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Connecticut contributes to America’s Tapestry

Connecticut contributes to America’s Tapestry

Betty Thompson of Salisbury added the necessary embroidery to the outline of a cannon on the Connecticut panel of America’s Tapestry.

Patrick L. Sullivan

SALISBURY — A group of youngsters and seasoned stitchers gathered at the Scoville Memorial Library on Saturday, Oct. 25, to do their part in creating Connecticut’s contribution to America’s Tapestry.

America’s Tapestry features embroidered panels, one from each of the 13 original colonies. “The panels illustrate the diverse stories of individual contributions – many overlooked – that reveal each colony’s struggle for Independence” (from the America’s Tapestry website). The work will be completed in time for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 2026.

Connecticut’s panel includes Hannah Bruce Watson of the Connecticut Courant newspaper in the foreground, soldiers of the 7th Connecticut Regiment in the upper right corner, Jonathan Trumbull’s War Office in Lebanon, and from the Northwest Corner, Salisbury’s cannon foundries and the adjacent marble quarries in Canaan.

The panel is in the process of being taken around the state, where individuals can add to it.

Beverly Army Williams was in charge of the panel, which was stretched out on a table-sized frame that allowed the nimbler stitchers to see where their needles were going from the rear of the tapestry.

Betty Thompson of Salisbury, one of the veteran embroiderers, got things started by working on the representation of a cannon.

Prior to getting started the group watched a video from William Sellery, a student at Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, speaking about the iron and cannon business in Salisbury. Copies of his research paper, “The Arsenal of the Revolution: Economic Productivity in Defense of Rights 1775-1783” were available.

The design for the Connecticut panel of America’s Tapestry as seen at www.americastapestry.comProvided

Patrick L. Sullivan
Senior Reporter
Patrick Sullivan has been a reporter for The Lakeville Journal since 2004, covering everything from town meetings to local characters and the outdoors. He grew up in Northern Virginia but spent summers on Mount Riga in Salisbury, giving him a lifelong connection to the Northwest Corner. A graduate of Denison University, Patrick is also the author of Tangled Lines, the newspapers’ popular fly-fishing column—making The Lakeville Journal, as far as anyone knows, the only newspaper in Connecticut with a regular fly-fishing columnist. He once received a fan letter from England, which he considers sufficient evidence that his work has achieved international acclaim.

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