population of Medfield is around 13,000, up from 10,500 in 1990, according to the US Census.