Amid the hoopla surrounding America’s 250th birthday this year, you may have missed the historic quilt quietly marking the event at Clarence Dillon Library in Bedminster. The quilt was actually created for the bicentennial in 1976, but it remains a celebration of our nation’s founding in the Somerset Hills of New Jersey 50 years later.
The quilt is made up of 20 individually designed squares and measures 81 x 100 inches. Eighteen women, mostly housewives and mothers from the Somerset Hills area made the quilt as a fund-raising project for what was then the Crossroads Public Library. Each square of 15 x 15 inches has an author who clearly loved our history. Each square depicts an important scene or person in our area during the Revolutionary War. The Crossroads Public Library was renamed the Clarence Dillon Public Library in 1979 after the Clarence and Anne Dillon Dunwalke Trust paid off the library’s mortgage.
Names of Quilters
Florence Barberry
Barbara Bartosenski
Diane Bentley
Elaine Bontempo
Margery Cobb
Gladys Craig
Jean Grissler
Linda Horton
Linda Irvin
Bonnie Johnson
Pauline Keasling
Eleanor Layton
Barbara O’Conner
Lou Helen O’Sullivan
Jeanne Ratti
Ingrid Raupp
Martha Schmitt
Elaine Van Dam
