When I find a suitable tree, I plan to build a skeleton rigged saddle. If anyone has done one themselves, I would appreciate any tips or pictures if possible.

Thank you,
Ray

Ray,
I'll see if I can help you here. Don Born here in CO. had made a good fur trade saddle as well as Olivr McCloskey of UT. Do you have Shawn Websters book "In The Image of A.J.Miller" there are good color photos of both their saddles on page 40.
Also if you are into PC horse trips and equipage a must have book is the "UMO Cayuse Handbook" The UMO boys are the Upper Missouri Outfit of the AMM. They do it.
If interested contact me off line.
Bill
Where in WY? I lived there fer a bit!

bufflerub1880,
Would like to contact you. No e-mail address in your member profile. Try mine.
Thanks,
Ray

Here is the link for the UMO book to order
http://www.lg-usa.com/UMO/UMO.html
Drag over it and it will give you some more details.

Hey Bufflerub,
What kind of saddle do you ride?
I've been thinking about ordering a saddle from Bison Saddlery.

Here is a Santa Fe type saddle which is a correct style for the western fur trade.

That sure is nice Bufflerub,thanks for the picture.I'm leaning toward a Spanish tree with a square mochila.How about them stirrups?Are they brass?

Bufflerrub,
Wondering if slots in the bars for stirrup leathers were of the correct period. By the way, I live in Thermopolis.
Ray

If you are interested in saddle's or anything else to do with the western fur trade the book mention above is a very good book to get. rusty

I have been thinking of the same thing, sort of an open design covered in rawhide. In any event let us know how it comes out. Thanks

Ray,

You PM'ed me on this topic over on the other forum. Try to get that Cayuse Handbook. There's some good stuff in there. Hard to say on the slotted bars as there are few trees surviving from that period. I suspect they were either just looped over the bars or hung on staples like an English tree. That tree at the MFT that I sent you the link for has staples driven into the bottom of the bars and covered with rawhide like the rest of the tree. Some of the half Spanish trees had a triangular d-ring hung from the bar that the stirrup leathers were passed through. I have not seen a slotted bar, but that doesn't mean much given the sample size.

A couple of other general things and I mean no disrespect to Bufflerrub as he has a real nice rig and period saddles are a tough thing to research. There are also few people doing this so it can be tough to buy such equipment.

1) Period stirrup leathers appear to have been about 1.5" wide on average. That's mostly from period artists like Miller, Kurz, Ranney, and Sanchez y Tapia ranging from the late 1820's to the 1850s from Mexico to the upper Missouri.

2)Mexican made rigs used the wood block stirrups, but other than that your choice was either English type steel or brass stirrups sent west by the trading companies or NDN made wood/rawhide stirrups. Miller showed both in his paintings. Stewart and others used the steel ones, Walker and others used the triangular shaped NDN-types. A Mexican made rig up north or even down south may have had either of the latter two choices as replacements or just as preference. Rufus Sage belittled Mexican saddles as having huge heavy stirrups and great flapping skirts. Bent wood stirrups as we think of them today seem to have evolved in the 1850s.

3)Steve Steffley from Bison Saddlery said in the Cayuse handbook that he's found no evidence for slotted cantles before an 1849 Audubon painting of 49'ers traveling the southern route to the CA gold fields. Also the majority of cantles before the Gold Rush were apparently flat and not dished.

4) Period paintings suggest that the larger platter horns come into use around the 1850's. Prior to that they ran around 3" in diameter but variation was the rule and not the exception.

5) There are a couple of sort of period sources for gourd horn type saddle trees with large round horns shaped like a baseball or softball. One is a 1850-1860 painting by AJ Miller called 'Pierre' that was done from his 1837 trip much after the fact. The other was a painting called 'Hunting Wild Horses' By WT Ranney which probably dates to his time in Texas in the mid 1830's. I get the feeling from several sources that these were most likely a Mexican design ranging from TX to Chihuahuah and occasionally up into NM.

6)Concern for the horse or mule's back by the rider seems to have been rare. Padding or even skirts under the tree are apparently nonexistent on Spanish trees prior to the 1850's, meaning the bars sat on the blankets and that was it. No sheepskin or hair stuffed pads. English and half Spanish saddles were often padded under the tree with hair stuffed pads. Thorton Grimsley boasted in one source that one of his padded saddles was ridden from the Rockies to St. Louis without a blanket with no soring of the animal's back. Lino Sanchez y Tapia painted a Kickapoo warrior on horseback on the Trinity River in TX circa 1828-29 riding a half Spanish rig with no blanket.
http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/forts/clark/images/kickapoo.html

7) There's plenty of evidence for the use of martingales and cruppers during the fur trade era, but none that I've seen for a britchen.

The take-home from all these sources is that that each tree (particularly the spanish trees) was a handmade thing and there are no hard and fast rules. So take the 'rules' above like the large horns with a grain of salt.

I have several sources on this topic and will be happy to answer any questions or tell you that I have no idea if that's the case.

Suerta,

Sean

A good reference is THE BOOK OF BUCKSKINNING VI starting on page 34 by Bob Schmidt and Tom Bryant..Bob made my Ashley and I Have NEVER had anyone question it..also see THE BOOK OF BUCKSKINNING V page 229 pack saddles and panniers.. Bob Schmidt and Ton Bryant and if you really want a GREAT referenc... THE BOOK OF BUCKSKINNG II page 83 Horseback travel by Jeff Hengesbaugh. I met Jeff at Fort Bridger several years ago what a great reference person, he not only has been there but has done it.