Betsey Bogert Haring Quilts, Dutch Quilting


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Betsey Bogert Haring's Quilts

In her will made in 1889, a year and a half before she died on the last day of 1890, Betsey Bogert Haring provides for the disposition of seven quilts: her only daughter, Anna Maria, the wife of Isaac Onderdonk, is bequeathed her "album quilt." Son Samuel B. Haring received a crazy worked quilt; son Albert Zabriskie Haring, a silk quilt; granddaughter Lydia Haring, a diamond quilt, granddaughter Carry Bonker, a star quilt; grandson Milton David Haring, a curtain quilt; and grandson David a calico quilt.

It seems the album quilt must be the quilt that is now in the possession of the Bergen County Historical Society, having been anonymously donated to them in 1948. The quilt is a wonderful and original piece of work and was the focus of the quilt show the society held in May 1999 called "Ladies Ramble: Quilts from the collection of the Bergen County Historical Society". The Bergen County Historical Society shows images of the quilt.

A beautiful quilt book titled "Wrapped in Glory: Figurative Quilts & Bedcovers 1700-1900" by Sandi Fox, published by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, includes an Ackerman quilt by an unknown quiltmaker from the vicinity of Saddle River, NJ. The footnote to the Ackerman quilt mentions Betsey's quilt, and Sandi Fox says "the flowers she worked are identifiable, and she paid particular attention to detail: one block holds two baskets of fruit - one for strawberries and one for blackberries - and she has very carefully rendered the difference in the distinct shapes used in that geographical area for each type of berry". The quilt is pictured in black and white in "The Tree of Life: Selections from Bergen County Folk Art", published by BCHS in 1983, and is described as a "cotton quilt of 20 well-balanced and colorful squares with red border. Pictures of animals, fruit, baskets, flowers, hearts, car, sleigh, birds and people are appliqued with embroidery details. Each object is identified in ink. 70" x 861/2".

Although the BCGS literature has read the embroidered message in the pictured square as "Betsy Haring made this quilt while in her 57th year of age 1859", Sandi Fox says "the costume on, and other aspects of, the quilt point to a date of ten years later".

This is evidence of quilt historian Sandi Fox's expert credentials, as we know that Betsy was born July 11, 1811, and therefore would have been in her 57th year in 1869, not 1859. Having viewed the quilt at close range, I would definitely say the embroidery reads 1869. The record of the inventory of her estate has been destroyed by water damage, but the BCHS must have obtained information before the damage was done, as their publicity for the quilt show said the inventory of her estate "listed a silk bed quilt (worth $10) and six bed quilts ($6)". We do not know whether any of her other quilts survive.

On the book she is holding it reads:

Betsey Haring made this quilt while in her 57th year of age 1869

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