The use of quilts hung from a clothesline or windowsill to indicate a safe house along the Underground Railroad is a popular but controversial folklore, often told orally amongst families. It is believed that these quilts held patterns and motifs that were used as a code of sorts, so that an enslaved person on the run could know the area’s immediate dangers or even where to head next.

The story of the patterns found on this quilt, compiled by Marian Turner in 2011, is told as follows: