Petticoat Press #12: Aunt Mary's Irish Chain for Mary Bayard Clarke

Petticoat Press #12: Aunt Mary's Irish Chain for 

Mary Bayard Devereaux Clarke by Elsie Ridgley

The last of the blocks for 2025

Mary Bayard Devereaux Clarke (1827-1886) in the 1860s,

rather shocking in "convenient dress."

Perhaps a wedding picture in 1848

Mary Bayard Devereaux was born into one of the largest slave holding families in North Carolina. Her grandmother had willed thousands of bondspeople to Mary's father Thomas Pollock Devereux. Mary was one of six girls and a boy raised in luxury at their Conneconara plantation in Halifax County

Soon after the Mexican War ended Mary married veteran Major William John Clarke in 1848 with her Uncle  Bishop/General Leonidas Polk officiating. Unlike other female journalists we've looked at Mary's marriage was a lifelong love match that lasted until he died two months before her, but William, injured in the leg in Mexico, never had a talent for making a living. Like many other Civil War veterans Colonel Clarke returned in permanent pain with a drinking problem.

Aunt Mary's Irish Chain by Jeanne Arnieri

In the mid-1850s the Clarkes moved to San Antonio, Texas where William was president of the San Antonio and Mexican Gulf Railroad. During his antebellum tenure not a mile of track was laid. Mary's options for adding to the family purse were few but she had a talent for writing. After an 1850s trip to Cuba she sent travel letters published in the Southern Literary Messenger. Her major interest was poetry, which she published under the penname Tenella to readers' appreciation. 

When war began Mary, living in Texas, had four young children  Husband William joined the Confederacy in North Carolina and Mary soon moved back accompanied by Texas servant Jane Espy. Leaving the children with Jane she occasionally joined her husband on campaign. 

William John Clarke (1819-1886)

Veteran of two wars

He was badly wounded in 1864, convalesced with Mary and after returning to fight, captured and imprisoned in the first months of 1865. At war's end he joined Mary in Raleigh.

Their Children

all of whom survived her

From FamilySearch

Aunt Mary's Irish Chain by Becky Brown

Wowzer!

Becky Brown's Petticoat Press top

Catherine Ann Devereux Edmondston (1823-1875)

During the war Mary kept a diary as did her sister Catherine Devereaux Edmonston, both of which have been published. See below for links.

St. Mary's School on Hillsborough Street in 

Raleigh, North Carolina still stands. 

After 1865's Confederate surrender General Oliver O. Howard camped his branch of Sherman's Union Army in St. Mary's yard. On an inspection visit General William Sherman toured the school and as Mary Clarke wrote in an 1866 account in the pro-slavery journal The Old Guard:

 He was "charmed with the polite reception they gave him,,,,so charmed, that after saying adieu, he must needs turn at the bottom step for a parting bow. Unfortunate movement! They were one and all making such mouths as only angry school girls can make, while some more daring ones were absolutely shaking their pretty little fists at him."

1877, copied in the Raleigh Weekly Register

Aunt Mary's Irish Chain by Becky Collis

After the war Mary's reputation was impressive although she never made much of an income in her journalism and poetry. In her mid-fifties she suffered a crippling stroke in 1883 and a second fatal attack in 1886.

The Block

Aunt Mary's Double Irish Chain

Aunt Mary had many nieces and nephews through her 6 siblings.

Aunt Mary's Irish Chain by Denniele Bohannon

Further Reading

Petticoat Press by Jeanne Arnieri

Terrell Crow & Mary Barden, Mary Bayard Clarke, Live Your Own Life: The Family Papers of Mary Bayard Clarke, 1854-1886, Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2003

Beth G. Crabtree & James W. Patton, “Journal of a Secesh Lady” The Diary of Catharine Ann Devereux Edmonston, 1860-1866, Raleigh: Office of Archives and History, 1979.

https://cwnc.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/415

Mary Bayard Devereux Clarke, "General Sherman in Raleigh." The Old Guard, Vol. 4, 1866. Pages 226-232

Ready to assemble: Denniele's blocks with an alternate block 

She's such a great pattern drafter for her Louanna Mary Quilt Design company. She drew up the alternate block for us.

Here are the blocks for Petticoat Press in 2025

Click for the index with links to the posts over the year.

https://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2025/06/petticoat-press-bom-links-to-free.html

2026 Applique BOM: Baltimore Belles & Rebels

 

Becky Collis

Central wreath for Baltimore Belles & Rebels

End of the year and time to plan for next year's appliqued Block of the Month design with a Civil War history. Baltimore Belles & Rebels blocks will be posted on the last Wednesday of each month in 2026 with the first free monthly pattern here on January 28th.

Baltimore's Brown Veil Club, also known as the 

Monument Street Girls, sewed for the Confederacy.

Women in Civil War Baltimore held conflicting loyalties despite Maryland's position as a Union state. Many slaveholders in the city hoped vainly for secession. Others considered themselves so Southern there was little question as to which side deserved their support. 

Yet the city's women included Union-sympathizers among its social leaders and those of lesser status such as free Blacks in that city with the country's largest such population. 

Baltimore Belles & Rebels will tell stories over the year of the city's women with patterns in the traditional Baltimore manner popular in the late 1840s and '50s. Our proposed sampler quilt has a medallion set with a large center wreath. You can get started on that now so here is the pattern for the 13th block, a 24" finished center and a 6" finished frame around the wreath.

12 monthly blocks finishing to 18"

with a center block finishing to 24"

in a frame finishing to 36"

No border

 

You'll have all year to stitch those leaves and roses.

Print this on an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet of paper.

Post your progress on our Facebook group page:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1178792650465362

BaltimoreBellesQuilt

If you want to get a head start you can buy the patterns at my Etsy shop.

The link:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/4421045504/

Colonial Williamsburg

Sarah Anne Whittington Lankford 1830-1898

The setting inspiration is the Lankford quilt in the collection of Colonial Williamsburg (photo modified above to be square with 12 blocks.) 

Some monthly applique designs will be similar to Sarah's---not the same.

https://emuseum.colonialwilliamsburg.org/objects/58956/quilt-appliqued-baltimore-album;jsessionid=8C7253ADC6073FE0659AFC7585B99D90?ctx=ddf4a937a0bfa463b013156517b533b65d611a0d&idx=1

See a post on more Baltimore Albums with a central focus here:

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2016/06/baltimore-album-quilts-medallion-sets.html

Fabric: Becky Collis is planning traditional reds and greens for her version so you might want to do likewise and look through your stash for reproductions suitable for a ca. 1860 applique. As in most Baltimore albums the prints and plains are scrappy. For a consistent background in the blocks, center & border buy 7 yards of one fabric. Over the year we'll give ideas for borders and I am sure you readers will come up with some on your own.

Ooops

 I see I accidentally published all my notes for future Civil War posts. I'm taking them down.

Liberty's Birds #9: Mulberry Tree

 

Liberty's Birds #9: 

Mulberry Tree by Denniele Bohannon, 

the last of nine bird appliques for 2025

Sara's journal:in the house on Mount Oread

Alexander Gardner photograph from Mount Oread, Fall, 1867

 Gardner was told the stone wall in the foreground is the remains 

of a fort from Territorial days 20 years earliier.

After Sara's first rather primitive house in Lawrence, Kansas was destroyed in May, 1856,

 she and Charles may have moved into this stone house photographed

 in 1867 by Alexander Gardner. We are looking at the rear view. 

The street now called 14th runs on the other side.

The house is still there next to The Wheel bar, viewed from the side and

 remodeled in bungalow style.

Side view from 14th

Mulberry Tree by Elsie Ridgley

Charles & Sara's major building project was a house across the river where they lived the rest of their lives. They never had children and much of their estate went to the University of Kansas....

...Including "Oakridge." 

The University--- never dedicated to preservation--- let it

fall into neglect and Oakridge is long gone.

Mulberry Tree by Becky Collis

In the new house far from Mount Oread (at top across the river here) 

they lived a long and happy life together. We could

 follow them through the ups and downs of his political career 

and her lifelong devotion to his causes and memory

----but this is a story about the first house on the rocky ridge, 

where rattlesnakes still sun themselves.

The Block

Mulberry Tree 

The inspiration has seen better days.

A pair in a mulberry tree for the Robinsons.

Mulberry Tree by Susannah Pangelinan

She continued the block applique into the sashing.

Susannah's finished top!

Becky Collis's nine blocks

Denniele's

See links to all 9 blocks here:

https://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2025/07/libertys-birds-links-to-free-patterns.html

Elsie's