Go
New
Find
Notify
Tools
Reply
  
Buckskins?
 Login/Join
 
Booshway
posted
At what time in 18th or 19th C. would it have been common/practical for buckskin pants to be worn by a woodsman? From my understanding the early to mid 18th C. they wore breech cloths and leggings or pants of some material. When did buckskins come on the scene? Best regards. Rockerhound
 
Posts: 1128 | Location: Iowa | Registered: 15 December 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Hivernant
posted Hide Post
They? Who; Indians, longhunters, mountainmen?
Pants? Breeches, leggings, long pants with fringe?
 
Posts: 129 | Location: Southern California | Registered: 28 April 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
posted Hide Post
I ment a colonial woodsman / hunter / setteler.
 
Posts: 1128 | Location: Iowa | Registered: 15 December 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
Picture of Dick
posted Hide Post
Lots and lots of men wore commercially-made deerskin knee-breeches, much of it made in England as I understand it, out of the deer skins shipped back there from the colonies. If you mean fringed back-woodsman trousers or leggins, I doubt if anyone really knows the answer to your question. Go ahead and wear them!

Dick


"Est Deus in Nobis"
 
Posts: 2902 | Location: Helena, Montana | Registered: 10 December 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
posted Hide Post
Well Gilbert Stuart painted Joseph Brant twice, prior to 1790, and in one of the paintings his black outer garment has some sort of fringe.., but it looks like cloth.

George Caitlin painted several Indians in the 1830's with various lengths of fringe.

Sorry that's such a broad range. I'm sure there are folks that might have other references to fill in the gap.

LD


It's not what you know, it's what you can prove
 
Posts: 3843 | Location: People's Republic of Maryland | Registered: 10 November 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
posted Hide Post
There is a section of an old newspaper (The PA GAzette if I remember correctly) called "Had on, Took with them." It's a description of runaway endentured servants and slaves, including specific traits and what clothes they were wearing.

Here's a link. You can put in your own search terms, like "Buckskin Breeches" and enjoy an evening of reading. I remember reading a description of one gent who "had a scar on his left eye winker." A term which has likely fallen out of common use...sounds like a literal translation of German to me...

http://etext.virginia.edu/etcb...=1-100&grouping=work

You may also enjoy these websites:
http://etext.virginia.edu/subjects/runaways/

http://etext.virginia.edu/etcb...sta/costaservant.o2w

Keep in mind that people on the frontier originally came from further east. They started out with clothes they grew up wearing.

Sparks

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Sparks,


"I thought when you said you chased tornadoes, it was just a metaphor."
--soon to be ex-fiance in Twister
 
Posts: 247 | Location: Boise | Registered: 12 November 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
posted Hide Post
Yes I think that's a good point that Sparks makes, they would wear what they were used to wearing, so you might consider doing an article of clothing the same way..., but with leather.

So if you made a hunting frock, meaning one with a front, fold-over opening, and a cape, and fringed the edges of the torso, and the cape and collar, with say a 1" fringe or so.., you should be alright. It would simply be a copy of a cloth hunting frock, but in leather.

LD


It's not what you know, it's what you can prove
 
Posts: 3843 | Location: People's Republic of Maryland | Registered: 10 November 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of GreyWolf
posted Hide Post
Dr. La Mayeur, a physician during the
Revolutionary War wore a buckskin hunting shirt that resides in the the Valentine Museum, in Richmond, Virginia.
It is knee length, caped and fringed
beyond belief. All the handcut fringe is 2" long -- there is fringe beneath the collar, applied fringe on the cape, the cape edge is
fringed, both armholes and sleeves are
fringed, there is applied fringe on the
body as well as the bottom of the coat.
Dr. La Mayeur wore the ultimate buckskin coat
http://frontierslivinghistory....s1_files/may2009.pdf

IIRC this a bench made copy of the original


aka Chuck Burrows


 
Posts: 616 | Location: Southern Rockies | Registered: 03 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
posted Hide Post
The newsletter link was very nice; I printed a color copy for myself. The photo of the "bench made copy" is a bit more embellished than the original seen in the photograph in the newsletter. Still the fringe is the question, and it's "short" compared to the fringe found on the plains and the Rockies in the 19th century.

LD


It's not what you know, it's what you can prove
 
Posts: 3843 | Location: People's Republic of Maryland | Registered: 10 November 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of captchee
posted Hide Post
that IMO would be a metis coat .
when it comes to buckskin coats , these items can date very early . In fact Clark also wore such a coat AS did Sam Huston
here are just a couple that i have collected photos of through the years







Clark's coat




if we really want to get into buckskins then we only have to look to the Metis who carried thier use of buckskin well into the later 1800's
. there are a great number of early photos showing metis in full buckskin clothing
 
Posts: 687 | Location: Payette ,Idaho | Registered: 23 November 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Hivernant
Picture of Pare-
posted Hide Post
Here's a few pictures.

 
Posts: 104 | Location: Little River, I.T. | Registered: 06 February 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Hivernant
Picture of Pare-
posted Hide Post
Another coat.

 
Posts: 104 | Location: Little River, I.T. | Registered: 06 February 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Hivernant
Picture of Pare-
posted Hide Post
This was collected near Atchison, KS., north of Ft. Leavenworth. Its one of the earliest pieces with cut & fold applique.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Pare-,

 
Posts: 104 | Location: Little River, I.T. | Registered: 06 February 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
posted Hide Post
Leather breeches

Carl Bridenbaugh in his book "The Colonial Craftsman," says the leather apron and leather breeches were worn universally as workman's apparel. (p. 164)

He continues that in 1764 a Boston newspaper ran the announcement that 'a great number of the respectable tradesmen' of the town had met and resolved to wear only leather 'for their working habits,' and those of local manufacture, because of the necessity for retrenchment in expenses consequent upon the postwar (F&I) depression and the anticipated effects of the Stamp Act.

Somehow those two elements seem to contradict each other a bit. One saying leather breeches are universal work clothes and the other calling to wear leather breeches as a political statement.

Nevertheless, if everyone had leather breeches it wouldn't cost anything extra to make that political statement.

Sparks


"I thought when you said you chased tornadoes, it was just a metaphor."
--soon to be ex-fiance in Twister
 
Posts: 247 | Location: Boise | Registered: 12 November 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
posted Hide Post
I believe that to be an academic question.
The answer is probably 'always'. Animal skins have always been available. Cloth, not so much.
Wasn't the Ice Man wearing skins?
BTW, those are beautiful coats. I want them all.
 
Posts: 1487 | Location: Mountain Home, Arkansas | Registered: 08 October 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
posted Hide Post
quote:
At what time in 18th or 19th C. would it have been common/practical for buckskin pants to be worn by a woodsman?



Prehistoric people aside, the question might include the type of people and the region to get a more complete answere, rather than a pretty broad conclusion not focused on the who/where and when that one has in mind.
 
Posts: 272 | Registered: 12 June 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
Picture of Dick
posted Hide Post
Following up on trg's comments, I would suggest that as we've concluded, men wore the clothes they had, whether it was homespun linsey-woolsey, wool broadcloth, or buckskin. A "long-hunter" out for months at a time, in my opinion, would be more likely clad, after a while, in what we think of as buckskin garments. Though they were hunting the deer for the hides, not the meat, and making clothing out of the skins cut into their profits, too. Not that that would have stopped them, if they needed clothes!
Longhunters were more common in the Middle Ground of Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and on west; probably not so much in western New York, for example, though I'm not well-informed enough about that area to be at all certain.

Dick


"Est Deus in Nobis"
 
Posts: 2902 | Location: Helena, Montana | Registered: 10 December 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
posted Hide Post
Good post Dick, I just wonder how much time the longhunters would put into tanning their hides for garments, or if they would have packed in extra clothing to be swithched as need and providing space for more rraw hides to be packed out. I have often wonderd this about a lot of replacement things which could be taken and used and the space utilized for returning with the hides.
 
Posts: 272 | Registered: 12 June 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
Picture of Dick
posted Hide Post
At least in later camps in the Rockies, there was often at least one "camp tender" who stayed around, maybe cooked food, took care of the horses, and dealt with the hides or furs. I think that was probably true in the long-hunt era, too. Those persons could have done some of the brain-tanning or oil tanning if they had any, and when the hunters were in camp for the evening or whatever they probably worked pretty hard, too. But I'm conjecturing again.

Dick


"Est Deus in Nobis"
 
Posts: 2902 | Location: Helena, Montana | Registered: 10 December 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
posted Hide Post
Lads: There is one rather extensive commentary on the tanning of hide for clothing in the book "A sketch of Daniel Boone", by Peter Houston. Houston came out with the second Boone settlement party and spent several years with him at Boonesborough. He writes that in about 1777 there was the need for clothing at the fort and, "being without flax with which to make linen" they headed north to a place quite near present day Paris, Ky. There Houston and a number of companions (including at least one of his brothers) set about hunting and preparing "roughly tanned" hide to be sent back to Boonesborough for use in making "much needed clothing". He writes of the tanning method, and notes that they were paid (if I correctly recall) "6 shillings per hide". He reports they were there more than 6 mos at this task.

No idea what sort of clothing they might have made from this, but we read elsewhere that "...some women were of a necessity of wearing them (britches, pantaloons?) like the men".

So, we know from this that prior to the establishment of sufficient flax cultivation, hide was the logical choice for clothing on the frontier of the Middle Ground.

Given the widespread use of the breechlout and leggins as dress, I rather doubt that full length "pants" were seen much at this time. More likely would be britches with leggins, of not the breechclout.

Because many (most?) of the folk on this forum appear to be interested in a somewhat later period, I see some "time-slip" here that can confuse the correct information a bit. Now, I am speaking ONLY of the 1770-1790 time period, and ONLY in the Middle Ground. This has nothing at all to do with the Eastern seaboard, nor any time after about 1790-1800...all of that is not really relevant to my response.

Other areas are not necessarily similar, and over time great changes took place in dress.

Col Boone
 
Posts: 728 | Location: Volcano, Hawaii | Registered: 22 September 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
  Powered by Social Strata  
 


2014 Historical Enterprises, LLC