1880-1889

Janet E. Finley Collection of Quilt History Photographs

Westfield, New York, United States

Cabinet Card, dated 1880
Photographer: L.B. Melven, Westfield, New York
Size: 4.25" x 6.5"

Mrs. Phoebe Peck is the name noted on the Cabinet Card's verso (as shown) along with the information that Mrs. Peck was photographed on August 2, 1880, on the celebration of her one-hundredth birthday. Mrs. Peck has quite a family history. She was born Phoebe Wilkinson on August 1, 1780, in Saratoga, New York, of Scottish and English heritage. She met and married Gideon Peck (marriage date is not known) in Greenwich, Connecticut. Gideon, born January 5, 1775, resided in Westfield, New York, at the time of 1830 and 1840 Federal Census. He was a descendent of William Peck, who came to America on the good ship Hector arriving at Boston Harbor in 1637. Gideon died in 1847, making Phoebe a widow of thirty-three years at the time of the photograph. Phoebe and Gideon had a son, Harvey, who was listed in the 1880 Federal Census as a sewing machine salesman. The census also noted that Phoebe was living with Harvey's family by 1880. Apparently, the photographer, Mr. Melven, came to the Harvey Peck residence as the background is not the painted backdrop found in studios but the interior of a private residence, most likely the Peck's parlor. Phoebe lived another three years, dying on July 4, 1884, at the age of 103. She was buried in the East Ripley Cemetary at Ripley, New York. The quilt is composed of pieced bars separated by dark bars of a dotted fabric very popular in the 1860s. I have a feeling she made this quilt in that era. Since her son sold sewing machines, Mrs. Peck, then in her 80s, probably used a sewing machine in the quilt's construction. I would like to think Mrs. Peck made this quilt and placed it in her photograph to announce she enjoyed quilt making all her life.

-- With permission of the publisher, excerpted from Janet E. Finley, Quilts in EveryDay Life 1855-1955 (Schiffer Publishing, 2012).