By Kaitlyn Munro

Oh say, can you see” this remarkable flag? I think sometimes people tend to think of flags as ordinary textiles in the sense that we see them everywhere; outside office buildings, schools, homes etc. Though they remain symbolically powerful, we think of them as universally alike. When a flag tells an interesting story, they become a compelling textile.

This American flag, on display in a place of high honor in the City Hall of Frederick Maryland, tells the story of an immigrant woman taking pride in the country she would call home for the rest of her life. 

Matilda Kiefer Shawbaker‘s life began in Bavaria in 1820. After her mother’s passing when she was 11, she immigrated to Frederick with her father and siblings.  She eventually went on to marry second-generation immigrant George Shawbaker, whose father was Adam Shawbaker. The elder Mr. Shawbaker was a Hessian who fought in the Revolutionary War. He was captured after the battle of Yorktown in 1781 and eventually imprisoned at the barracks in Frederick. In 1783, he was released and was able to pay the $83 required for him to remain in America. Adam eventually married a local woman, Anna Barbara Schnautiegel, and had four children, one of them being George.

George and Matilda (our flag maker) had seven children, and interestingly enough, lived at the barracks where his father was once imprisoned. At this time, the barracks also served as the location for the   Frederick County Cattle Show and Agricultural Exhibition. Sometime between 1861 and 1863, Matilda was commissioned to sew an American flag to be flown on the fairgrounds. She was given enough extra material to sew a flag of her own as payment, and this is the flag that would eventually hang in City Hall.

Shawbaker family history says that some of the damage the flag sustained over the years is due to the two occasions Matilda hid it when the Confederate Army came through Frederick. One time she stashed it in cold ashes in her stove; the other time she buried it in her garden. The story reflects Matilda’s great dedication to protecting the flag, despite any potential risk of damage from her hiding it in hazardous places.

The flag was passed down from generation to generation and eventually her great-grandson William E. Main donated the flag to the City of Frederick.

Recently, Caring for Textiles completed the months-long and monumental project of conserving and re-mounting Mrs. Shawbaker’s handmade and hand-stitched flag. In every step of our conservation process, we hoped to honor her fine stitching and keep her memory in our thoughts. What did she think of as she sewed this flag? Was she worried about the ongoing Civil War? Did she work on it in the evenings beside the firelight, in her precious spare time?

We invite you to join us next week and check out part two, all about our conservation process!

Source:  http://www.mountolivethistory.com/stories-in-stone-blog/a-hessian-connection