… Hayden explained the finished quilts featured multiple squares — each with a different design that signaled to those seeking freedom what steps to take to find their way along the Underground Railroad, a network of safe havens on the journey north.
Because those codes weren’t known to the masters holding people in bondage, the carefully arranged quilts could be displayed in the open, perhaps on a windowsill, Hayden said.
“They were not pretty like modern-day quilts,” she said. “There was a silent message of the quilts. Some people who were unaware of their importance looked at them and called them crazy quilts.”
One of the signals might be a quilt square with a bow-tie pattern. Hayden said that design could tell an enslaved person to head to a local church, to swap their worn garments for better-looking clothes.
“They had to change their clothes so they wouldn’t look so obvious,” she said.
Another square featured multiple triangles in a pattern resembling winged geese in formation, a signal to follow the migratory birds north. A more intricate “bear claw” pattern was a suggestion to “follow the bear tracks in the woods,” according to Hayden. …