McHenry Historical Crazy Quilt Block #20

Another block for the Mchenry Historical Crazy Quilt - this is the Samantha Button house built in 1854 and located on Waukegan St. Again I couldn't find a historical photo so I grabbed a screenshot from Google earth and oldened it in Photoshop.

Samantha Button was the daughter of William McCollom one of the very earliest settlers to McHenry Illinois. She was born in 1830 and came to Mchenry with her family in 1834. The only building in town was a log cabin located on the present site of The Riverside Hotel.

Her family continued west and made their home on the west bank of the lake named for them, McCullom Lake.

Samantha died in 1934 at 103 years old. Until her death, she was the oldest living mother of a civil war soldier. Her son died of typhoid during the war and is buried in Woodlawn cemetary here in McHenry.

This quilt will be a record of the historical buildings in McHenry. I'm still in Gagetown (the Main Street area) so theres a ways to go yet!

This quilt is pieced and embroidered entirely by hand. All lace is vintage or antique. The only embellishments are some vintage Mother Of Pearl buttons used to make the spider bodies. Spiders and spiderwebs are a traditional motif on antique crazy quilts. The Victorians believed that spiders were good luck so there is a spider on every block of my quilt.

I will be using this quilt to benefit the McHenry Area Historical Society. Preserving Mchenry's history is very important to me.

Next block - I'll be taking a little buggy ride (LOL) over to Centerville (Green St.) and doing the Owen Bros. Mill. Built in 1840. And I do have a real photo of it!!

Here's a photo of all the blocks together so far:

There's at least another 20 blocks to go so this quilt will be quite large!!