The Blanket

By Stan Williams

This is a tale of a three-hundred-year-old blanket made in the mid-1700s in Sweden and follows its travels and adventures to England and then to the New World. It was with the Sons of Liberty when "the shot heard around the world" was fired. It was in the evacuation of Charleston in 1863 and trekked to Ohio afterward. It then traveled west to Arizona and was with those who settled in the state, from Tombstone to Tucson and then to Prescott and Glendale, near Phoenix. It was with Teddy's Rough Riders at San Juan in Cuba. Pieces of it found their way to WWII and Vietnam.

"The story is told from journals and news accounts that were saved by the many owners as it was handed down from family member to family member. It is a fun read and interesting slice of American history, which you may not have studied in the public-school system."

By Stan Williams 2020

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662415128

Book preview

Owners of Blanket

Anders Swenson 1664?–2-16-1743

Dyveke Heydrick 1680?–10/1742 (Made original blanket)

Caroline (Swenson) Kier 8/10/1729–1803 (Daughter of Dyveke)

John Kier (Unknown)

James Kier 1759–1870 (Son of Caroline)

Mary 10/6/1765–11/18/1829

Isiah Kier 9/1/1788– (Son of John Kier)

Ruth Anne (Unknown)

John William Kier 7/18/1814–4/20/1867 (Son of Isiah)

Mary Elizabeth Gibson died 12/5/1867

John Morgan Kier 7/8/1847–4/20/1867 (Son of John William)

Eliza Anne Nelson 1845–2/14/1912

JJ Kier 5/16/1873–5/15/1946 (Son of John Morgan)

Grace Lynn Clark 2/15/1874–4/8/1918

Amy Kier 10/3/1897–4/7/1987 (Daughter of JJ)

Andrew Woods 7/10/1897–4/6/1945

Harrison Randle 4/6/1945– (Grandson of Amy)

Julia Helen Davis 7/8/1950–8/8/2010

I count the dismal time by months and years,

Since last I felt the green sward under foot,

And the great breath of all things summer-mute

Met mine upon my lips.

—Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Prisoner

Chapter One

After returning to his native Sweden, having been released from captivity in Siberia, Anders Swenson was examined by a Royal Army surgeon and was found to be useless for further duty. Anders was a strong muscular man when he was conscripted into the Swedish Army. He was taller than most of his contemporaries. His hands were callused from years of hard work, for he was a farmer. He was from a small village about a hundred miles east of Stockholm, called Kargen. He had lost over seventy-five pounds and was a little more than a skeleton with skin that was barely attached. His cheeks were shallow, and his eyes were now a little large for his face. His feet were swollen from walking miles without shoes or sandals over the rough, cold ground of the northern Russia.

Anders was given his discharge papers and cashiered out of the King’s Army. Beaten and broken down both physically and mentally, he returned to his home village. He found that another soldier had taken the family’s land. The law of the area allowed a veteran to claim land of any soldier that had been reported killed in action as long as he cared for the deceased soldier’s family. Anders had been declared killed in action after several years of being missing. But his wife, Dyveke, did not give up. She just kept waiting for his return. After several years she did give up her rights in order to eat regularly and not to be taken to the pauper prison.

Anders, knowing the law and not being well enough to fight for his land, gave up his home and decided to move on. This meant that he would lose his source of income, but the mustering-out pay would last a few months, so he was not very worried about his situation. He took his wife, whom he had married a few months before going off to war, and went to Stockholm.

While riding in the carriage to their new home, his thoughts were of the past thirteen years of hardship and imprisonment in the service of his country. He had lost everything in the process except the one thing that meant the most: his wife. Anders told his faithful companion as they traveled of his adventures with the Konga Company, marching through Northern Europe, Poland, Saxony, and Russia until he reached Poltiva in the winter of 1709. In this battle almost every man in the Konga Regiment fell. Then three days later his beleaguered regiment engaged in another battle. The few men who could still walk were starving when they surrendered. Those who could not walk were put to death by the Russian Royal Guard. He and the other survivors were taken to Perolyna, a western Siberian town, and after regaining some of their health, the survivors were placed in the service of the local mine owners. Anders then spent thirteen years in captivity before a change in local government occurred, and they allowed the captive foreigners to return to their homeland.

Before getting to their destination, he told Dyveke that he could not help feeling a little betrayed by his king for writing him off as killed in action. He believed that his king should have demanded a better accounting of prisoners of war and that he should have been returned with the rest of the men after the war. At least he should have been given his property back. The money he was given was of little value compared to the land he had lost.

When they arrived in Stockholm, there was much excitement among the residences. Swedish citizens were joining many other Europeans in leaving for the New World. There was much confusion as the people were running to and fro, which appeared to Anders like small children running around with little direction or purpose. It seemed to him that there was little guidance or direction in the lives of those wishing to book passage out of the country.

After several hours of searching for a place to live, they came across a couple who were moving out of a small flat near the docks. Anders spoke with the couple and found that they were, indeed, moving to the New World. The couple gave the Swensons their flat and told them that they could find the owner at the corner drinking establishment, and he would be happy to collect the rent from them. Their lodging was in the shabby damp area slums very near the shipyards. It was noisy with all the commotion, dogs barking, and general noise of the ships loading cargo and passengers.

The living quarters were a far cry from the high plains of the eastern Swedish countryside Dyveke was used to, but Anders let her know it was a lot better than the living conditions he had endured the last thirteen years. The air smelled of human waste and rotten fish. The blue sky was obscured by the thick, black smoke, which made her eyes itch and burn constantly. Dyveke had been in the city for only a short time when she began to dream of the country and returning there as soon as possible, but soon the stench of the slum with its open sewer ditches running full of human waste would awaken her from her daydreams.

Anders soon gained employment in the shipyards near their little flat. It was on the crowded work wagon to and from work that he would find himself remembering and dreaming of better times, the times before the war.

Dyveke was the daughter of Hans and Sigbrit Hydedrick of Saxony. Anders met them and Dyveke while in Vastervik (a small village south of Stockholm) in 1708. He was there to procure bread for the Army. Soon after meeting Dyveke, Anders described her in his journal, She is wonderfully beautiful, handsomely proportioned and slim as a reed. Her features had a mild expression. She is shy and gentle and her deportment can only characterized as extraordinary calm.

Anders, while in captivity, often thought of how he first saw the little girl selling cakes with her mother in the seaside marketplace. Her extraordinary beauty struck him, he mentioned how he felt to his friend Christian, and shortly thereafter, the two decided to give a small party in her honor. They first visited Dyveke’s mother and persuaded her to bring her young daughter to the dance and party. It was during their first dance that he fell forever in love with Dyveke and, soon thereafter, would have neither thoughts nor eyes for any other woman.

She had captivated him with her shy smile, and it was love at first sight for both. Soon after the party, marriage negotiations began with Dyveke and her father. And shortly thereafter the word came to Anders that her parents had given their blessings for the two to be married. Even though Dyveke had little to do with the decision, according to Anders’s journal, She came to my bed, possessed by the most unusual feminine charm, and I was made to feel that she came to love me. I knew that our relationship would last forever, at least as long as life itself.

Love is sunshine, hate is shadow,

Life is checkered shade and sunshine.

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha

Chapter Two

It was during their stay in Stockholm that Dyveke kept herself busy making a large quilt to keep her husband warm. It was cold and damp riding the work wagon to and from work each day, and he and his friends riding with him welcomed the warmth of the blanket. She made the blanket out of hand-cut pieces of cloth she had cut from discarded clothing found in the streets of the neighborhood.

It was during this first winter that they decided to book passage to the New World as soon as they had saved enough money. They had a secret place. Under the kitchen table, a loose board in the floor provided an ideal place to hide their money. The Swensons were afraid of being robbed when they were both gone from the apartment. So hiding it was the best thing to do.

In late spring while Dyveke was working to enlarge her blanket, she received word to bring Anders to her in-laws’ home in Bashenolla, the place where they moved after the war with Russia. Anders’s parents were growers of flax, which produced the cloth that Dyveke used in part to make her clothes and bedding and, of course, the blanket. Anders and Dyveke left to see his parents at the end of May when the weather would permit easy travel. When they arrived, he told his father that he and Dyveke were planning to leave Sweden and go to the New World. His father, Norge, and his mother were saddened by the news, not wanting to lose their son again to a faraway place. They knew that this goodbye would be the last time that they would see their son.

While there, the Swensons attended the St. Olaf’s Mass (June 10, 1726). It was the feast of St. Olaf, which celebrated the time of the first harvesting of hay. Most of the time it was the only hay harvest for the season. It was the time of the year that the storehouses were empty, just prior to the large summer harvest, a time when the lady of the house would sweep up the last of the flour from the bin and scrape the pork barrel. This was the time of the beginning and the end—the end of food storage from the past year and the beginning of this new year’s harvest that, if all went well, would last till the next summer when they could do it all over again. (The village hay feast has vanished from this ancient, but currently thriving community; however, it survives in Swedish literature.) Strindberg devoted a chapter to it in his novel The People of Hemsö.

From the grasses of the field to Villagers took fodder for cattle and therefore food for themselves.

From ploughed field they took their clothing as it was there that their clothing grew.

This refers to the growing of flax, which the farmers of this region did in order to have both food and cloth for the upcoming year. Flax is one of the oldest cultivated plants in the world. Flax is known to have been grown before 2000 BCE. It was even found in Egyptian tombs, estimated to be four thousand years old. Some present-day archaeologists claim to have found reproducible flax dating from as early as 6000 BCE.

This useful plant has been grown in Sweden since the Bronze Age and brought about a revolution in the local population’s clothing making. Until then the inhabitants wrapped themselves in skins, first the furs of local beasts like wolves, then later they used domesticated farm animals.

The flax field with their blue flowers added a dash of color to the landscape, but to turn this plant into cloth called for a lengthy and troublesome process. This took a great deal of patience as well. From the day when the flax seed was planted to the day when linen cloth was spread out on the ground for bleaching, would be an entire year.

Before it would be turned into clothing (or, in Dyveke’s case, a blanket), or sheets for the bed, the flax had to go through a long and complex process. No fewer than eleven stages were involved: Sowing the seed, reaping, drying, banting, breaking, towing, Heckling. Spinning, winding, weaving, bleaching. (Strindberg, The People of Hemsö)

It was during their visit that Dyveke received enough material to finish the blanket, including the backing needed to hold in the cotton stuffing. Her blanket was now going to be a quilt. She was able to finish the quilt in time for their departure to the New World. She knew what would be the first item placed in their trunk.

If you would lift me

you must be on higher ground.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Chapter Three

It has only been one-hundred years since Peter Munuialt was appointed General of New Holland Colony, [Manhattan Island] and already it is said that it is more than we could ever hope for. This is a quote from Captain Whitaker, taken from Anders’s journal dated September 1726.

Captain Edward Whitaker was a large, robust man in his late sixties, and he was at the peak of his profession. And he was an expert seaman and navigator. His real reputation began in July of 1704. He was one of the first to go ashore in Gibraltar. He also helped set up and fly the first Union Jack during the battle with the French and Spanish.

The British had joined with the Dutch and Germans to defeat the Spanish and her allies. However, even in defeat, the Spanish tried to retake the fort at Gibraltar. During the years that followed, many wars would be fought over the Rock, but Captain Whitaker would forever be remembered for the first battle. Shortly thereafter he returned to England and, soon after, retired form his king’s service and opted to become a civilian-passenger-ship captain.

Once he had left the Navy, he came across an old Navy vessel: the Monk. It was being decommissioned, and he persuaded the new owners to hire him to be the ship’s new captain. The ship was refitted and renamed the Essex. In 1724 the ship and its new captain and crew began making voyages around the British Isles and the ports in Northern Europe.

His ship had been built in Plymouth, England, in 1700 and had carried an armament of one hundred guns and had a crew of eight hundred men. The Monk could travel at almost ten knots fully loaded and manned. It was a well-built first-class ship, and Captain Whitaker felt that it could be a fine ship to cross the North Atlantic, and he longed for the day when he could do just that.

The fun installations were replaced by cargo holds and living quarters. The refurbished warship could carry one thousand three hundred emigrants plus several tons of cargo. The accommodations were not first-class by any stretch of the imagination as lice, insects, and