Textiles & Needlework
The museum's collection of textiles and needlework is extensive. Hooked rugs, beautiful quilts, fine dresses and other textiles are displayed throughout the museum. There are several highlights to our collections:
Bulman Bedhangings
The Bulman Bedhangings are the crown jewel of our textile collections and a must-see for anyone interested in textiles. Formerly displayed in the Emerson-Wilcox House, the bedhangings now reside in the exhibit gallery at the Remick Barn.
Several years after the museum opened two elderly women arrived in town with two suitcases and were directed to Sophia Turner, the Old Gaol's curator. They informed her that their ancestor, Mary (Swett) Bulman Prentice, had owned the house across from the Emerson-Wilcox House, and they wanted to return a set of crewel embroidered bedhangings she had worked, which they produced from the suitcases and presented to the museum. Like so many of the museum's early acquisitions, the Bulman bedhangings entered the collection because of their association with a local resident. The Bulman bedhangings are the only complete set of American crewelwork to have survived from the 18th century. Textile scholars consider them to be the most important extant examples of 18th century American needlework. Because of these distinctions, as well as their vibrant color and remarkable state of preservation, they have always been the jewels of Old York's collection.
Mary Bulman is buried in York's Old Burying Ground, within the shadow of the Emerson-Wilcox House and Remick Barn, which now displays her famous needlework. Although little is known of her life it is evident that she had some formal education indicated by the Arcadian poem she worked on the valances for this set, Isaac Watt's "Meditation in a Grove," from his Horae Lyricae (1706). Because of the styles evident in the crewelwork, it appears that more than one hand created the piece -- suggesting assistance from family and friends as Mary Swett prepared for her marriage to Dr. Alexander Bulman in the 1730s. Originally from Massachusetts, Dr. Bulman was Sir William Pepperrell's private surgeon in the 1730s.