Ancient Mansfield Tapestry
 

Richland Co., Ohio

 
 

Historical Information

 
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Ancient Mansfield Tapestry

Source:  Richland Shield & Banner:  01 September 1894, Vol. LXXVII, No. 16

 
 
 

Submitted by Amy

 

In the September number of Scribner's Magazine is an article on "The Tapestry of the New World" by Fanny D. Bergen, and among the accompanying illustrations is one of an old-time coverlet, in one corner of which is worked the card of the manufacturer, as follows:

SAMUEL
MEILY
MANS
FIELD
RICHLAND
OHIO
1839

This Samuel Meily was an uncle of Mrs. Senator Calvin S. Brice, being a brother of Mrs. Brice's father, John Meily, who formerly lived in this city.  Both Samuel and John Meily are well remembered by the older citizens of Mansfield.  The portion of the Scribner article referring to the Meily coverlet is as follows:

"I am the possessor of a blue and white coverlet of decidedly ornate design.  It is one of the many made in northern Ohio, by one Samuel Meily, who has left his autograph neatly woven into the bottom corners of each bedspread.  By hearsay I have learned that old Samuel was a Pennsylvania German, and he must have been something of an artist in his way, for there is a smack of German art in the border of my coverlet, which is composed of prim little flowerpots and ridiculous dwarf pear-trees, bearing blossoms at the top as large as the fruit that grows so unnaturally near the ground.  I recall a red and green and white cover from the same man's hands, having a border of comical little roosters, and another called the "Log-cabin", from its border of tiny houses."


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