Coxcomb Variation
Designed by Ellen Aycock Jones (1836-1920)
York County, SC
ca. 1880
Gift of Mrs. Winnie Hay and Mrs. Dick Atkins
McKissick Museum Collection 6.2248
Block-style applique quilt with sashing. A three-color quilt in solid red, green, and “cheddar” or “chrome orange” fabrics. Cheddar fabric became popular after 1840 as an accent for red and green applique floral quilts. Coxcomb-patterned quilts became popular in the 1870s and 1880s. Cotton batting and muslin backing. The fine quilting in multiple patterns on this quilt create a highly textured bedcovering. The red flowers are cross-hatched quilted. The stems are outlined quilted. The white ground fabric is stitched in a small clam shell or fish scale design. Zigzag and crosshatch quilting alternate in the quilt’s borders.
North Carolina Lily
Tabitha Campbell Norton (1841-1908)
Laurens County, SC
ca. 1860-1880
Harvest Sun
Attributed to Hattie Mitchell (1877-1974)
Barnwell County, SC
ca. 1900
Ellen Aycock Jones (1836-1920) 6.2248
Ellen Aycock was born in York County, SC. One of six children, she was the daughter of Alfred and Jane Aycock. Alfred passed away in 1843, when Ellen was only seven years old. A successful farmer, he left much of the livestock and farm equipment to his wife, including three spinning wheels and a loom.
Ellen married John C. Jones in 1860. After serving in the Civil War, he returned to farming and they had six children – Nannie, Hanks, Oscar, Edgar, Jennie, and Susan. Susan died of unknown causes at age eleven. Probate records indicate the Jones family’s cotton farm was rather successful. At the time of John Jones’ death in 1898, they owned stock in the local savings bank and the Fort Mill Manufacturing Company. In addition, they owned a buggy, a wagon, a variety of livestock, a molasses mill, blacksmithing tools, and a sewing machine.
Their son Edgar Jones continued the farming operation after his father’s passing, which included the operation of a roller mill on the Catawba River. Edgar married Cammie Crook in 1914, but she passed away just three weeks after the wedding. The farming operation continued well into the 20th century. Edgar advertised often in the Fort Mill Times: the sale of “200 bushels of pure Culpeper cotton” in 1911, the sale of “Fulcaster Seed Wheat and Hasting Seed Oats” in 1916, and “a quantity of corn, hay and fodder, also some good pine wood” in 1919.
Ellen Aycock Jones died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1920. Her obituary reads in part “she was possessed of a lovable character and had a host of friends in the community who will sincerely regret her passing.”