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This is one of the books in the Elm Creek Quilt series by Jennifer Chiaverini, her seventh. Although it’s the seventh book she’s written in the series, this one takes us back in time to a few years before the Civil War in the United States, a time frame that is chronologically the earliest of all the books in the Elm Creek series.

Dorothea Granger is the main character. She and her parents now live with her Uncle Jacob, her mother’s brother. The move to Uncle Jacob’s farm happened because Dorothea’s parents’ farm was lost to a flood. Not only is the farm underwater, but so are most of the family’s possessions including Dorothea’s hope chest and her completed quilt tops.

Dorothea’s Uncle Jacob is a stern and rigid man who demands a lot of everyone in the household. Dorothea’s parents don’t argue with Uncle Jacob because they hope he will leave his farm to Dorothea’s brother Jonathan who is currently studying to be a physician in Baltimore.

Daily life on the farm is hard work. Dorothea is glad for the teaching position she has, but early in the book we learn that position is being given to someone else, Thomas Nelson. He comes to Creek’s Crossing under mysterious circumstances. Rumor is that he had been in jail, but that his influential father arranged for his release and had him sent to Creek’s Crossing where the family’s homestead is.

Thomas eventually offers Dorothea a position at the school teaching the younger children while he teaches the older ones. Although Thomas and Dorothea have been at odds with each other Dorothea comes to realize he is a good teacher and is good with children.

At Uncle Jacob’s farm, springtime is when there are long days spent at the farm’s sugar camp boiling maple sap into syrup and maple sugar. Even when it’s not sugaring time, Uncle Jacob spends a lot of time alone at the sugar camp and everyone in the family is too afraid of him to question why.

Like many young women of that time, Dorothea has excellent needlework skills. She enjoys quilting the most. One evening, out of the blue, Uncle Jacob asks her to make a quilt for him. Dorothea is surprised but agrees to do so. Uncle Jacob says he wants it in a design he remembers from a quilt of his mother’s and he proceeds to render the sketches for each of the squares and gives them to Dorothea. She has some problems with working on the quilt because Uncle Jacob doesn’t give her all the sketches at once; and she draws his anger when he finds that she hasn’t done a square exactly how he drew it because Dorothea mistakenly thought he had goofed up on one of his drawings. She doesn’t dare question why Uncle Jacob is so particular about each square but she rips out the incorrect work and finishes the quilt for him.

After giving the quilt to Uncle Jacob, Dorothea is shocked and upset to find that Uncle Jacob has dirtied and soiled the quilt so much that it is impossible to get all the stains out. Also, instead of keeping the quilt on his bed as Dorothea thought he would, he keeps it at the sugar camp.

When Uncle Jacob dies and one of his colleagues comes to pay his respects, Dorothea learns a shocking thing about Uncle Jacob and the sugar camp. The sugar camp is a stop on the Underground Railroad and Uncle Jacob spent so much time there because he was helping fugitives slaves escape and get to the next station. Dorothea learns the quilt she made has been left at the sugar camp because it’s a marker, a map that tells the fugitives the directions to the next station.

Dorothea takes up Uncle Jacob’s work and, with new danger to herself and her family, joins in the fight to get slaves to freedom.

There are other subplots in the book and Chiaverini weaves them all together very well. I was intrigued by one thing in particular though. I wondered if quilts really had been used as markers, or maps, in the Underground Railroad so I did a little online research. There seems to be a lot of debate on that subject. Some say it’s a myth, others say the quilts were used as markers, although I was unable to find any documented stories from slaves who had used to Underground Railroad and who mentioned the use of a quilt as a map.

The quilt being used as a marker is an interesting part of the story of this book though.

I found the book interesting and well written.

My rating (0-10 smilies): 8 ☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☺☺