Zadock Pratt Museum - "Millennium History Feature of the Month" 

Throughout the year 2000, we highlight interesting items from Prattsville history

 

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Addi Lee Quilt, in the Pratt Museum collection

"Brown Goose" quilt pattern 

February 2000 - Addi Lee Quilt - "Ashland Quilt"

Written by Sona Grigoryan, exchange student staying in 2000 with the Cernikovsky family in New York City and Prattsville. This quilt has been the subject of Pratt Museum lectures and has toured the Catskills area, with lectures by Muriel Pons, former President of the Pratt Museum

Quilts have been made for thousands of years for many-many purposes � for protection from cold and for decoration. 

But you can hardly find quilts like this one that has lasted for hundred and fifty years. It was made in 1840�s and was property of Reverend Addi Lee. 

The quilt was inherited by Eleanor Lee Enderlin of Washington street, Prattsville. After her death no one in her family knew where the quilt was, but eventually her daughter Mary Enderlin of Boise, Idaho, found it. Mary and Eleanor�s brother Hugh Lee of Bovina Center, New York gave the quilt to the Pratt Museum.

Rev. Lee was an itinerant minister, and preached in the Methodist churches of three counties � Delaware, Schoharie and Greene. He actually started and built up churches in the three counties.

Rev. Addi Lee was such a good minister that he was invited to be a minister to one of the greatest churches in New York City, the Bedford Street Methodist church. And the quilt was given to him and his family as a gift by hundreds of parishioners. 

These have their names put on the quilt written in ink And because of that fact the quilt was never really washed. Despite its age (nearly hundred and fifty years) the names are all legible except perhaps of four of them. As a matter of fact a lot of descendants of the parishioners are alive. You can see some of the signatures on the right, in the center of the "brown goose" quilt pattern.

Reverend Addi Lee's name plate

Rev. Addi Lee unfortunately could not stay in New York City for a long time because of his poor health. 

Soon he came back to the country and lived there with his wife and five boys till the end of his life. He had a very short life; he died in his early 40s. He and his wife are buried in the Ashland cemetery.

Our teenage website correspondent, Sona Grigoryan,
a 1999-2000 exchange student from Yerevan, Armenia,
lives in New York City and Prattsville with the Cernikovsky family.
Here she is interviewing Muriel Pons,
 former President of the Zadock Pratt Museum,
and Prattsville Town Historian, in February2000.

Muriel Pons and Sona Grigoryan

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Updated on:
21 February, 2019

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