November 08, 2024
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Quilt offered as prize stolen in Cumberland

CUMBERLAND – Police were on the lookout for a woman they suspect stole a prize-winning quilt from the Cumberland County Fair.

The quilt’s maker, Beth Maitland of Cumberland, donated it to the Friends of Fort Edgecomb, which is raising money to reshingle the blockhouse.

The group sold more than $600 worth of raffle tickets for the quilt, which depicts an 1812 American flag, a sailing ship and Fort Edgecomb.

The fort, on Davis Island in the Sheepscot River, is the state’s oldest artillery installation.

The quilt, which won a blue ribbon, had been hanging in the fair’s exhibition hall since Sept. 20. The fair closed Saturday, and Maitland found that the quilt was missing a day later.

Police Chief Joe Charron said a teenage volunteer handed over the quilt to a woman who claimed it was hers.

The woman, who spoke with a Southern accent, said the fort on the quilt was Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

“The officers are in the process of interviewing individuals that may have had booths up there, to see if this individual had a booth herself,” Charron said Tuesday.

Also missing was a framed photograph of an American flag that had been on display. The photograph belonged to Carolyn Small, the superintendent of the exhibition.

Maitland said two volunteers told her that the woman who took the quilt was carrying a framed photograph.


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