tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18677742751319561232024-03-20T16:50:24.199-07:00Ran Away From The SubscriberBy Tyler Rudd PutmanUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger160125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-21814225774808528552023-11-22T10:41:00.000-08:002023-12-04T09:01:15.367-08:00A Revolutionary War Textile Fragment from Fort Montgomery<p>Thanks to my colleague historian Matthew C. White and Grant Miller, the Historic Site Manager at <a href="https://parks.ny.gov/historic-sites/fortmontgomery/details.aspx">Fort Montgomery State Historic Site</a>, I'm happy to share a bit of information about one of my favorite things: archaeological textiles. Most such artifacts that we have from the 18th century survive as the result of specific formation processes, most often either because they landed in anaerobic (usually waterlogged) environments like shipwrecks and dense mud, or because they were in close contact with metal objects which helped preserve them. Once in a blue moon, fragments show up on regular old terrestrial digs for site-specific reasons that are hard (for me, at least) to explain. </p><p>Continental soldiers constructed Fort Montgomery as a defensive post on the Hudson in 1776. British, Loyalist, and Hessian forces captured it on October 6, 1777, and destroyed it a few days later. Beginning in 1916, sporadic archaeological projects investigated the fort. The most intensive excavations were done between 1967 and 1971 under a scholar named Jack Mead. You can read more about what these studies produced in <i><a href="https://www.nysm.nysed.gov/sites/default/files/crsp-vol2.pdf">"The Most Advantageous Situation in the Highlands": An Archaeological Study of Fort Montgomery State Historic Site</a></i>, Charles Fisher, ed. (Albany, NY: The Cultural Resources Survey Program, New York State Museum, 2004).</p><p>In the summer of 1971, Mead's team was working in the North Redoubt of the fort (specifically in the five-foot square known as Section 50, Box L, Square 18B) when they uncovered a relatively large textile fragment alongside a few scattered pieces (now catalogued as A.FM.1971.346). At the time and occasionally since, various people have wondered whether the fragment was a coat or jacket sleeve, given its distinctive shape. The wool textile has at least two layers of a relativley coarse, plain weave of about 28 yarns to the inch. More recent examination by professional conservator Sarah Stevens did not detect any evidence of seams, stitching, or thread. The fragments were found in close proximinity with ten musket balls and a British uniform button. Some 262 musket balls and all sorts of other interesting objects were found in the Redoubt overall. </p><p>The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation was kind enough to share a variety of research material and the original excavation slides with me and grant permission for them to be published here. Here's the fragment in 1971 and in its current state and more recently. If you're sharp-eyed enough to notice that the extant fragment seems to be a mirror image of the original in situ, that's because it was apparently flipped over at some point into its current state in storage.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeKuZVkSQzzMtLYHxwpPJ20wG0lnOnghFRiUsVUBu_6FazdqB02ja-itzdwWkSb5xrNDfmZ67jwsAznP9DUZ0v3fJfW0_vzK1zVH-URqKhIPdHXt8VKuawD_tinQiNI8jDK81RSonTJawMXkBjtfxTOkPX5wgJBViM3H9aLKzmVVuf-u3UKqcl1zHyircn/s2712/SL_b05_m35_s08.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1833" data-original-width="2712" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeKuZVkSQzzMtLYHxwpPJ20wG0lnOnghFRiUsVUBu_6FazdqB02ja-itzdwWkSb5xrNDfmZ67jwsAznP9DUZ0v3fJfW0_vzK1zVH-URqKhIPdHXt8VKuawD_tinQiNI8jDK81RSonTJawMXkBjtfxTOkPX5wgJBViM3H9aLKzmVVuf-u3UKqcl1zHyircn/w400-h270/SL_b05_m35_s08.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim1EcGW9xnGeXUjvTZmuD2rtW_Qm2EeYfOV1RoxnFn1g_rxKLccjYoBk1qWN8cRi02VoyprfDQg0lK4JrqfQXSH1U0X_nOcbz6aoSpj2oXTOqDZHTcoGgqXp6_hyphenhyphenbHCfM1QpSP-cSSCxUUmXnbbjbrtSrKkQufKQhuPUOina1CHznv3nJ1WkkW4vUI5Cwj/s3872/DSC_0038.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2592" data-original-width="3872" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim1EcGW9xnGeXUjvTZmuD2rtW_Qm2EeYfOV1RoxnFn1g_rxKLccjYoBk1qWN8cRi02VoyprfDQg0lK4JrqfQXSH1U0X_nOcbz6aoSpj2oXTOqDZHTcoGgqXp6_hyphenhyphenbHCfM1QpSP-cSSCxUUmXnbbjbrtSrKkQufKQhuPUOina1CHznv3nJ1WkkW4vUI5Cwj/w400-h268/DSC_0038.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>Indeed, it's pretty easy to see a sleeve-like shape here. Below, I've highlighted that shape and rotated the view of the fragment before it was lifted. If you aren't as used to seeing parts of clothing in flat pieces of fabric, this is approximately the shape of an "upper sleeve" with the "sleeve cap" at top and the cuff edge at bottom, and I've inserted an image of a modern upper sleeve pattern to help (note that period men's upper sleeves were close to but not quite this shape).</p><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW76wx99ReIFOoqe2YbRUsiNAnqG002g8ous7Z-47XWWi87fmYknD9dycn5j4nUP6h1JBrUJNs-8DpRqEMYbPUdWV6ZIVn5tHqCreg7QeueHBwpOGog0zpT1OGbebv1Dim9jjO71e_DdX6As862g5_KzmvwuJ-kRYn-dBXLIbup73qb70MCwn2g9u4CXlo/s2712/Sleeve%20shape.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2712" data-original-width="1833" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW76wx99ReIFOoqe2YbRUsiNAnqG002g8ous7Z-47XWWi87fmYknD9dycn5j4nUP6h1JBrUJNs-8DpRqEMYbPUdWV6ZIVn5tHqCreg7QeueHBwpOGog0zpT1OGbebv1Dim9jjO71e_DdX6As862g5_KzmvwuJ-kRYn-dBXLIbup73qb70MCwn2g9u4CXlo/w270-h400/Sleeve%20shape.jpg" width="270" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyj6mfZSyPFHTQpRPkpNnGf9_tB1GR7gjd2fJscy_SCKKgbdPdWEPfNe4tz-q8geS4tuZ6D9pK4wi3_VmeFWowZnVDy0SJbLOllLlapfOI298Y0Vf5rjtALBdsCffnBHoqQvIsTITvvg0Lf556e4vE8eG-CIyDhMkN96bTislN4XOIAC82G_rzlxq2Aah7/s791/sleeve.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="791" data-original-width="478" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyj6mfZSyPFHTQpRPkpNnGf9_tB1GR7gjd2fJscy_SCKKgbdPdWEPfNe4tz-q8geS4tuZ6D9pK4wi3_VmeFWowZnVDy0SJbLOllLlapfOI298Y0Vf5rjtALBdsCffnBHoqQvIsTITvvg0Lf556e4vE8eG-CIyDhMkN96bTislN4XOIAC82G_rzlxq2Aah7/w241-h400/sleeve.jpg" width="241" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">From <a href="https://images.threadsmagazine.com/app/uploads/2017/10/11000809/webextra_182_sleeve_7_revised.jpg">here</a></span></div></div><p>But, like most other folks that have puzzled over this object, I don't think it's a sleeve. It's hard to make any firm conclusions without seeing it in person, but there really doesn't seem to be any evidence for seams, hems, lining, or anything else besides its shape to suggest this identification. And the more I puzzle over the original excavation slide images, the more I think that you can see related fragments that originally extended past the misleading outline of a sleeve shape. </p><p>See what you think. Here's our pal again:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD1Hr1cIhKinELltzf3OBo3j-tA3Ngb54Ql2JzmWHjee02uB4NiaKwfHO43VzTWM0h1tXyOHicS6Q-RnCpe8-7nXGNSZD7Am-gUcq2wnKXgeQqHRTVN-9lxr9o5Tc1_Bx9jX3LmBgQmwfZ-bVIa2UEMQGme68lJ6c17X47GJ-WJR07Xoi4KNKoFhpVrWsK/s2712/SL_b05_m35_s08.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1833" data-original-width="2712" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD1Hr1cIhKinELltzf3OBo3j-tA3Ngb54Ql2JzmWHjee02uB4NiaKwfHO43VzTWM0h1tXyOHicS6Q-RnCpe8-7nXGNSZD7Am-gUcq2wnKXgeQqHRTVN-9lxr9o5Tc1_Bx9jX3LmBgQmwfZ-bVIa2UEMQGme68lJ6c17X47GJ-WJR07Xoi4KNKoFhpVrWsK/w640-h432/SL_b05_m35_s08.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation</span></div><br />Now below, here's a great, in-focus closeup of the center of the fragment (key in on the large white object, apparently a cut root or sapling according to folks in the know, at the upper left corner here, which is in the upper center of the above image). I've crudely highlighted the weave directions of the upper layer (red) and the lower layer (blue) and also tried to emphasize how much the weave direction is wiggling a bit with the clearly not-parallel green lines that are nonetheless definitely in the same piece of fabric. This sort of movement happens readily in fabrics that are relatively loose or thin.<div><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZeFEJNtL4n2usAbMOVl_6Sk6c_Jc7nSpkj7Bnh1und-kbwD2jjp_eblCUQj4ssZ5MlJDxZlt5Ar04CI4CQpnCatHLAXpNoaBoREi1K8wb-i9JqOuCuyGFWvbUwQAfBjYRG90q2XXhyuoB1vWmxivAGCXgpclV5AQ2RnmBC3d6YM38Jltrw7sQv_1O6ebV/s2709/Weaves.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1833" data-original-width="2709" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZeFEJNtL4n2usAbMOVl_6Sk6c_Jc7nSpkj7Bnh1und-kbwD2jjp_eblCUQj4ssZ5MlJDxZlt5Ar04CI4CQpnCatHLAXpNoaBoREi1K8wb-i9JqOuCuyGFWvbUwQAfBjYRG90q2XXhyuoB1vWmxivAGCXgpclV5AQ2RnmBC3d6YM38Jltrw7sQv_1O6ebV/w640-h434/Weaves.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Below, then, I think you can see how closely the top layer weave alignment matches a smaller fragment that is closer to the large white stump. I've highlighted that alignment in the red, below. When you relocate this fragment in the overall view, you can see that if it was originally part of that top layer, it extends well beyond the outline of the sleeve. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKI63er5nR79GE_Yum90BguuYdyE5qxqhSg_6v20jI8bBvOaQCIcb2x1L4ofsaWWtmlPGQs8uG00QrcJ6JyuZoyOwf-V5jbpvmj6uXWNSNUB9KjwaJt9WgmSIsnViO0UBLHXr0cpKRpV_swGNAeYuT5JbGokoxBYtHHQmcg1Y1GQhpiYOpUAWpUN1d6uqW/s2709/Weave%20continues.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1833" data-original-width="2709" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKI63er5nR79GE_Yum90BguuYdyE5qxqhSg_6v20jI8bBvOaQCIcb2x1L4ofsaWWtmlPGQs8uG00QrcJ6JyuZoyOwf-V5jbpvmj6uXWNSNUB9KjwaJt9WgmSIsnViO0UBLHXr0cpKRpV_swGNAeYuT5JbGokoxBYtHHQmcg1Y1GQhpiYOpUAWpUN1d6uqW/w640-h434/Weave%20continues.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrCkqTqGHQsca5zyRwCswZgqqUAy0fJh5hx7ddJj8SetJwBjBdjDxq8tx35MAIHL7lzq4lZDjJ4T8_sPpASEBuXZNzn5OAq8V4YO3TuCHkoAyOrAZ1KEW9aZJO69nC_V2EGor8cW60wBydmccDLBdewwdBsaog7FaLqlfuFHrZytkGAna9hiQHUk5gVWvI/s2712/weave%20continues%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1833" data-original-width="2712" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrCkqTqGHQsca5zyRwCswZgqqUAy0fJh5hx7ddJj8SetJwBjBdjDxq8tx35MAIHL7lzq4lZDjJ4T8_sPpASEBuXZNzn5OAq8V4YO3TuCHkoAyOrAZ1KEW9aZJO69nC_V2EGor8cW60wBydmccDLBdewwdBsaog7FaLqlfuFHrZytkGAna9hiQHUk5gVWvI/w640-h432/weave%20continues%202.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Of course, saying it's probably not a sleeve (which isn't a new conclusion, I'd emphasize) doesn't get us much closer to saying what it is. It's certainly a relatively thin, loosely-woven wool. There's about one bazillion possible explanations that we probably can't discount: raw fabric for garment construction? bunting for a flag? flannel for some sort of medical use? </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">If my back was to the wall, my best guess (echoing some older speculation by New York State staff and because of its context in the redoubt) would be that it's the sort of flannel that was sometimes used for artillery cartridges (bags to hold gunpowder). But this isn't a silver bullet: why would unsewn cartridge cloth be in the redoubt and not stored elsewhere? On the other hand, all sorts of non-military detritus was found in the redoubt, including enough building materials and ceramics to lead archaeologists to speculate that there may originally have been a structure within the redoubt. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">What's your guess?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Below are the other images of the fragment in situ and in storage, in case they're more useful to you!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWnHVlh4qeMooAnn4twkYb18ETlmwF-GXjqQGGkI5wtZm_JjeGsXbmE9Hcy-yldKDP_BdrUxECr3LpctCWaeVTYgZIchJFmSY6sEfkz6oSokyNrO-0i4_PNJuv70jOfSIWg4CU15T0169t-hwOIUS5i9UCdXW3cT-GBcxD2QhLDtJ8gx1-zigIHQN0BOA2/s2712/SL_b05_m35_s02.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1833" data-original-width="2712" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWnHVlh4qeMooAnn4twkYb18ETlmwF-GXjqQGGkI5wtZm_JjeGsXbmE9Hcy-yldKDP_BdrUxECr3LpctCWaeVTYgZIchJFmSY6sEfkz6oSokyNrO-0i4_PNJuv70jOfSIWg4CU15T0169t-hwOIUS5i9UCdXW3cT-GBcxD2QhLDtJ8gx1-zigIHQN0BOA2/w400-h270/SL_b05_m35_s02.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCv5aNBuVJzKYcnmT9eJig9wBHE-ie0UROqZ0o446fXNiLSIzQcbVOhj_BL_9qP_pVFSHGSZVazeFP0F1FUHsjGPg8McvzmoQ5U1iyPwbsO5fGHimqj8dGgdE4h_XGfhXQrTYsm9Zd8huDgv6yosVyxhauo8MYX7KC_rbkRr1gdeVZEp1Bgw25BNZLegWH/s2712/SL_b05_m35_s03.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1830" data-original-width="2712" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCv5aNBuVJzKYcnmT9eJig9wBHE-ie0UROqZ0o446fXNiLSIzQcbVOhj_BL_9qP_pVFSHGSZVazeFP0F1FUHsjGPg8McvzmoQ5U1iyPwbsO5fGHimqj8dGgdE4h_XGfhXQrTYsm9Zd8huDgv6yosVyxhauo8MYX7KC_rbkRr1gdeVZEp1Bgw25BNZLegWH/w400-h270/SL_b05_m35_s03.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2e6urf94CqDzgmfkwXu4-qRV4wLjdvtkzHoX5bpUtCH_H5ALdsn8RGz__cWEMtTXTwD6Dgr2x5GurEIIbZkik6UY8a9SUu1-C0trfaoNx09CU3dAWmxzZ2QtTmIfFjwCJroP5-6_rkk2E03g3nWDjTleQ6vTHm7l-Q3lBM7wreFXZQMqK-SCagHIsRRJy/s2709/SL_b05_m35_s04.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1833" data-original-width="2709" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2e6urf94CqDzgmfkwXu4-qRV4wLjdvtkzHoX5bpUtCH_H5ALdsn8RGz__cWEMtTXTwD6Dgr2x5GurEIIbZkik6UY8a9SUu1-C0trfaoNx09CU3dAWmxzZ2QtTmIfFjwCJroP5-6_rkk2E03g3nWDjTleQ6vTHm7l-Q3lBM7wreFXZQMqK-SCagHIsRRJy/w400-h271/SL_b05_m35_s04.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0bnXbJ0ZWYFI3Z4YeWjDzRI79NpkLnGq-JovHtLUzQf27tavOYrJovoUqw5yG0H_KclxOoM2ULwhfWIy87FVitIChjpSf2h9zu6GHdhhoAbi2PuVnET3EsN-3Omu0T8YNJXyuIPRslpG-uYPDijTgwwoIg_cRlYFUNYFtNZ0lPC0jnM-mPRvQbhv0KBM3/s2703/SL_b05_m35_s05.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1833" data-original-width="2703" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0bnXbJ0ZWYFI3Z4YeWjDzRI79NpkLnGq-JovHtLUzQf27tavOYrJovoUqw5yG0H_KclxOoM2ULwhfWIy87FVitIChjpSf2h9zu6GHdhhoAbi2PuVnET3EsN-3Omu0T8YNJXyuIPRslpG-uYPDijTgwwoIg_cRlYFUNYFtNZ0lPC0jnM-mPRvQbhv0KBM3/w400-h271/SL_b05_m35_s05.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL3reon2ZrwXfvkIsYtmpla69B-K90G9HdYVRRY3TUPYVyxRRYOjuNsCE9AuNDkZ1kKossTXvfhT7AY7TYC9Oj8lkZtTaxNKb0b1LaMqHqDYlYFwuGZ5jP6CSAMlDwv1BOdDN4GigtmLHKSScXfAmFOjjzED_j3c-OmIaJL3Yt6ipb11azHSssrvdfFmny/s2706/SL_b05_m35_s06.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1824" data-original-width="2706" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL3reon2ZrwXfvkIsYtmpla69B-K90G9HdYVRRY3TUPYVyxRRYOjuNsCE9AuNDkZ1kKossTXvfhT7AY7TYC9Oj8lkZtTaxNKb0b1LaMqHqDYlYFwuGZ5jP6CSAMlDwv1BOdDN4GigtmLHKSScXfAmFOjjzED_j3c-OmIaJL3Yt6ipb11azHSssrvdfFmny/w400-h270/SL_b05_m35_s06.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Hc5L-UR-f8hSFZEntZRvG9YiKCPHCDrpEoKve7GfyrN-pOJxPOrzO5GsCq0kFr0GKrYQAwJ1iDdwyDS3sNDHZett_QHqTHcpoMz7X5YgAI6A_dSqK0CTl8ojNKfdK9P4E_9yIId6FCUBABJJq1x2NKZ1MjPogAI6CHP_4kmlaA-TBOfoICLLmrOaRSlM/s2706/SL_b05_m35_s09.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1827" data-original-width="2706" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Hc5L-UR-f8hSFZEntZRvG9YiKCPHCDrpEoKve7GfyrN-pOJxPOrzO5GsCq0kFr0GKrYQAwJ1iDdwyDS3sNDHZett_QHqTHcpoMz7X5YgAI6A_dSqK0CTl8ojNKfdK9P4E_9yIId6FCUBABJJq1x2NKZ1MjPogAI6CHP_4kmlaA-TBOfoICLLmrOaRSlM/w400-h270/SL_b05_m35_s09.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGIRBukNyJCRUYQ5qWhPRLM8GJIVfPmimaue5TxvobIKkJyRb6ZVm4YJ4lAXwiqKabQ2mBpK7CGobXdbXNKX1Udpkcry0EqGxDgIoyvExLVAC4vvbtAZejTa7QEd57LOr0EoyqEn49cI-Ycyy_Ho71pfr_iIqDsMTyoDAlojuxl9SUEzil0LAhVgmPmijK/s1920/zoom1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1285" data-original-width="1920" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGIRBukNyJCRUYQ5qWhPRLM8GJIVfPmimaue5TxvobIKkJyRb6ZVm4YJ4lAXwiqKabQ2mBpK7CGobXdbXNKX1Udpkcry0EqGxDgIoyvExLVAC4vvbtAZejTa7QEd57LOr0EoyqEn49cI-Ycyy_Ho71pfr_iIqDsMTyoDAlojuxl9SUEzil0LAhVgmPmijK/w400-h268/zoom1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAlI9wTDfCwi6-sF8BGPsYAELPJb0b_bwfw7D-pMvofxBQRsP1rcyClWyRrGuSyZRxrKcgy2EgcqiNKZtFBBsHxShqejC8N0Hb7Lzn3qtxmZC5-hmnExg54k15WBbFezirLdNWbHufAAhB5fwUKspWDqOXpCQ3OF6KXDOTPcKHMfM_TPldB4QOL__dCi_-/s1920/zoom2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1285" data-original-width="1920" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAlI9wTDfCwi6-sF8BGPsYAELPJb0b_bwfw7D-pMvofxBQRsP1rcyClWyRrGuSyZRxrKcgy2EgcqiNKZtFBBsHxShqejC8N0Hb7Lzn3qtxmZC5-hmnExg54k15WBbFezirLdNWbHufAAhB5fwUKspWDqOXpCQ3OF6KXDOTPcKHMfM_TPldB4QOL__dCi_-/w400-h268/zoom2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-27766040745535065942023-11-16T16:39:00.000-08:002023-11-16T16:39:39.170-08:00A Brief Update in Civil War Interiors<p>Back in 2020, I wrote <a href="https://ranawayfromthesubscriber.blogspot.com/2020/05/winter-quarters-what-did-civil-war.html">a post about the interiors of the log huts</a> that soldiers used in winter encampments during the Civil War. While I haven't turned up many further references in that regard, I did run across an illustration recently in <i>Military Images</i> magazine that might be of interest. It's a depiction of the quarters of Surgeon Benjamin Walter Carpenter of the 9th Vermont Infantry as they appeared in Newport, NC, on May 30, 1864, depicted by the regiment's then-colonel, Edward Hastings Ripley. Sharp eyes will be able to make out plank chairs, various objects on shelves and hanging on the wall, and a sleeping cat under the desk.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw-GdR6vgkHtwgxskT5VBXa52oh_zTGVnnyUEuwt-Jen8NHMk_sdPauA8sOx0CX9AZ8O9du6UsRMInJ6E9H0MtmCHrI-43Hp2KDWhYEmq7rTDDfRathhz-vniNxnwC6LrkVp-Iqp4gQeFixSffjIy9K8XaoAaZUnk89T73zm2z4myBfJU1mqfFO4ukjpqD/s640/quarters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="484" data-original-width="640" height="485" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw-GdR6vgkHtwgxskT5VBXa52oh_zTGVnnyUEuwt-Jen8NHMk_sdPauA8sOx0CX9AZ8O9du6UsRMInJ6E9H0MtmCHrI-43Hp2KDWhYEmq7rTDDfRathhz-vniNxnwC6LrkVp-Iqp4gQeFixSffjIy9K8XaoAaZUnk89T73zm2z4myBfJU1mqfFO4ukjpqD/w640-h485/quarters.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">You can view this illustration and learn more about Carpenter and Ripley via <a href="https://bennington.pastperfectonline.com/webobject/6082BE73-7186-4188-9612-161911611110">the Bennington Museum</a>.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-71050940443753615352023-05-10T13:37:00.009-07:002023-05-10T13:38:46.463-07:00The Uniforms of Flower's Regiment of Artillery Artificers, 1777-1780<p>In conjunction with my work at the Museum of the American Revolution, where we periodically conducy living history events, I've sporadically conducted research into a group of soldiers and contractors operating in Philadelphia and Carlisle during the Revolutionary War known as the Regiment of Artillery Artificers. </p><p>The regiment was led by Colonel Benjamin Flower (1748-1781) and included dozens of craftspeople. Primarily dedicated to the production and maitenance of armaments and ammunition, the Regiment also included carpenters, blacksmiths, nailers, stonecutters, brass founders, shoemakers, armorers, wheelwrights, tailors, file-cutters, harness makers, sawyers, tin men, accoutrement makers, drum makers, painters, saddlers, coopers, coopers, clerks, curriers, turners, buckle filers and finishers, boat men, millwrights, wheelwrights, and laborers. </p><p>But what did they wear? Did their uniforms (if they had them) match what we know about Continental Artillery uniforms, or did they vary?</p><p>Here are all of the sources I've gathered about the appearance of Artificers in the Regiment.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPUx6z73eZ-ouNB7Oa3pmDTRINFXhCQF1Rs0iWqGQ40WqePZ4gjZ2sq6RCUQFLW7YbF3-KBFVO27ALEDwzsU0Lll2_jK-hUcclnopWCnUp0ql-HH9ZhmsXgiO2zILaoS-oT6lNtPZ-Ib79kUwxdQ1K9HyY_Mz2_oWB85Yz4cxynwZKK20OXnObN-2nLg/s1875/Flower%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1875" data-original-width="1458" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPUx6z73eZ-ouNB7Oa3pmDTRINFXhCQF1Rs0iWqGQ40WqePZ4gjZ2sq6RCUQFLW7YbF3-KBFVO27ALEDwzsU0Lll2_jK-hUcclnopWCnUp0ql-HH9ZhmsXgiO2zILaoS-oT6lNtPZ-Ib79kUwxdQ1K9HyY_Mz2_oWB85Yz4cxynwZKK20OXnObN-2nLg/s320/Flower%201.jpg" width="249" /></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSloJ_i2S_Y6SJchEID_P0_-m4wOYulIF_hOPSgcr9s39cwYuFJEnGng-3ai5Rq2WRiKl5vJDKSv9RqGU2VkUlgoksviZpmieKLn8W-QCuwi2Xi5-QPo20vt19Dm2UZ0wgw2aU_rQTn0ic86uhZ9uew_nUabTmvfAuu_7z6P4lkj1TfdP-Xdmmv4X1nQ/s1814/Flower%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1814" data-original-width="1364" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSloJ_i2S_Y6SJchEID_P0_-m4wOYulIF_hOPSgcr9s39cwYuFJEnGng-3ai5Rq2WRiKl5vJDKSv9RqGU2VkUlgoksviZpmieKLn8W-QCuwi2Xi5-QPo20vt19Dm2UZ0wgw2aU_rQTn0ic86uhZ9uew_nUabTmvfAuu_7z6P4lkj1TfdP-Xdmmv4X1nQ/s320/Flower%202.jpg" width="241" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Charles and James Peale's portrait of Benjamin Flower, with a detail of the view of the enlisted soldier in the background, which now belongs to the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House and Museum.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Bfw-xGQX_vMoY0pY7CYgKg7X_KegC53e6ekw3fHVuL7582VrUGT2Uv8EEdW-QB9FSuRVu9gfgNcpIMwgl9N0gqouesOsOtZ5H2dFF2hPUWJqELfqBOqNA0B8cRMT7pAviTKN-kQZg4eH0IDvxpYyKObSfOzOOykYhGAKH4VSpEsUK32AMdRxM6E43w/s659/Flower%20Mini.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="458" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Bfw-xGQX_vMoY0pY7CYgKg7X_KegC53e6ekw3fHVuL7582VrUGT2Uv8EEdW-QB9FSuRVu9gfgNcpIMwgl9N0gqouesOsOtZ5H2dFF2hPUWJqELfqBOqNA0B8cRMT7pAviTKN-kQZg4eH0IDvxpYyKObSfOzOOykYhGAKH4VSpEsUK32AMdRxM6E43w/s320/Flower%20Mini.jpg" width="222" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A miniature portrait of Benjamin Flower which sold at auction at Freeman's (Philadelphia) in 2014).</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5hM3xMKtE5-NwxrlZk_ikKr3FrjLkfu2BdFJPsfxPfdVDxkA7aBBM1ZFTMwMjQRPjz9iWGaYYVmUlq-MdGvoKqo6YPHlQ-040kRIVmYf_g6zsqTSqmsxkGCLC6yZEXZbk584kxnZ_KmQ5ZfBGGzx4kDkaW2DCpW0eaHp3Xemyosz80x3qbr-SUhL9Mw/s582/PA%20Packet%201778.11.14.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="582" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5hM3xMKtE5-NwxrlZk_ikKr3FrjLkfu2BdFJPsfxPfdVDxkA7aBBM1ZFTMwMjQRPjz9iWGaYYVmUlq-MdGvoKqo6YPHlQ-040kRIVmYf_g6zsqTSqmsxkGCLC6yZEXZbk584kxnZ_KmQ5ZfBGGzx4kDkaW2DCpW0eaHp3Xemyosz80x3qbr-SUhL9Mw/s320/PA%20Packet%201778.11.14.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Pennsylvania Packet</i>, November 14, 1778.</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIgmQdaNqIe7uPolDbyGqFxtR4To3JFQHWVs82twvWDWcvQz1s_hokwAKuw3ZGCwLjVFExNo1EyfUY-yWPCKC0mIMI77exjiQLigyHCN-LChSEptcZC9SfypgjwkS4IsRtD_juhbH_3AVx1p6_YIwBO-YZ-QnqSliD6X04nNmTihynIpw_RjkInSSg4w/s512/PA%20Packet%201779.01.26.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="512" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIgmQdaNqIe7uPolDbyGqFxtR4To3JFQHWVs82twvWDWcvQz1s_hokwAKuw3ZGCwLjVFExNo1EyfUY-yWPCKC0mIMI77exjiQLigyHCN-LChSEptcZC9SfypgjwkS4IsRtD_juhbH_3AVx1p6_YIwBO-YZ-QnqSliD6X04nNmTihynIpw_RjkInSSg4w/s320/PA%20Packet%201779.01.26.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Pennsylvania Packet</i><span>, January 26, 1779.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtOnU7xVdu_LHpqZgbRemR2iVQHfjMzNW7PJeIeCGxE5nbnvNItdgFpZFDCldKLG4eMjtMGTsFqdj-NCYK8VBHDPBW06Jhmhz6v0a6YNPULN_fa9p6ICUv-UNTZuJB4R6o3-61H6MXQ2xypo1EWWzD25k01A0uiO6pdvDH2lQQW3iylfn3BMelpCTtAw/s504/PA%20Packet%201779.02.16.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="343" data-original-width="504" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtOnU7xVdu_LHpqZgbRemR2iVQHfjMzNW7PJeIeCGxE5nbnvNItdgFpZFDCldKLG4eMjtMGTsFqdj-NCYK8VBHDPBW06Jhmhz6v0a6YNPULN_fa9p6ICUv-UNTZuJB4R6o3-61H6MXQ2xypo1EWWzD25k01A0uiO6pdvDH2lQQW3iylfn3BMelpCTtAw/s320/PA%20Packet%201779.02.16.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Pennsylvania Packet</i><span>, February 16, 1779.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwU_OYnk6tAEf-TMOk9tgDyMTJbOUBckgoTL4lGlZDRv0ey-bMOlo9bu-T7U7838Lq11GJQhalluaMniG3t9WsPu7O7HyX5nQlfhXoWeoWaiBOZAleSAjGkkMIuy_6xnCoiDXoDH9qVHjxcxRB6yWy8t1PX74O9dL3FLVBRej7_X5AzBI6ErkqUdilBQ/s659/PA%20Packet%201779.07.20.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="472" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwU_OYnk6tAEf-TMOk9tgDyMTJbOUBckgoTL4lGlZDRv0ey-bMOlo9bu-T7U7838Lq11GJQhalluaMniG3t9WsPu7O7HyX5nQlfhXoWeoWaiBOZAleSAjGkkMIuy_6xnCoiDXoDH9qVHjxcxRB6yWy8t1PX74O9dL3FLVBRej7_X5AzBI6ErkqUdilBQ/s320/PA%20Packet%201779.07.20.jpg" width="229" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Pennsylvania Packet</i><span>, July 20, 1779.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsHQEcq6V7ozwnZf_5wWJZQm1jRRjKrXDleQLrNxXhOw6OtcNEcul7WVhVEY-EHqipo4DjDOzTXDrUS2e_O9yCS7J6VmSE6nzxRVRY2QT_X6MM4i3X1LHbBZ-ZHWMOvJ5oglYSNEPWI_35SXNCYQeCuQ9Up_umSQ8ZlhfQCZd93SE-a1lMF2bNOVHvYA/s569/PA%20Packet%201779.07.27.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="267" data-original-width="569" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsHQEcq6V7ozwnZf_5wWJZQm1jRRjKrXDleQLrNxXhOw6OtcNEcul7WVhVEY-EHqipo4DjDOzTXDrUS2e_O9yCS7J6VmSE6nzxRVRY2QT_X6MM4i3X1LHbBZ-ZHWMOvJ5oglYSNEPWI_35SXNCYQeCuQ9Up_umSQ8ZlhfQCZd93SE-a1lMF2bNOVHvYA/s320/PA%20Packet%201779.07.27.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Pennsylvania Packet</i><span>, July 27, 1779.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcE4iLy3Gni6umrm5UwNxrVhuyQApl47bDXqur-Tt-iB5JTkq3wU26hMdzy4KfWzuiD5BfB2CB5oh1UP30pA_9C9eyxXdUD6eWnGNN55aImzjzVoxQMrl4dNjOa5gBWasj9vFdV3ufI2X9V7zLwPC3FAN17L8xMEGcVx7WEDv2mINIQ8HTSgAaL1og2Q/s775/PA%20Packet%201779.10.12.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="609" data-original-width="775" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcE4iLy3Gni6umrm5UwNxrVhuyQApl47bDXqur-Tt-iB5JTkq3wU26hMdzy4KfWzuiD5BfB2CB5oh1UP30pA_9C9eyxXdUD6eWnGNN55aImzjzVoxQMrl4dNjOa5gBWasj9vFdV3ufI2X9V7zLwPC3FAN17L8xMEGcVx7WEDv2mINIQ8HTSgAaL1og2Q/s320/PA%20Packet%201779.10.12.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Pennsylvania Packet</i><span>, October 12, 1779.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOzFRfwBvuDNG01_SpnFjVemoH0cE93QYKnZ5jlNlwvnEJFiLbVaMgYVv9IL9P6rT_7Jv_H-BEDP-lfNrfj1Kum0Cx6BfVko5r8po-O_Yv-J2xoNa38s5k5nS8K3IMZOKLuDwiBMuYePODAvs991SmjGjHF6s8S2hRYLJfoeo2L8gmz7fN8HDA61d7bA/s484/PA%20Packet%201779.11.27.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="370" data-original-width="484" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOzFRfwBvuDNG01_SpnFjVemoH0cE93QYKnZ5jlNlwvnEJFiLbVaMgYVv9IL9P6rT_7Jv_H-BEDP-lfNrfj1Kum0Cx6BfVko5r8po-O_Yv-J2xoNa38s5k5nS8K3IMZOKLuDwiBMuYePODAvs991SmjGjHF6s8S2hRYLJfoeo2L8gmz7fN8HDA61d7bA/s320/PA%20Packet%201779.11.27.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Pennsylvania Packet</i><span>, November 27, 1779.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG-uIeo30awTsA07yV71GZTEsuLtdiHCaZuj7bBhtp-EEgJGe-3cWF9QYLOa1EGe3y0LDTWe4yRYD2gXnuHn1_ZKOiiz7Y_-Og7PhVU-ixVl3TxTZocFrKXgAZPBbHfvlLigaVPvqIV6ACJicU_huNI2o08EaZqdL1Ci_xXXQLcprjai_20whBQdbY7g/s752/PA%20Packet%201780.01.29.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="752" data-original-width="490" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG-uIeo30awTsA07yV71GZTEsuLtdiHCaZuj7bBhtp-EEgJGe-3cWF9QYLOa1EGe3y0LDTWe4yRYD2gXnuHn1_ZKOiiz7Y_-Og7PhVU-ixVl3TxTZocFrKXgAZPBbHfvlLigaVPvqIV6ACJicU_huNI2o08EaZqdL1Ci_xXXQLcprjai_20whBQdbY7g/s320/PA%20Packet%201780.01.29.jpg" width="209" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Pennsylvania Packet</i><span>, January 29, 1780.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVJl8Rk7sBdY9IQKDn0pq_5_7sbnqm2JGeDw1b7_r0g1TfvhwIRKiAskGOYqkUrUxkMcKFgZKn6gHlHAvt7NUgf0xaH7Z7r38gSzLdDpTyzFbTYZdqUVRhZNcOKj1NCQVTK_oHROnH0xDm3JXrirtEg3mJrVi2yK3OwvPOGr2JKklNpJXY-oPE6VDKsQ/s509/PA%20Packet%201780.03.28.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="439" data-original-width="509" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVJl8Rk7sBdY9IQKDn0pq_5_7sbnqm2JGeDw1b7_r0g1TfvhwIRKiAskGOYqkUrUxkMcKFgZKn6gHlHAvt7NUgf0xaH7Z7r38gSzLdDpTyzFbTYZdqUVRhZNcOKj1NCQVTK_oHROnH0xDm3JXrirtEg3mJrVi2yK3OwvPOGr2JKklNpJXY-oPE6VDKsQ/s320/PA%20Packet%201780.03.28.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Pennsylvania Packet</i><span>, March 28, 1780.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuj5W3DK6tegY78nZ4Z51_MNherzwTyh9qT3tyM6af_sB1Lp4Uq1tLsbGTo780luuTqq3CUkCkcCr4kSefKP1owS2RyEdOFNLWzGSJjmWiwCNi_O62-9QJaOFc70lgB2Ti56bR0IEuneguXgQFW2vKGWRpk-GpQWGGG-j8uw80s0WA1teO_xVzF4LIDw/s574/PA%20Packet%201780.06.13.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="323" data-original-width="574" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuj5W3DK6tegY78nZ4Z51_MNherzwTyh9qT3tyM6af_sB1Lp4Uq1tLsbGTo780luuTqq3CUkCkcCr4kSefKP1owS2RyEdOFNLWzGSJjmWiwCNi_O62-9QJaOFc70lgB2Ti56bR0IEuneguXgQFW2vKGWRpk-GpQWGGG-j8uw80s0WA1teO_xVzF4LIDw/s320/PA%20Packet%201780.06.13.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Pennsylvania Packet</i><span>, June 13, 1780.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6fiEJTrqkYEOZKvdiggQoPRGlOYUoPzlEGWJ3YJPRbxyKrG51av4-v069izpTzy9QGjaEzFSUg4rrm-PyNmeENQ4l0V6ILE_WOVxtYPCUkSLaz_7V_9ETpzGcK2lqJnFXleg0fX4IVQBZjj1keQXP75HVT3Q3nGGQdcMBD-zv3ELziJILXmVLAZ0lvg/s1881/Receipt%201780.06.29.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1881" height="122" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6fiEJTrqkYEOZKvdiggQoPRGlOYUoPzlEGWJ3YJPRbxyKrG51av4-v069izpTzy9QGjaEzFSUg4rrm-PyNmeENQ4l0V6ILE_WOVxtYPCUkSLaz_7V_9ETpzGcK2lqJnFXleg0fX4IVQBZjj1keQXP75HVT3Q3nGGQdcMBD-zv3ELziJILXmVLAZ0lvg/s320/Receipt%201780.06.29.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A receipt for hats for the Artificers, June 29, 1780.</span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTCad71a3xjKPas2L_1XRLCYpVnT9ZfqdtX6uUD_jWasF0U0M2jmMM5ovJhJngdkzM0opVZyzKnCY4f2EkUzLkCxt3zleuRC703QyxrCH-owTHE5mefTOM8u1ZjrOwI01hX74QeB0yzPic2IW1OucBq_6IvqyDMhmpe9MZBP51cg6LJPRCBS6yXVE0gA/s556/PA%20Packet%201780.09.30.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="556" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTCad71a3xjKPas2L_1XRLCYpVnT9ZfqdtX6uUD_jWasF0U0M2jmMM5ovJhJngdkzM0opVZyzKnCY4f2EkUzLkCxt3zleuRC703QyxrCH-owTHE5mefTOM8u1ZjrOwI01hX74QeB0yzPic2IW1OucBq_6IvqyDMhmpe9MZBP51cg6LJPRCBS6yXVE0gA/s320/PA%20Packet%201780.09.30.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Pennsylvania Packet</i><span>, September 30, 1780.</span></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhECfED175iYR6mekB1HqhtbkhTh2zcg0eQGefNG-Y1nbBcvsfp-3QI5Xsa7nmnS9dtCTL6ZAR9Ff16wdFItDpQaCHBdpu1jrAlBr32h3JLHpa0hqnmS_xP9M2jj4tKO4OgzGyzzPcfUcPsdK3835qeR0srp6Zo_GUjVru5FckVwIyPX-9HsA_7oB_ZBw/s487/PA%20Packet%201780.12.09.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="487" data-original-width="486" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhECfED175iYR6mekB1HqhtbkhTh2zcg0eQGefNG-Y1nbBcvsfp-3QI5Xsa7nmnS9dtCTL6ZAR9Ff16wdFItDpQaCHBdpu1jrAlBr32h3JLHpa0hqnmS_xP9M2jj4tKO4OgzGyzzPcfUcPsdK3835qeR0srp6Zo_GUjVru5FckVwIyPX-9HsA_7oB_ZBw/s320/PA%20Packet%201780.12.09.jpg" width="319" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The Pennsylvania Packet</i><span>, December 9, 1780.</span></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-3930387721942681702023-03-25T11:16:00.003-07:002023-03-25T18:47:14.764-07:00A Twenty-Year Anniversary<p>Time is a curious thing, especially when you spend part of
your life dressing like people from the past. It’s been over twenty years since
I started reenacting, but the most peculiar part about that is that I can so
clearly remember excitedly waiting for the summer of 2012 to write my <a href="http://ranawayfromthesubscriber.blogspot.com/2012/07/ten-year-anniversary.html">ten-year anniversary post</a>.
And it’s been eleven years since then??</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As I wrote in 2012, reenacting has influenced my life in
profound ways. My closest friends are reenactors (or at the very least they wear
costumes at work). I can directly trace the path I took to graduate school and
my current job at the Museum of the American Revolution back through a chain of
mentors and museum professionals that I met through reenacting. That path goes
all the way back to a newspaper article that appeared in my hometown paper in
2002 about a Civil War reenacting unit that was forming in town. I called a
phone number, starting going to meetings, and in June of that year my parents
let me go off with a bunch of people who spend weekends dressing like Civil War
soldiers. It all worked out ok.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Here's is just a sample of where reenacting has taken me since my last recap in
2012:<o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt0cWh5VILrMUucogIvKJsAxXRkOqwl1qgjqDht4urBj5aG4PPdhKR6Gm4kGw7Pw70Zv6omhSlxxls16ESpnC1QLlleYG1kNssPPt6YOPO9xmqOno_pwJxk_G5d-nJSUdKYr3lgBykEMez1NbnauLsZxeGmnswiIFseuthJ6W2Ej3_AoHbkQd054-mpw/s2272/2013%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2272" data-original-width="1704" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt0cWh5VILrMUucogIvKJsAxXRkOqwl1qgjqDht4urBj5aG4PPdhKR6Gm4kGw7Pw70Zv6omhSlxxls16ESpnC1QLlleYG1kNssPPt6YOPO9xmqOno_pwJxk_G5d-nJSUdKYr3lgBykEMez1NbnauLsZxeGmnswiIFseuthJ6W2Ej3_AoHbkQd054-mpw/s320/2013%201.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Second Lieutenant, Union Army, July 1863</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Here I am standing at the High Water Mark at Gettysburg on July 3, 2013, holding a federal officer's sword carried there on July 3, 1863.</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsunB2nv8ua48wKcl2XRCBbT_pbaUckcxV0ei4kjVe_c7aG9o6bHzD22jH6y49LY-9jIJhPe9NJ1xi22IFl_xCOGv1XQabQbnksRj-LvLenTubfUMVmXGEJKYgyZpcWLinnKaZLZL0sipLGCRf0amTb4VcQ1gm1xSS3rSPCTnu38BbE-Xt_uKiImwOlg/s1280/2013%202.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsunB2nv8ua48wKcl2XRCBbT_pbaUckcxV0ei4kjVe_c7aG9o6bHzD22jH6y49LY-9jIJhPe9NJ1xi22IFl_xCOGv1XQabQbnksRj-LvLenTubfUMVmXGEJKYgyZpcWLinnKaZLZL0sipLGCRf0amTb4VcQ1gm1xSS3rSPCTnu38BbE-Xt_uKiImwOlg/s320/2013%202.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Royal Navy Marine, 1812-1815</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A film shoot for Maryland Public Television, 2013.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGPAkJURYvw2ScMAxOJV2Bdjap3GMRKWkVf-g0-tsdpQ-nrw5c_AusJ2TdTnEycI-b6gwxGMO7XfjXuIpdNWs44QEAV6zbQq_S7X2EBPAspQKbOmJelrFjC8lR05r1HLhMYX0cKiaCUf33StXdC5aMc8VvzYkcEz2CmsyPFVGGUABj393qI4LsrUaYSQ/s2816/2014%20VF%202.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1584" data-original-width="2816" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGPAkJURYvw2ScMAxOJV2Bdjap3GMRKWkVf-g0-tsdpQ-nrw5c_AusJ2TdTnEycI-b6gwxGMO7XfjXuIpdNWs44QEAV6zbQq_S7X2EBPAspQKbOmJelrFjC8lR05r1HLhMYX0cKiaCUf33StXdC5aMc8VvzYkcEz2CmsyPFVGGUABj393qI4LsrUaYSQ/s320/2014%20VF%202.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihbMkY-un6C6JNEd0JEPkrTk21bfLNEAeJ1wurg0oduuGB2A3z1IrOeE40LRbAjAVwUjcgNekzwv6lDd6DyoZ8ZQs2Wa8D7Eelf-XYfiT1PlNW50JOcLo5dmledvzRs0_m5axvP95tg3YOm-Y0iFm5gxef849zUvOtGB7icfPurJge_LVzXKqZiqYq3Q/s960/2104%20VF2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="960" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihbMkY-un6C6JNEd0JEPkrTk21bfLNEAeJ1wurg0oduuGB2A3z1IrOeE40LRbAjAVwUjcgNekzwv6lDd6DyoZ8ZQs2Wa8D7Eelf-XYfiT1PlNW50JOcLo5dmledvzRs0_m5axvP95tg3YOm-Y0iFm5gxef849zUvOtGB7icfPurJge_LVzXKqZiqYq3Q/s320/2104%20VF2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">4th Connecticut Private Soldier, Spring 1778, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A National Park Service living history event in 2014.</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI9VTCnw_CfLxXUi_7ONZHVNe_IJpgaNRnMIueEl1GBse1H564Ya_YcSkMRj44N86IGiDTkxUcpoKsFOXN0ceGUhVL3a0ykx0y-C0CSxVCpDpktOgDUn4K7VkJ6GV7GKPn29TTV3uZE4SeDbsirLp2RPRQaAxnT1CpKSh9IG9nzv2cyZb9cA9s-AxwIA/s2048/2014%20caulks%20field.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI9VTCnw_CfLxXUi_7ONZHVNe_IJpgaNRnMIueEl1GBse1H564Ya_YcSkMRj44N86IGiDTkxUcpoKsFOXN0ceGUhVL3a0ykx0y-C0CSxVCpDpktOgDUn4K7VkJ6GV7GKPn29TTV3uZE4SeDbsirLp2RPRQaAxnT1CpKSh9IG9nzv2cyZb9cA9s-AxwIA/s320/2014%20caulks%20field.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Royal Navy Able Seaman, Caulk's Field, Maryland, 1814</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A blurry photo taken in the evening as we stood with our boarding pikes, but a crystal-clear memory from 2014.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi87DHoznsHXa7vP4yUlXspQOOm9TNKrK5VxBpgA_lkuqt4UkW8_LssvL6VMknTXyiXJOdD5sdOeSv1GiiI9-1KjGhySuI-27WFfzZ6p028SyPd1j2_lpL_j4gXBsH_Fftno5_k8IMMMH_dxxZa0C7v23KNaADNNJaLLs8GIyaEg_6mRQgwXUCNLjK5pQ/s1225/AP2015.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1225" data-original-width="980" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi87DHoznsHXa7vP4yUlXspQOOm9TNKrK5VxBpgA_lkuqt4UkW8_LssvL6VMknTXyiXJOdD5sdOeSv1GiiI9-1KjGhySuI-27WFfzZ6p028SyPd1j2_lpL_j4gXBsH_Fftno5_k8IMMMH_dxxZa0C7v23KNaADNNJaLLs8GIyaEg_6mRQgwXUCNLjK5pQ/s320/AP2015.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3nObSsY9e6HsFPmsB311gH-cnA3KoF1g2OczhQ8I5BRD76yeOgcD4qCJ75oQDixhz9ePZisC7kudkRpr4YtHQIoqYNs33rXujq8XP7_JjpDS6u_LfEnhKHORBAqQ66J7NZuzoq7zb4G-aHZm40qTlLRij6SsKQ5KJb4g-kK96lwWPKN-Q7h2XpRDMgw/s604/Appot%202015.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="579" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3nObSsY9e6HsFPmsB311gH-cnA3KoF1g2OczhQ8I5BRD76yeOgcD4qCJ75oQDixhz9ePZisC7kudkRpr4YtHQIoqYNs33rXujq8XP7_JjpDS6u_LfEnhKHORBAqQ66J7NZuzoq7zb4G-aHZm40qTlLRij6SsKQ5KJb4g-kK96lwWPKN-Q7h2XpRDMgw/s320/Appot%202015.jpg" width="307" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Second Lieutenant, Union Army, April 1865</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">T<span style="font-size: x-small;">he 150th anniversary living history event commemorating the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSTJ0X9nnHB-oTnp7YIGWs4o1hoiH_BauRkHFqf48jxKEI3DVJuQtqQrKD_qvJacYYrTFb1BqECv4bm7qlDU9wtAs-GibK--w5buWyZZ63v_fSRTzHuCgrEJMREgfVmrvsNMl8CN9K2ge3QwGG-PszHPcAZkd9Ouw990J3b4H4Q5aaaroprFdN9k8ojQ/s2047/2016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2047" data-original-width="1568" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSTJ0X9nnHB-oTnp7YIGWs4o1hoiH_BauRkHFqf48jxKEI3DVJuQtqQrKD_qvJacYYrTFb1BqECv4bm7qlDU9wtAs-GibK--w5buWyZZ63v_fSRTzHuCgrEJMREgfVmrvsNMl8CN9K2ge3QwGG-PszHPcAZkd9Ouw990J3b4H4Q5aaaroprFdN9k8ojQ/s320/2016.jpg" width="245" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Second Lieutenant, Union Army, Gettysburg, 1863</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A tintype photograph.</span></div></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0dYcFXs5IulzMI4g5CH9UdngXbmR-G1UNw54SmOuJlabxeN5se0mBlnBFnpFFdkLj-GVwLuuq6vM45qsYomWcAYsLAdqiPCk_8Krgw4FvGbqpQUVZuNq9_cmAHzMD3TX_YrHwkh7bIZwCWI-LrrNxhfumHiQcYWJqQ2WRXh5pW4SjwuGV9n4MAOgo5Q/s3264/2017.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0dYcFXs5IulzMI4g5CH9UdngXbmR-G1UNw54SmOuJlabxeN5se0mBlnBFnpFFdkLj-GVwLuuq6vM45qsYomWcAYsLAdqiPCk_8Krgw4FvGbqpQUVZuNq9_cmAHzMD3TX_YrHwkh7bIZwCWI-LrrNxhfumHiQcYWJqQ2WRXh5pW4SjwuGV9n4MAOgo5Q/s320/2017.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Philadelphia Associator, January 1777</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A January 2017 event that I <a href="http://ranawayfromthesubscriber.blogspot.com/2017/02/from-trenton-to-princeton.html">wrote about here</a>.</span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinqi7YjOHRlfUEMHDcBDBQP9E-cbdQrhF2mcFmk6J3V9BwHXXmhtoPArgtq3BQDD_JirSAtPDPZah7-smyXz5x5PVdpVuGWuVj_A5VKoPkUbo3fWKh2JhsPxTBGgu7-lm37JaLOn-4rCm6e_cyyjoADJibipUvmMCZnxkbPxYk9S4i28srr5aSB9voMA/s2048/080718.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1279" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinqi7YjOHRlfUEMHDcBDBQP9E-cbdQrhF2mcFmk6J3V9BwHXXmhtoPArgtq3BQDD_JirSAtPDPZah7-smyXz5x5PVdpVuGWuVj_A5VKoPkUbo3fWKh2JhsPxTBGgu7-lm37JaLOn-4rCm6e_cyyjoADJibipUvmMCZnxkbPxYk9S4i28srr5aSB9voMA/s320/080718.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Alexander Hamilton, December 1778</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">From a film shoot for <i><a href="https://www.amrevmuseum.org/exhibits/hamilton-was-here-rising-up-in-revolutionary-philadelphia">Hamilton Was Here: Rising Up in Revolutionary Philadelphia</a></i>, a special exhibition at the Museum of the American Revolution.</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4fXZs_dWi_1-XeGYYJ2q8Ij2qeET78n3mWUCE8nPTfposeGd_k_KO0GWbuaibUxdsakZWrCK0YAeff9w1prJX65AeqYkVeHPrVkhRtN5tEnmqjNS-FzQBYd4enUhIMauvPoPK3fTZ2nKjNy2YKNBAMQnJ8CDseSaZSxqPKsr12nWiIRUKL3QQ-lR0rw/s960/Burkittsville%202018.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4fXZs_dWi_1-XeGYYJ2q8Ij2qeET78n3mWUCE8nPTfposeGd_k_KO0GWbuaibUxdsakZWrCK0YAeff9w1prJX65AeqYkVeHPrVkhRtN5tEnmqjNS-FzQBYd4enUhIMauvPoPK3fTZ2nKjNy2YKNBAMQnJ8CDseSaZSxqPKsr12nWiIRUKL3QQ-lR0rw/s320/Burkittsville%202018.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Second Lieutenant, Union Army, Crampton's Gap, Maryland, 1862</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">From an event in 2018.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqFRSIA5aLA3HPp-shFeC-fdphUtVX9j50WRTmB0m7ZmNcX4Mg-kz2-uciVyZ0tJaAtaT778R80lKOshqDvoddP1mSst2uXXKH3y2n5bhj_kQpKAGyCHH3IJaCeN9ywcVnGvw8_gWcdrlghR-yWXXSemOtHANARvsxY9WfTG-Jfhd-7FuuQ7tK_fMNBw/s3088/08.23.19.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3088" data-original-width="2320" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqFRSIA5aLA3HPp-shFeC-fdphUtVX9j50WRTmB0m7ZmNcX4Mg-kz2-uciVyZ0tJaAtaT778R80lKOshqDvoddP1mSst2uXXKH3y2n5bhj_kQpKAGyCHH3IJaCeN9ywcVnGvw8_gWcdrlghR-yWXXSemOtHANARvsxY9WfTG-Jfhd-7FuuQ7tK_fMNBw/s320/08.23.19.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Tyler, New York City, Summer 2019</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">2019 was a busy year at the Museum, and it included both a summer-long collaboration with the New-York Historical Society that I regularly commuted up for AND me getting hit in the face by a door at the Museum, as you can see here.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: small; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTKgGtuOouCN484-nadvk1q1yCB3z__-W5GG3K0u3G510Z3n9t4F9Z-7ubIQPkccxeW1tjiNXw3lkblv3X2_a-fnbn6R9rXua9UN0NUMxJ6v4fO9vR40PVcxmV5ARHj-zQzyPUO5tk9NjNTxHzW8DPggQ6AsYclWogb8orcsnAlbj4PKY5ZkK0fmjYMg/s4032/2020.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTKgGtuOouCN484-nadvk1q1yCB3z__-W5GG3K0u3G510Z3n9t4F9Z-7ubIQPkccxeW1tjiNXw3lkblv3X2_a-fnbn6R9rXua9UN0NUMxJ6v4fO9vR40PVcxmV5ARHj-zQzyPUO5tk9NjNTxHzW8DPggQ6AsYclWogb8orcsnAlbj4PKY5ZkK0fmjYMg/s320/2020.HEIC" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Tyler, Riverton, New Jersey, Summer 2020</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: small; text-align: center;">Like most people, I spent a good chunk of 2020 online. I still got to dress up occasionally.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: small; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2O9d8cjYrI_PeHc8jl4xoysvIrQkejJ6cD8w2gkzv_ltrxXxbTANGXwOGruU4P7VMLIsOyA_h8tdT2QauVOiySutV06t36PVTQjUwNueiPrRHCgBedZWVuy6dMGD_Y7bRNMx2yOl6FxgI2e3zVtKev3AMCftct1leUe1GIpW6to_54UagMAdGHBB-YQ/s434/Sultana.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="290" data-original-width="434" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2O9d8cjYrI_PeHc8jl4xoysvIrQkejJ6cD8w2gkzv_ltrxXxbTANGXwOGruU4P7VMLIsOyA_h8tdT2QauVOiySutV06t36PVTQjUwNueiPrRHCgBedZWVuy6dMGD_Y7bRNMx2yOl6FxgI2e3zVtKev3AMCftct1leUe1GIpW6to_54UagMAdGHBB-YQ/s320/Sultana.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">British-American Sailor, Chesapeake Bay, 1776</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Part of a film shoot aboard the Schooner <i>Sultana</i> for our <a href="https://www.amrevmuseum.org/true-colours-and-washington-standard-projects">True Colours Flag Project</a>.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: small; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZYcnDAM4lOrP3VmwT6wj_H20JdxeWUWsMrwK6WwEgd7bWJ3O3de0PVKlYShZCEgCnyFjmzDQZZX8Zm0BBLUzA56UJ5aIG3GPa9S-ji3aHvqNwR775rsevxWJLXv0XosxDiyeaJ6gE-hqM-f3eQWA0XW-pZ1tHpIi5ie_ihULMkWLVK03IDpHYpPlIVQ/s640/2021.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZYcnDAM4lOrP3VmwT6wj_H20JdxeWUWsMrwK6WwEgd7bWJ3O3de0PVKlYShZCEgCnyFjmzDQZZX8Zm0BBLUzA56UJ5aIG3GPa9S-ji3aHvqNwR775rsevxWJLXv0XosxDiyeaJ6gE-hqM-f3eQWA0XW-pZ1tHpIi5ie_ihULMkWLVK03IDpHYpPlIVQ/s320/2021.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Second Lieutenant, Union Army, Circa 1863</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: small; text-align: center;">A lower-res image of as long as my hair ever got, in 2021.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: small; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGHXmXD00Z6sT4JQPL_3PtT6K7-Tmic_58t4wrsltZaCmP9W6fMXzSUXBJjtxhvIOGCBKMhZVzGx7xwualM3n2M9r16cLx2as1KnUz-87cYaeDgTZLPRBnnuwRGe_2WcvVssgFzxwwpHfi1e5D3blSbHJWTAxmT5s35uItgB2lBvcMbIFV-JX0xnsh_A/s4496/2021%20(2).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4496" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGHXmXD00Z6sT4JQPL_3PtT6K7-Tmic_58t4wrsltZaCmP9W6fMXzSUXBJjtxhvIOGCBKMhZVzGx7xwualM3n2M9r16cLx2as1KnUz-87cYaeDgTZLPRBnnuwRGe_2WcvVssgFzxwwpHfi1e5D3blSbHJWTAxmT5s35uItgB2lBvcMbIFV-JX0xnsh_A/s320/2021%20(2).jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Commander-in-Chief's Guardsman, Philadelphia, 1778</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: small; text-align: center;">Part of our 2021 photoshoot for the <a href="https://tent.amrevmuseum.org/">Virtual Tour of Washington's War Tent</a>.</div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAM0GwBbb8-p-5XxkeT9GrOCfPgL8pv6DJS8c8yL7CdAKlCtVmxEPpLgK_yGmgaGhjUIkLnRW8in4_AWhWGK7TZjaj6aGmUP_nLQUKQxPqz5WA6BpL-4dzJLkdPl1dcj5RyKErRfMssLI_jXQ5lv-zdtTdvwyN5tsKHCQwpHSl6MMXDKyKyrA9hnwxZA/s4032/Photo%20Jun%2009,%205%2021%2022%20PM.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAM0GwBbb8-p-5XxkeT9GrOCfPgL8pv6DJS8c8yL7CdAKlCtVmxEPpLgK_yGmgaGhjUIkLnRW8in4_AWhWGK7TZjaj6aGmUP_nLQUKQxPqz5WA6BpL-4dzJLkdPl1dcj5RyKErRfMssLI_jXQ5lv-zdtTdvwyN5tsKHCQwpHSl6MMXDKyKyrA9hnwxZA/s320/Photo%20Jun%2009,%205%2021%2022%20PM.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Grenadier, 5th Regiment of Foot, British Army, Philadelphia, 1777-1778</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">My best impression of an 18th-century satire, 2022.</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmWkXSr65iQpP7hotVGJ6o5h2goj3m2c_yfsEWKqk7ENtA2olnzOY0WnVY_0M06lmuO2NUg_FqObyM_6za7aHqD0ijsQIE0cXW6x5vKSDQwuSUqEhaELjkSpsgNKB5D-lbEvUIfO4pYFl4ajhHODmSIUTheqt19uwzJT9qhMVN-xxb1ZyJAh00uagGtg/s4032/Photo%20Nov%2030%202022,%205%2047%2043%20PM.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmWkXSr65iQpP7hotVGJ6o5h2goj3m2c_yfsEWKqk7ENtA2olnzOY0WnVY_0M06lmuO2NUg_FqObyM_6za7aHqD0ijsQIE0cXW6x5vKSDQwuSUqEhaELjkSpsgNKB5D-lbEvUIfO4pYFl4ajhHODmSIUTheqt19uwzJT9qhMVN-xxb1ZyJAh00uagGtg/s320/Photo%20Nov%2030%202022,%205%2047%2043%20PM.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Philadelphia Scotsman, circa 1778</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A made a lot of kilts (though not quite all the ones you see here) in 2022!</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW2lJsPiqlfknhn_O9FagTWwQeivNwdtAvYclYAj3akRz3KpB2mn8GSNiz3UswNQYBTiJeWeduqbalr3a2ykELh-2HVLboW5kRuDZQ92Bv39o5shtndNYmDpYJn87gTfvNeJgZuPzQ0fAkfdasGgYPFYuWD8BZbjgSM-rPAooswibqHgbtpb7eDB6C6Q/s800/Denny%20Charles,%20Bruce%20Zigler,%20John%20Manore,%20Tyler%20Putman,%20Gettysburg%20Rememnbrance%20Day%202022.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW2lJsPiqlfknhn_O9FagTWwQeivNwdtAvYclYAj3akRz3KpB2mn8GSNiz3UswNQYBTiJeWeduqbalr3a2ykELh-2HVLboW5kRuDZQ92Bv39o5shtndNYmDpYJn87gTfvNeJgZuPzQ0fAkfdasGgYPFYuWD8BZbjgSM-rPAooswibqHgbtpb7eDB6C6Q/s320/Denny%20Charles,%20Bruce%20Zigler,%20John%20Manore,%20Tyler%20Putman,%20Gettysburg%20Rememnbrance%20Day%202022.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Second Lieutenant, Union Army, Gettsyburg, 1863</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">With some old friends at Remembrance Day in 2022.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwHuXsRqS2Pb6iPExiDYdQ1AfvMvyPzVTuLrMUQ4n67vdeHx5fB4-VlvSX5ZEjiArvHE5g6H_Qd1RMRwTGt2X8WSqgsMdVSHEeaxuSijsyCTalK9BRw6kDhjK18PvgZBJAh3zQGpHCJ4D3YbBaHTwrJeh_IOuqfvf3QlPjP5Fta8YiYWmdjswSPE1Ikw/s2048/IMG_8195.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwHuXsRqS2Pb6iPExiDYdQ1AfvMvyPzVTuLrMUQ4n67vdeHx5fB4-VlvSX5ZEjiArvHE5g6H_Qd1RMRwTGt2X8WSqgsMdVSHEeaxuSijsyCTalK9BRw6kDhjK18PvgZBJAh3zQGpHCJ4D3YbBaHTwrJeh_IOuqfvf3QlPjP5Fta8YiYWmdjswSPE1Ikw/s320/IMG_8195.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">South Jersey Citizen, 1778</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Just last weekend at the Hancock House!</span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-86198223469586829622022-10-03T15:24:00.006-07:002022-10-03T15:52:03.846-07:00There Can Only Be One? Revolutionary War Highland Soldiers, Part One: Visual Sources<p>With the help of some real experts, I've been beginning to research and make components for a 1770s British Army Highland Regiment impression. In the context of the Revolutionary War in the American theater, Highland regiments included the 42nd/Royal Highland/Black Watch, 71st/Fraser's, 74th/Argyle, 76th/MacDonald's, and the 84th/Royal Highland Emigrants, Regiments of Foot. </p><p>I'll have more to say about kilts, diced hose, sporrans, and bonnets later, but for now I'm just posting all the pertinent period images I've been able to find that are informing this project, for ease of reference by me and anyone else who might follow along. A key note: the images below are just of Highland soldiers and officers in the British Army in the late 18th century, and just ones that are full-length portraits, so I've left out some famous paintings of kilted (non-Army) Highlanders, images from before about 1750 and after about 1790, bust-length portraits of officers, and so on. But let me know if I've missed anyone!</p><p><br /></p><p><b>1751-1760:</b> "Grenadiers, 40th Regiment of Foot, and Privates, 41st Invalids Regiment and 42nd Highland Regiment, 1751," by David Morier. This is a single figure in a large series dating to the 1750s in the <a href="https://www.rct.uk/collection/405589/grenadiers-40th-regiment-of-foot-and-privates-41st-invalids-regiment-and-42nd">Royal Collection Trust</a>.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUc9jA2jlVyv-WDymu8TJ4nULhZFN09Ukp0TLmkxERDa7nSwXPFTjsiCJg6CkxaJmDHPc4uLoT-aTxbAfdF7cEPsiW9E53wrKax4F7I-RXLeQ3ht2lceqell88DwxUJZ4kG7e8AVycZuvYoe_-7vCQb2BQRsDwoav09G0em5CfjPU0DqRYqYhX4z43NQ/s767/morier.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="767" data-original-width="313" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUc9jA2jlVyv-WDymu8TJ4nULhZFN09Ukp0TLmkxERDa7nSwXPFTjsiCJg6CkxaJmDHPc4uLoT-aTxbAfdF7cEPsiW9E53wrKax4F7I-RXLeQ3ht2lceqell88DwxUJZ4kG7e8AVycZuvYoe_-7vCQb2BQRsDwoav09G0em5CfjPU0DqRYqYhX4z43NQ/w164-h400/morier.jpg" width="164" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p><b>1750s-60s: </b>A portrait that has circulated online as "The Pinch of Snuff" attributed to William Delacour. I've been unable to find its original source or further history, though some suggest it shows an officer in the Seven Years' War version of the 78th/Fraser's.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj75lIYipFCTYgGTucArgd5JKCotnfj4mRFpY4UowS53gcvOhEJnxezMmgFB3aHjDjjc7z8JndNfhULB0ore4wjDZSGBPJkV4I9yjag6-YKLsfWFDZxO4GJOErMpEbuxrMiWR95F4iOUf3y7l17D3JRRAbmvh3T1GtpbUrulRPEhxXZhbxYfhfl6WHZDg/s799/1750s.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="799" data-original-width="671" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj75lIYipFCTYgGTucArgd5JKCotnfj4mRFpY4UowS53gcvOhEJnxezMmgFB3aHjDjjc7z8JndNfhULB0ore4wjDZSGBPJkV4I9yjag6-YKLsfWFDZxO4GJOErMpEbuxrMiWR95F4iOUf3y7l17D3JRRAbmvh3T1GtpbUrulRPEhxXZhbxYfhfl6WHZDg/w336-h400/1750s.jpg" width="336" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><b>1759-1763: </b>A portrait of William Gordon, Sutherland Regiment of Fencible Men, by Allan Ramsay, shared online by Peter MacDonald.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyM_1lEMrNKlo7r_T8HsrAljmEIJWSbnKsztatRzN5KVCcVntnCm36MEXe6NlXiq9n-G4pH-F4FT5HBF74rBNcrKLvOPbqR8ircf7i4_kBdZ8_4kIoeuFeKjIwZN7F6aBcmsLrq2Pb1DBp18HfbZrTBdvxRAtWS9iIFTOcq_LtFpEEqGREu1pColN6bQ/s953/Gordon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="953" data-original-width="595" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyM_1lEMrNKlo7r_T8HsrAljmEIJWSbnKsztatRzN5KVCcVntnCm36MEXe6NlXiq9n-G4pH-F4FT5HBF74rBNcrKLvOPbqR8ircf7i4_kBdZ8_4kIoeuFeKjIwZN7F6aBcmsLrq2Pb1DBp18HfbZrTBdvxRAtWS9iIFTOcq_LtFpEEqGREu1pColN6bQ/w250-h400/Gordon.jpg" width="250" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><b>1758? 1763?:</b> This portrait is difficult to trace but is <a href="https://www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armyunits/britishinfantry/42ndblackwatchjohncampbell.htm">supposedly</a> of John Campbell, 42nd Foot, killed at Ticonderoga in 1758.<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMq1N5ZuAXE48yPShlfhR8TGpputJskxYntkVG9Ha8FLq0xqzLDKIB7X30PKKjjh5QcQzsFuBQCvjT47Pddk9Iv-icVUqSIqBMhFsUq0CbOOxatwEKE4TudfU692RHvZUbTmjIgdlrXU9OaQ_h64rFf7aJ963hCStAlWVy1ttmylSJ9_fNntu0FCJr6A/s814/campbell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="814" data-original-width="475" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMq1N5ZuAXE48yPShlfhR8TGpputJskxYntkVG9Ha8FLq0xqzLDKIB7X30PKKjjh5QcQzsFuBQCvjT47Pddk9Iv-icVUqSIqBMhFsUq0CbOOxatwEKE4TudfU692RHvZUbTmjIgdlrXU9OaQ_h64rFf7aJ963hCStAlWVy1ttmylSJ9_fNntu0FCJr6A/w234-h400/campbell.jpg" width="234" /></a></div><div><div><br /></div><div><p><b>1768/71:</b> This is one of a series of unsigned depictions of British soldiers. The two known copies are dates 1768 and <a href="https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6210586">1771</a>.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilAz-f_SW00Btkjw1UxGFIojiXov-UTd8ZDvJZFLYViNEwO91tBYvwmNdeKG4Wm1WuBL4A4Fjs5J31wuBz6Lva1cm8U0jkRcIlqvtcDvFyWdcfwHPCLU5T_AUmMQ8U13wOpWZSnlpohkDRnuZOZ_IhA0EfXqBPQAzsaG0va38muYT33f4YipJZ6QSWCg/s1050/highlander.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1050" data-original-width="856" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilAz-f_SW00Btkjw1UxGFIojiXov-UTd8ZDvJZFLYViNEwO91tBYvwmNdeKG4Wm1WuBL4A4Fjs5J31wuBz6Lva1cm8U0jkRcIlqvtcDvFyWdcfwHPCLU5T_AUmMQ8U13wOpWZSnlpohkDRnuZOZ_IhA0EfXqBPQAzsaG0va38muYT33f4YipJZ6QSWCg/w326-h400/highlander.jpg" width="326" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p><b>1770s: </b>A portrait supposedly of an officer of the light company of the 73rd Foot (which did not serve in America during the war), <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:73rdFootOfficer.jpg">without further provenance</a>.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUeshFd06FZlb216n2c9Nq_L9c1iNR4EPWLf0khFHYlTpnbngx8OIp56aW_kJy1CBr0Uq9kMNVNCZgN6zURWtGyERcQWBtv-URoB4BZJGSm6o7sDqyoiPdH4WfkXEHLaAIoF_9JdAKQU7BK2bHNIavrNUPWctpnaZLrWr_0X28R_-mtIWgihY4PuOwkA/s1981/73rd.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1981" data-original-width="1510" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUeshFd06FZlb216n2c9Nq_L9c1iNR4EPWLf0khFHYlTpnbngx8OIp56aW_kJy1CBr0Uq9kMNVNCZgN6zURWtGyERcQWBtv-URoB4BZJGSm6o7sDqyoiPdH4WfkXEHLaAIoF_9JdAKQU7BK2bHNIavrNUPWctpnaZLrWr_0X28R_-mtIWgihY4PuOwkA/w305-h400/73rd.jpg" width="305" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p><b>1778: </b>This later copy is based on the series prepared during the war by Hessian Captain Friedrich von Germann, from the <a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/a521c7e0-2875-013a-3288-0242ac110002">New York Public Library</a>.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH3wcPvBExiU87WzNUCimfJhxmJS-vfzkomhceOF8Pnz4JdT4oML3wzQyDuK40QVQ6exSi2UDNxSoHUD8K7IGP665x3Hpvlw583Nt6s2oZK10bnER_4as1SqStjtNAC7lQJFqqjqVlScUOzyDUIQK-DjxRmO43A0YsWHJtt0qbr0TXs1BOEZAS7LUGLQ/s4119/highlander2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4119" data-original-width="2598" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH3wcPvBExiU87WzNUCimfJhxmJS-vfzkomhceOF8Pnz4JdT4oML3wzQyDuK40QVQ6exSi2UDNxSoHUD8K7IGP665x3Hpvlw583Nt6s2oZK10bnER_4as1SqStjtNAC7lQJFqqjqVlScUOzyDUIQK-DjxRmO43A0YsWHJtt0qbr0TXs1BOEZAS7LUGLQ/w253-h400/highlander2.jpg" width="253" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p><b>1778-1783:</b> Until 1945, an exceptionally rare uniform associated with the Northern (Gordon) Fencibles existed in the Zeughaus Museum, Berlin. This image and diagram below were shared online by <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/448882287856003298/">Peter MacDonald</a>.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUnEaveAsfHfuvEBusR2Xff9jWmNYk_uU1WHx0vcq5jQtWPhnS8D108_XPUrQ_4a9WuYoGkohAEQKhJKcHU8J5uj_LlWH7MqPKlZc-nm7wAEvRidxBIoBehrZ339cQStmSjst16tj-tlZQEIPOowzNrdFSow0qkCc87Hc12V3aVQCqe80k7EmsEjomzw/s758/Gordon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="758" data-original-width="474" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUnEaveAsfHfuvEBusR2Xff9jWmNYk_uU1WHx0vcq5jQtWPhnS8D108_XPUrQ_4a9WuYoGkohAEQKhJKcHU8J5uj_LlWH7MqPKlZc-nm7wAEvRidxBIoBehrZ339cQStmSjst16tj-tlZQEIPOowzNrdFSow0qkCc87Hc12V3aVQCqe80k7EmsEjomzw/w250-h400/Gordon.jpg" width="250" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><b>1770s/1780s: </b>This uncited but period portrait of a 74th Regiment grenadier officer has been shared online by Al Saguto.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK44Yzw2rTklN1gfKDEk1T2AQCKXACTOzBwovTjUlUBjm79oQSlewtvvEUQ5WeIenQcjASDOgbVL8rPgCWdlv8NYRcZKcgdOki7RhrpfQRFogWygLIFDbZ6LvTqiD3HsV2ZSchKsh-Sv2C57L_z0MMemUwZx5Jmq_CZQhtPBecC-LSLVFpf74tjeA5Jg/s642/299720179_10227620574196602_5034968367750690871_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="642" data-original-width="607" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK44Yzw2rTklN1gfKDEk1T2AQCKXACTOzBwovTjUlUBjm79oQSlewtvvEUQ5WeIenQcjASDOgbVL8rPgCWdlv8NYRcZKcgdOki7RhrpfQRFogWygLIFDbZ6LvTqiD3HsV2ZSchKsh-Sv2C57L_z0MMemUwZx5Jmq_CZQhtPBecC-LSLVFpf74tjeA5Jg/s320/299720179_10227620574196602_5034968367750690871_n.jpg" width="303" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p><b>1780:</b> "Portrait of Hugh Montgomerie, Later Twelfth Earl of Eglinton," by John Singleton Copley. This first version is in the <a href="https://collections.lacma.org/node/236420">Los Angeles County Museum of Art</a> and the second in <a href="https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/2364">National Galleries Scotland</a>. Montgomerie raised a fencible regiment in Scotland but did not serve in America, despite this painting.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnZDPsXf3jY2ynyylq75NiPCjmzYgLY88T-UsdmiEh8QSvTEKM7IW8rR0XKBHhwyKIjCH2ifJ65UD5IncKXpCg89nLIp8vMcdp5DbyzSzDlVH7LxbHziycyuIAVTgQKX29lx0hWeLc6FrdvxA1x7fJYjAZ3FOKDALcRI_Z8y8ngRU4aSQdziOhwKIl7w/s7675/ma-428688.tiff" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="7675" data-original-width="4894" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnZDPsXf3jY2ynyylq75NiPCjmzYgLY88T-UsdmiEh8QSvTEKM7IW8rR0XKBHhwyKIjCH2ifJ65UD5IncKXpCg89nLIp8vMcdp5DbyzSzDlVH7LxbHziycyuIAVTgQKX29lx0hWeLc6FrdvxA1x7fJYjAZ3FOKDALcRI_Z8y8ngRU4aSQdziOhwKIl7w/w255-h400/ma-428688.tiff" width="255" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEG1PJ1hZ_acBNO0YYLHrG1IWH7m0igROUtlsEZOyBZWc8B6zAwZheUexg7-Eyls85gC4FqjVqDgzF-mJflkpVoaF9eCy6awM3oFvvS6VIMZwHfEv4MNrP-gs7iqSf2DinFbm4sW-POe15UKTecXkyhflzt3-X3cgn1qqDwYt3utTRMYzWPnjEfB3yXw/s1005/8264.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1005" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEG1PJ1hZ_acBNO0YYLHrG1IWH7m0igROUtlsEZOyBZWc8B6zAwZheUexg7-Eyls85gC4FqjVqDgzF-mJflkpVoaF9eCy6awM3oFvvS6VIMZwHfEv4MNrP-gs7iqSf2DinFbm4sW-POe15UKTecXkyhflzt3-X3cgn1qqDwYt3utTRMYzWPnjEfB3yXw/w239-h400/8264.jpg" width="239" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p><b>Post-1786: </b>This watercolor is from some time shortly after 1786 (based on the marker stone and the style), but I've been unable for find further provenance. Shared by R. Scott Stephenson.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqVuik4GEkqmFXiYrofvLUMqlGKymvVifLST330ivIESTj1ZopXf9yj_DDW8HGpqMTzW-kU81qI3Fm9b3Ml05nBEY3Bsv8tVBDiqJbJSmX5tcSncWWfBNcg46sRNy_pAT7zotHtxQU4vZ-SD6IejN4re63gI4-PJM-hs27b6U_CdLzvSLkUFg2TOqysg/s963/686151170.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="767" data-original-width="963" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqVuik4GEkqmFXiYrofvLUMqlGKymvVifLST330ivIESTj1ZopXf9yj_DDW8HGpqMTzW-kU81qI3Fm9b3Ml05nBEY3Bsv8tVBDiqJbJSmX5tcSncWWfBNcg46sRNy_pAT7zotHtxQU4vZ-SD6IejN4re63gI4-PJM-hs27b6U_CdLzvSLkUFg2TOqysg/w400-h319/686151170.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-52547725218468371802022-09-11T12:24:00.005-07:002022-09-11T12:32:01.839-07:00The Things They Carried, 1762<p> Longtime readers of this blog will know that in the everyday material culture of military experiences, including things like <a href="https://ranawayfromthesubscriber.blogspot.com/2013/09/what-did-union-soldier-carry-in-his.html">what Union soldiers carried in their pockets</a> and <a href="https://ranawayfromthesubscriber.blogspot.com/2020/05/winter-quarters-what-did-civil-war.html">the interior decoration of Civil War soldiers' winter huts</a>. A passing reference in May and Embleton's classic Ospery volume, <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/wolfe-s-army/9781855327368"><i>Wolfe's Army</i></a>, led me on a hunt for a 1762 document detailing the weight of a soldier's equipment. I found a transcription of this document with help from R. Scott Stephenson and John U. Rees in <i><a href="https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.32106009184679">The Papers of Col. Henry Bouquet</a></i> (1942, Series 21648, Part II / Volume 10, 77-78), a transcription series from the mid-20th century undertaken by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and based on original manuscripts in the British Museum.</p><p>The document was prepared by Lt. Alexander Baillie, 1st Battalion, 60th/Royal American Regiment, in the summer of 1762 and documents the weight (in pounds and quarter pounds) of every piece of equipment officially carried by a British grenadier on campaign in America in the Seven Years'/French and Indian War. It's detailed enough that you could recreate everything a man carried except the small things that made him unique (personal mementoes and idiosyncratic objects). </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiqkaqVTTZblPkhY4J_ImmBUkiGCxjysSpTgUIVar1QRkxOMr2UcqevAbrbeK9T60FSXG0p7emjhsstC5JlGaZOgBUIpp25bNBaSyrEL3opGPZb1p5RrObzlUgtMBLA_ekkmbfag781iUNGs-QxaXHaoGxrCYt1qk080M5-o9m0HvZhrfXn0prnAcGvYQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="952" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiqkaqVTTZblPkhY4J_ImmBUkiGCxjysSpTgUIVar1QRkxOMr2UcqevAbrbeK9T60FSXG0p7emjhsstC5JlGaZOgBUIpp25bNBaSyrEL3opGPZb1p5RrObzlUgtMBLA_ekkmbfag781iUNGs-QxaXHaoGxrCYt1qk080M5-o9m0HvZhrfXn0prnAcGvYQ=w400-h322" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">David Morier's "Grenadiers, 46th, 47th and 48th Regiments of Foot, 1751" (part of a larger series, from the <a href="https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/47/collection/405587/grenadiers-46th-47th-and-48th-regiments-of-foot-1751">Royal Collection Trust</a>) gives us a glimpse of British grenadiers in full marching order shortly before the date or Baillie's report. Note that these grenadiers are shown wearing their distinctive embroidered caps while Baillie's report notes (felt) hats.</span></div><p></p><p>In the interest of making this document more widely available (as far as I know, it hasn't been published or posted outside of the printed <i>Papers</i>), I've included it in full below. I should note, though, that this is now a transcription of a transcription, and I've made some minor formatting alterations below, and so it would be well worth a serious researcher's time to revisit the original (undigitized) manuscript and its context.</p><p><br /></p><p>Lieut. Alexander Baillie to Col. Henry Bouquet</p><p>Return of the Weight of the Cloathing, Arms, Accoutrements, Ammunition, Provision, Necessary’s &Ca. of a Grenadier, upon a March.</p><p><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span> </span>Augt. 28th 1762</p><p><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></span>Weight</p><p><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></span><span> </span>Lbs.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Qrs.</p><p><br /></p><p>A Regimental Coat, with Hooks, Eyes, &ca.<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></span>5.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>2.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Waistcoat<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span></span>2.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>1.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Pair of Breeches<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> <span> </span></span>1</span></span></span>.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>2.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Hat with Cockade, Button, Loop, & Hair String<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> <span> </span></span></span>1.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p>A Shirt with Sleeve Buttons<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></span>1.</p><p><br /></p><p>A Stock with a Buckle. </p><p>A Pair of Knee Buckles.</p><p>A Pair Stockings & Garters<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> </span> </span></span>3.</p><p><br /></p><p>A Pair Shoes with Buckles<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> </span></span></span></span></span>1.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>2.</p><p><br /></p><p>A Regimental Firelock, with a Sling </p><p>& Buckle / Hammer Cap & Stopper<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></span></span>11.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>1.</p><p><br /></p><p>A Waist Belt with a Buckle<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> <span> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></span></span></span>2.</p><p>A Hanger, Sword Knit, and Scabbord<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></span>2.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>2.</p><p>A Bayonet and Scaboord<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> <span> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span> <span> </span><span>1</span></span></span></span>.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>1.</p><p>A Tomahawk, and Cover<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span></span></span></span>1.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>3.</p><p><br /></p><p>A Cartridge Pouch with Belt, Buckles, </p><p>& Match Case <span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> </span></span></span></span>3.</p><p>Containing 24 Cartridges<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> </span></span></span></span>2.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>1.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Brush & Wire, Worm, & Turnkey.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Oyl Bottle & Rag</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>2 Flints, & a Steel.<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> </span></span></span>1.</p><p><br /></p><p>A Knapsa[ck] with Strap, and Buckles<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span></span></span>1.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> 2.</p><p>Containing 2 Shirts. 2 Stocks. 2 Pair Stockings.<span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></span>2.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> 3.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A Pair Summer Breeches<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> <span> <span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span>1.<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span></span>1.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A Pair Shoes<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span></span></span>1.<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span></span>1.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A Clothes Brush, pair Shoe Brushes, </p><p><span> </span><span> </span>& Black Ball<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> <span> </span><span> </span></span></span></span></span>1.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A Pair Leggins & Garters / A Handkerchief<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span></span></span></span>1.<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span></span>1.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>2 Combs, a Knife, & Spoon<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> <span> </span> </span></span></span>2.</p><p><br /></p><p>A Haversack, with a Strap<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> <span> <span> <span> </span><span> </span> </span></span></span></span></span>3.</p><p>Containing Six Days Provisions<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span></span></span>10.<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> </span></span>1.</p><p>A Blanket with Strap & Garters<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span></span></span>3.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>2.</p><p>A Canteen with a String, & Stopper, full of Water<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></span>3.<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> </span></span>1.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> <b> </b><b><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span> <span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> </span> <span> </span><span> </span></span></b></span><b>63.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>3.</b></p><div><br /></div><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-47831160792175533662022-06-17T18:54:00.012-07:002022-09-21T16:55:38.506-07:00Part Two: A Survey of Extant American Revolutionary Regimental Coats<p>This two-part post documents the basic details of 31 known eighteenth-century American military regimental coats. Though it is focused on coats used during the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), it also includes 17 uniform coats from the period immediately following the war because of their potential to provide useful contextual evidence both now and in future study and to help avoid future citations of these garments as true Revolutionary War uniforms. This survey does not include coats made and worn in the late 1790s or those worn by French, Hessian, or British regular army officers and men, in order to focus on coats known to have been both made and worn in American (including Canadian) contexts. Nor does it include various other upper body garments worn by Revolutionary soldiers, such as hunting shirts (see the work of <a href="https://www.nealhursttailor.com/">Neal Hurst</a>) and civilian coats and jackets worn into battle or violent situations (see, for example, posts about the Obadia Mead jacket on this blog).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">These posts are a starting point for conversations rather than a comprehensive survey. Most of the details discussed here were gleaned from photographs and catalog records rather than personal study, which would allow for expanded conclusions and connections. The author would welcome correspondence with anyone who knows more about the coats documented here or other examples. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Several of the entries benefitted from a systematic survey of museum collections conducted by historian Norm Fuss, published in <i>The Brigade Dispatch</i> (August 2010 and Winter 2010). Thanks especially to Keith Minsinger (whose initial research inspired this survey), Henry Cooke, Neal Hurst, Michael McCarty, John U. Rees, and Matthew White for comments.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Part Two: Loyalist Coats</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><br /></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Jeremiah French Coat</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLo7iSL_Pfyl2StRgeWw5fRxME6OXbkz0ora5Q1fdnmdfnTzpyPQ_xWLjExkORIpVLhqEK-8FygixdaWnQX8yGTwoTJk3P-jGOqwRZViBtzYE_eqhGT9r7j7KOIW7pSpZh4zsMDUHZkzrtDsju8vR7gWex4a_ITi7T71WrJJQc1iK9u0ys6nGkQVbOfQ/s254/FRENCH.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="254" data-original-width="135" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLo7iSL_Pfyl2StRgeWw5fRxME6OXbkz0ora5Q1fdnmdfnTzpyPQ_xWLjExkORIpVLhqEK-8FygixdaWnQX8yGTwoTJk3P-jGOqwRZViBtzYE_eqhGT9r7j7KOIW7pSpZh4zsMDUHZkzrtDsju8vR7gWex4a_ITi7T71WrJJQc1iK9u0ys6nGkQVbOfQ/s1600/FRENCH.jpg" width="135" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="line-height: 107%;">This
coat, in the collection of the Canadian War Museum (Ottawa), is associated with
<a href="https://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1241&context=cmh">Jeremiah French</a>, a New Yorker who served (after 1781) in the King’s Royal
Regiment of New York (raised in Montreal). French was born in New York about
1737 and fled to Canada in 1776 or 1777, joining the Queen’s Loyal Rangers
shortly afterwards. The coat is red with blue facings, with functional facings,
cuffs, and cape. It is cut short in the style usually called a coatee, with
small white turnbacks from the front with blue hearts and vertical false pocket
flaps. It features bone buttons wrapped in gilt metal stamped with a crown,
KRR, and New-York, surrounded by a wreath. These buttons are set in pairs
behind gold metallic embroidered buttonholes. The appearance of the coat
adheres to late 1770s-early 1780s fashion.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><b>Munson Hoyt Coat</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCXReuLhh_7DGSVoCylRpGFVPS46ZuqVFbNN3Q5YtHhgJpwFDeX8alGzU3dhVQOWjqo-Cts167liI-1TS05m9lmLx7XMckSAzazukVz8AOsmj7jdcKz59N0pV4MPaSx9iy1Yru0QQSwGT2wMUO0ZIjX-eXGTAIKhbVsj_fqB90go6b70vf1jKBwUNKlw/s995/hoyt.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="691" data-original-width="995" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCXReuLhh_7DGSVoCylRpGFVPS46ZuqVFbNN3Q5YtHhgJpwFDeX8alGzU3dhVQOWjqo-Cts167liI-1TS05m9lmLx7XMckSAzazukVz8AOsmj7jdcKz59N0pV4MPaSx9iy1Yru0QQSwGT2wMUO0ZIjX-eXGTAIKhbVsj_fqB90go6b70vf1jKBwUNKlw/s320/hoyt.png" width="320" /></a></div></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="line-height: 107%;">The
coat, in the collection of the <a href="http://emuseum.chs.org/emuseum/objects/96/mans-uniform-coat">Connecticut Historical Society Museum andLibrary</a>, is associated with <a href="https://loyalist.lib.unb.ca/atlantic-loyalist-connections/%E2%80%9C-greatest-all-possible-villains%E2%80%9D-benedict-arnold-and-first-slander">Munson Hoyt</a>, an officer in the Prince of Wales
American Regiment. Hoyt, from Norwalk Connecticut, likely wore this coat during
his service as a Lieutenant in the regiment (raised in Connecticut) between
1777 and 1783 in New York, New England, and South Carolina. The coat is red
with blue facings, with functional facings, cuffs, pockets, and cape. It
features plain yellow metal buttons set in pairs on the facings behind metallic
embroidered buttonholes. The appearance of the coat adheres to late 1770s-early
1780s fashion.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"></span></span></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Andres Ten Eyck Coat</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnpdVQ9TkixMHyMb48QUMTaXz-9LORcyfAgi1vV83t_DVB29YWM8c3LerW1Qbmpoh47pMpZr7Orqfs8AxSDPIkrPFmpK5EhgcJ7LXkB5OsHsQrqmV_88RHUJHSGKCdW5G9MYa_jXnQ6wlHFm_pdsoKDQU93ju1nphDJMgE3oQ8RHubi3zs8sycgoATew/s293/10E1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="195" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnpdVQ9TkixMHyMb48QUMTaXz-9LORcyfAgi1vV83t_DVB29YWM8c3LerW1Qbmpoh47pMpZr7Orqfs8AxSDPIkrPFmpK5EhgcJ7LXkB5OsHsQrqmV_88RHUJHSGKCdW5G9MYa_jXnQ6wlHFm_pdsoKDQU93ju1nphDJMgE3oQ8RHubi3zs8sycgoATew/s1600/10E1.jpg" width="195" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKFtJ9tAi7l143l6eEEAACuEITkFF_Vno7rsAxNqG4c8dBOTx0ke91xyBY1xiaeum5wiOYN6t36FwZMjUR01ZywobqM01X8iWifQcmAHpaisPJK6EAxl_rDehJexGkvmrrvuJPwM_85S-tBN5DcH8Us2m4L46WvCiyFryZPO5QsXWh_W9lTqBLpifFrA/s293/10E2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="195" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKFtJ9tAi7l143l6eEEAACuEITkFF_Vno7rsAxNqG4c8dBOTx0ke91xyBY1xiaeum5wiOYN6t36FwZMjUR01ZywobqM01X8iWifQcmAHpaisPJK6EAxl_rDehJexGkvmrrvuJPwM_85S-tBN5DcH8Us2m4L46WvCiyFryZPO5QsXWh_W9lTqBLpifFrA/s1600/10E2.jpg" width="195" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="line-height: 107%;">This
coat, in the collection of the <a href="http://100objects.qahn.org/content/loyalist-coat-c-1770">Missisquoi Museum</a> (Quebec), is associated with
Andres Ten Eyck. Ten Eyck was born in 1727 in New Jersey, served in the
colony’s militia in the Seven Years’ War, and moved to New York in 1770.
Arrested there in 1776 while recruiting soldiers for a Loyalist company, he was
imprisoned and eventually escaped to Canada. The coat is red with functional
red facings with bastion tops currently buttoned over the cap. It has plain
round cuffs with no buttons, and current photographs suggest there are no
turnbacks or pocket flaps, though the sides of the coat are obscured. It features
plain yellow metal buttons set in pairs on the facings behind sewn buttonholes.
Despite theories that this may have been Ten Eyck’s Seven Years’ War
regimental, its appearance adheres to late 1770s-early 1780s fashion.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="line-height: 107%;"><b>Penn Weekes Coat</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="line-height: 107%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnUZPHdqjTtM7_wKPPyhY4CgC6Zc5SMSgxVK0RfuipjkZglRpiAVb_vMfC0LfcerIKOQBBxvIX_xBqw9sIXnfuvx-T8l_CytoHVOF_Da0HN71vzRwlmtWZeDaWy_VJwb946neHYFbGFdSMH_3GEtBJ2cJaz_9nDyDg8pws8lJ9Gm-01j-wnSP2ziTwlA/s658/weekes1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="658" data-original-width="439" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnUZPHdqjTtM7_wKPPyhY4CgC6Zc5SMSgxVK0RfuipjkZglRpiAVb_vMfC0LfcerIKOQBBxvIX_xBqw9sIXnfuvx-T8l_CytoHVOF_Da0HN71vzRwlmtWZeDaWy_VJwb946neHYFbGFdSMH_3GEtBJ2cJaz_9nDyDg8pws8lJ9Gm-01j-wnSP2ziTwlA/s320/weekes1.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidozS0zSSDbnRvgzykAM9aoJAShCveWYriQyE-GekmD1-vZ5ZqBBSYEp4CorqfXOGhXXsb_MiqqrGjQ7HZore0xXKH6odzCN2D1_QOPYh4D6ZkeSLh0LxCrl2E4P60yx1znrBIwFlrtqIt-Kjpla2wWnw5DyuzbadgOOmKrczWy2EG7b5XQUkdN1tfVg/s666/weekes2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="444" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidozS0zSSDbnRvgzykAM9aoJAShCveWYriQyE-GekmD1-vZ5ZqBBSYEp4CorqfXOGhXXsb_MiqqrGjQ7HZore0xXKH6odzCN2D1_QOPYh4D6ZkeSLh0LxCrl2E4P60yx1znrBIwFlrtqIt-Kjpla2wWnw5DyuzbadgOOmKrczWy2EG7b5XQUkdN1tfVg/s320/weekes2.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="line-height: 107%;">This
coat, in the collection of the Bayville Historical Museum (New York), is
associated with Penn Weekes, a resident of Oyster Bay, Long Island. According
to Museum records, in at least 1779, Weekes was a sergeant in a Loyalist
cavalry unit commanded by Captain Israel Youngs. The coat is red with blue
facings, with nonfunctional facings, a functional cape trimmed with metallic
lace, and nonfunctional cuffs trimmed with metallic lace that rise to a point
in the front and open via a functional, buttoned slit along the rear seam. It
is cut short in the style usually called a coatee, with vertical false pocket
flaps. Current images do not indicate the presence of any turnbacks. What
appear to be plain, white metal buttons are evenly spaced down the lapels. The
cuff buttons have been replaced by later military ones. The appearance of the
coat adheres to late 1770s-early 1780s fashion.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="line-height: 107%;"><b>Charles Langlade Coat</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="line-height: 107%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ80YH1ZWTgiRt02Vdveg8eQew7O2Iizu-iEMnmI9qreDvJLkirmSRQ3EBSiO1iWEWbntEkkx7lrFraXbvlH_iHwm1nfPlT46J1asB30vgh2_QYo_O7h8U0zpngyN4FpW1mp3-_Vs8rGVGTKB2J-p9oYVBohQbjpg74xDfSwZh95kdzNL1aaXFDgoYhQ/s430/langlade1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="430" data-original-width="287" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ80YH1ZWTgiRt02Vdveg8eQew7O2Iizu-iEMnmI9qreDvJLkirmSRQ3EBSiO1iWEWbntEkkx7lrFraXbvlH_iHwm1nfPlT46J1asB30vgh2_QYo_O7h8U0zpngyN4FpW1mp3-_Vs8rGVGTKB2J-p9oYVBohQbjpg74xDfSwZh95kdzNL1aaXFDgoYhQ/s320/langlade1.jpg" width="214" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGUDNPZH52vnZYMKv4RThVJ-7GZfhJPxTwLn900OwL18kV48JanchIcfA5gN5gweHppVHK9HwCAaCxIbsJbs5RokHrrgdUvYSXnYt3mBIDYMKA3aCXATYPbqAi5CdQPnhunxYkzMThUzMCr1OBWtkL7bVY6Tvg8z0g0YBzpWYYnnmeXwrQbv-Bk20zYQ/s781/langlade2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="781" data-original-width="502" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGUDNPZH52vnZYMKv4RThVJ-7GZfhJPxTwLn900OwL18kV48JanchIcfA5gN5gweHppVHK9HwCAaCxIbsJbs5RokHrrgdUvYSXnYt3mBIDYMKA3aCXATYPbqAi5CdQPnhunxYkzMThUzMCr1OBWtkL7bVY6Tvg8z0g0YBzpWYYnnmeXwrQbv-Bk20zYQ/s320/langlade2.jpg" width="206" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="line-height: 107%;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">This coat, in the collection of the Neville Public Museum of
Brown County (Wisconsin) belonged to Charles Michel de Langlade (1729-1801), a
resident of Michilimackinac and Green Bay. Langlade had an impressive career in
the fur trade and military service in the Great Lakes and served during the
Revolutionary War in the British Indian Department wearing this coat. The coat
is red with blue facings, with functional facings, cape, and cuffs, trimmed
throughout with white piping. It is cut relatively short, with vertical false
pocket flaps and small white turnbacks from the front with blue laced hearts.
What appear to be plain, white metal buttons are evenly spaced down the lapels.
Two epaulettes of red cloth with gold lace and fringe are on the shoulders. The
appearance of the coat adheres to late 1770s-early 1780s fashion. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Daniel Servos Coat</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtobXMdv4ZXoLvn99z9UY6WMYOInt-CDpnapkPHpNQbZQMNKv1K-401FEuG-Vvs6KXt7qSR8h1jHWjRSx8krbKEzt0vaFuK6NQHyfQ_zjn5TSNVPBSNskyzcjkIJMaj7UYsax-cEpRljZ-Oh108QniA5Ks3kbeYnEC7Qvqa6Elz34eZ39-mmAn76Vjmg/s1052/servos1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1052" data-original-width="788" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtobXMdv4ZXoLvn99z9UY6WMYOInt-CDpnapkPHpNQbZQMNKv1K-401FEuG-Vvs6KXt7qSR8h1jHWjRSx8krbKEzt0vaFuK6NQHyfQ_zjn5TSNVPBSNskyzcjkIJMaj7UYsax-cEpRljZ-Oh108QniA5Ks3kbeYnEC7Qvqa6Elz34eZ39-mmAn76Vjmg/s320/servos1.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV-_agpZQx1ubQIK8C_4nBcjG3qi3IZlBA9AV6usKn2T1cOUcafNmcBVATKoKskQdYZEqLJe16NghK7Y-gPs31AnEyJcigPiVlm91Ztxbcu-XZLw8fHr0pTAbqNuQ_CXTStUiNuzrnRXWVc3lg2qmXfttXtI6fYMuMsgLNw2R94ovHJgGjYxf-FWq8ZA/s1373/servos2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1373" data-original-width="927" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV-_agpZQx1ubQIK8C_4nBcjG3qi3IZlBA9AV6usKn2T1cOUcafNmcBVATKoKskQdYZEqLJe16NghK7Y-gPs31AnEyJcigPiVlm91Ztxbcu-XZLw8fHr0pTAbqNuQ_CXTStUiNuzrnRXWVc3lg2qmXfttXtI6fYMuMsgLNw2R94ovHJgGjYxf-FWq8ZA/s320/servos2.jpg" width="216" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;">This
coat, in the collection of the <a href="https://niagarahistorical.pastperfectonline.com/Webobject/47991967-718D-42D9-B411-551040510923">Niagara Historical Society and Museum</a> (<a href="https://www.narrativethreads.ca/explorer-explore/manteau_de_daniel_servos-daniel_servos_coat.html">Ontario,Canada</a>), is associated with <a href="https://loyalist.lib.unb.ca/node/4415">Daniel Servos</a> (1743-1808), a Loyalist in the
British Indian Department. Servos was born in Tryon County, New York, and was
commissioned a lieutenant about 1779. The coat is red with red lapels and green
cape and cuffs. The functional red lapels extend only down to the belly, in a
style most often associated with French uniforms, and have bastion-shaped tops
buttoning over the cape. Below the lapels, three buttons with false buttonholes
are on either side of the coat front. The coat has full white turnbacks with
small green hearts at the corners. The cuffs appear to be nonfunctional; the
deep pocket flaps are functional. The coat features plain red tabs at the
shoulders and large, evenly-spaced plain yellow metal buttons. Besides the
strange lapels, this coat adheres to late 1770s-early 1780s fashion. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Jacob Schieffelin Coat</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbPfygRLX94Pyt4A_LLd9PoeJIxbDfsBxRmw0UE-FliSfSiEH-VP5nAJymaRkFKMIxOM9PoLsSYXdJ45XXKTg9i1YRI0HDIVqVKKRH94QdF6NyNHzIQRFRuD2b8uKMcPjMIeN-F0jVcGY14TzRaKEkrHcbiTvy_Fp3IuEOIZrbj2WfIc94MfCT1rP5Xw/s582/shief1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="582" data-original-width="395" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbPfygRLX94Pyt4A_LLd9PoeJIxbDfsBxRmw0UE-FliSfSiEH-VP5nAJymaRkFKMIxOM9PoLsSYXdJ45XXKTg9i1YRI0HDIVqVKKRH94QdF6NyNHzIQRFRuD2b8uKMcPjMIeN-F0jVcGY14TzRaKEkrHcbiTvy_Fp3IuEOIZrbj2WfIc94MfCT1rP5Xw/s320/shief1.jpg" width="217" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpgACahxbARDkW6riFz7arYtEfya2ykoSqKbYk94gQje3YP-kjwEnRud3AulraEcEVQhNnifnMNofK2Wf5Fhfyzvgb3Ee8rtv1IWlcQyPljXuFzWr8-feG4mojx6Q5V8_CapmkQZM7-PrsxaPyL-B8qC5M9fwOMitX9w-88IxtmjkGld8NUEYvxzIbaQ/s1350/schief2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="675" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpgACahxbARDkW6riFz7arYtEfya2ykoSqKbYk94gQje3YP-kjwEnRud3AulraEcEVQhNnifnMNofK2Wf5Fhfyzvgb3Ee8rtv1IWlcQyPljXuFzWr8-feG4mojx6Q5V8_CapmkQZM7-PrsxaPyL-B8qC5M9fwOMitX9w-88IxtmjkGld8NUEYvxzIbaQ/s320/schief2.jpg" width="160" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 107%;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">This coat, in the collection of <a href="https://fortticonderoga.pastperfectonline.com/webobject/C4DFE89B-D152-460F-BAFC-785073102430">Fort Ticonderoga</a> (New York), belong to
<a href="https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/11/resources/1237">Jacob Schieffelin</a> (1757-1835). Schieffelin was born in Philadelphia, served as
a lieutenant in the Detroit Volunteers (Loyalist), and was captured at Fort
Sackville in 1779. Later in the war, after escaping, he served in the Queen’s
Rangers and British Indian Department in Canada. The coat is red with black
velvet lapels, cape, and cuffs. It closes at the chest with hooks and eyes. The
collar is relatively high, almost stand-and-fall, and the buttonholes are all
worked with metallic lace. The coat has full skirts without evidence for
turnbacks and false pocket flaps with laced buttonholes and buttons. It retains
a gold metallic epaulette on the left <span style="font-family: inherit;">shoulder and features plain brass coin
buttons. Fort Ticonderoga dates this coat, stylistically, to 1783-1784. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6933px;"><b>John Leggett Coat</b></span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6933px;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This coat, in the collection of the Nova Scotia Museum, is associated with John Legett. Leggett was born in North Carolina in 1742, Leggett served as a provincial officer through the Revolutionary War before emigrating to Canada. The coat is red with blue facings, round cuffs, and cape. Gilt “RP“ buttons are set in pairs behind buttonholes worked with metallic lace. The coat retains two gold epaulettes and has full skirts. No photographs are online.<o:p></o:p></span></p><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Washington Crossing State Park Coat</b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0WCS9rPR04iuumYqLWQa5BM7pextYuwBUKZ3TdU6y2A2KCs-mvtTXwQRaFOxfE81J261RCyJh6CYhx7xmChIDbbL5Svpfi6De2-P16nOR8rcb3XRvfGi6qbRWBZSgBWNdlUpfvKD-HTWkNAaW7BXE2lf4n67VCQrnAQg5DLF0TPXh0BP523Jdt8_fYA/s880/Loyalist%20Coat%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="880" data-original-width="660" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0WCS9rPR04iuumYqLWQa5BM7pextYuwBUKZ3TdU6y2A2KCs-mvtTXwQRaFOxfE81J261RCyJh6CYhx7xmChIDbbL5Svpfi6De2-P16nOR8rcb3XRvfGi6qbRWBZSgBWNdlUpfvKD-HTWkNAaW7BXE2lf4n67VCQrnAQg5DLF0TPXh0BP523Jdt8_fYA/s320/Loyalist%20Coat%202.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvZCaO0_nMdLlJRliFis6lGCswq0E1zfYFvlWPHQjYldnwmrNZmzz9zOhaZPjF4l8SOlsY5HFSRxQQhMVTw8ayBYfciN9wovL08ot3iMe1OhrbCQDHMXfHYXr1GVUbWUBKvoKPufkvf4aa26DcTjybM0IJ4uJGQC8mdxB7ilGWKvkfWgGBRwS0DI2cbA/s4032/Photo%20Sep%2009,%201%2035%2005%20PM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvZCaO0_nMdLlJRliFis6lGCswq0E1zfYFvlWPHQjYldnwmrNZmzz9zOhaZPjF4l8SOlsY5HFSRxQQhMVTw8ayBYfciN9wovL08ot3iMe1OhrbCQDHMXfHYXr1GVUbWUBKvoKPufkvf4aa26DcTjybM0IJ4uJGQC8mdxB7ilGWKvkfWgGBRwS0DI2cbA/s320/Photo%20Sep%2009,%201%2035%2005%20PM.jpg" width="240" /></a></div></span><p></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZP60jJf7j9g7V1ZzS0DJbPa684x7PYri7cUE9LPw71lz6kkSKUjWj8dRCB-K1-JzRK8voI3iphUYnPL5Q_u26OsRw0-ORHHHtBjNlAwTtYyQOMu-74RXZkrCxNbvukxieCq1yF86_bHLGYGVECOblt-bQdMDWendaVnklut3GWdgyLtx2-oakmUCkew/s4032/Photo%20Sep%2009,%201%2057%2022%20PM%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZP60jJf7j9g7V1ZzS0DJbPa684x7PYri7cUE9LPw71lz6kkSKUjWj8dRCB-K1-JzRK8voI3iphUYnPL5Q_u26OsRw0-ORHHHtBjNlAwTtYyQOMu-74RXZkrCxNbvukxieCq1yF86_bHLGYGVECOblt-bQdMDWendaVnklut3GWdgyLtx2-oakmUCkew/s320/Photo%20Sep%2009,%201%2057%2022%20PM%20(1).jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">This coat, in the collection of the State of New Jersey and on display at </span><a href="https://nj.gov/dep/parksandforests/parks/washingtoncrossingstatepark.html" style="font-family: inherit;">Washington Crossing State Park</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, has no known provenance. The coat is red with matching functional lapels and slit cuffs and a dark blue wool functional cape. The lapels and cuffs are trimmed with a narrow strip of dark blue wool and the coat features buttons of gilt metal over bone cores. The coat has small, white, false turnbacks from the fronts with decorative multi-colored hearts at the corners. It has two welt pockets inside the skirts and no exterior pockets or pocket flaps. This coat adheres to late 1770s-early 1780s fashion.</span></span><p></p></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">William Jarvis Coat</span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6jA0tHSdPSG1asSUgYmJmLnqbDh8eF3P0o5uuqIXLKCyVKcu4UgJG21YluW84xOOeH6NCBJtrIiS9Uq5qcB1QrWJas-UHQ6L4rOr5ccmBb9AJjcb_Lw_ZzIY22-b2TnR4Z09qoAWVEJ9ck61qUmqny93PpLkYSiYCON4TgTBGMH1XG4P5ND7ycc8PBw/s1160/jarvis.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1160" data-original-width="950" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6jA0tHSdPSG1asSUgYmJmLnqbDh8eF3P0o5uuqIXLKCyVKcu4UgJG21YluW84xOOeH6NCBJtrIiS9Uq5qcB1QrWJas-UHQ6L4rOr5ccmBb9AJjcb_Lw_ZzIY22-b2TnR4Z09qoAWVEJ9ck61qUmqny93PpLkYSiYCON4TgTBGMH1XG4P5ND7ycc8PBw/s320/jarvis.jpg" width="262" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal">This coat, in the collection of the <a href="https://fortyork.ca/component/content/article/13-gallery/103-gallery-17931815.html#!1791_William_Jarvis_uniform">City of Toronto Museums</a>
(Ontario) belonged to William Jarvis of the Queen’s Rangers in 1791. Jarvis was
born in Connecticut and joined the Queen’s Rangers in 1777 before eventually
emigrating to Canada. The Museums’ catalog suggests that an original receipt
for this coat may survive. The coat is green with dark velvet facings, cuffs,
and stand-and-fall collar. Its lapels are functional and extend only to the
lower chest (with laced buttonholes below) It features two silver epaulettes,
silver laced buttonholes and trim, and white metal buttons set in pairs. It has
long skirts but the single photograph online does not include a rear view or
information about pockets.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Other Fragments and Future Research<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal">At least two other likely Revolutuonary War regimental coat fragments exist.
One, probably the sleeve cap of a blue regimental coat with hand-sewn stitches
still present, was found in a cartridge box and is in the <a href="https://www.historicalimagebank.com/gallery/v/album02/album21/album57/RWu16d-+Coat+fragment+copy.jpg.html">collection of Don Troiani</a>. The other is reportedly a complete brown wool sleeve from the coat of
a Philadelphia Associator, complete with a red wool cuff and retaining large
pewter buttons at the top of the cuff and up a false slit, in a private
descendant collection. In addition, various unsubstantiated reports and
collector lore hint at the existence (or past existence) of more coats and
fragments in private collections, discarded by button collectors, uncovered in
shipwreck salvages, and so on. It is quite likely that more
coats survive in public and private collections awaiting identification. Such
examples have the potentially to greatly expand what we know about the coats
made and worn in the Revolutionary War. </p><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-56174803930064143962022-06-17T18:33:00.009-07:002022-06-18T11:17:22.392-07:00Part One: A Survey of Extant American Revolutionary Regimental Coats<p>This two-part post documents the basic details of 31 known eighteenth-century
American military regimental coats. Though it is focused on coats used during
the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), it also includes 17 uniform coats from the
period immediately following the war because of their potential to provide
useful contextual evidence both now and in future study and to help avoid
future citations of these garments as true Revolutionary War uniforms. This
survey does not include coats made and worn in the late 1790s or those worn by
French, Hessian, or British regular army officers and men, in order to focus on
coats known to have been both made and worn in American (including Canadian)
contexts. Nor does it include various other upper body garments worn by
Revolutionary soldiers, such as hunting shirts (see the work of <a href="https://www.nealhursttailor.com/">Neal Hurst</a>) and civilian coats and jackets
worn into battle or violent situations (see, for example, posts about the Obadia Mead jacket on this blog).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These posts are a starting point for conversations rather
than a comprehensive survey. Most of the details discussed here were gleaned
from photographs and catalog records rather than personal study, which would
allow for expanded conclusions and connections. The author would welcome correspondence with anyone who knows more about the coats documented here or other examples. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Several of the entries benefitted from a systematic survey of museum collections conducted by historian Norm Fuss, published in <i>The Brigade Dispatch</i> (August 2010 and Winter 2010). Thanks especially to Keith Minsinger (whose initial research inspired this survey), Henry Cooke, Neal Hurst, Michael McCarty, John U. Rees, and Matthew White for comments.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Part One: Revolutionary/American/Patriot Coats</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><br /></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Cyrus Baldwin Coat</b><span style="text-align: center;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1PaT4CkGhcWX3UJUG6oiLtECXckUyxojNeYJjC1LwLHJzQGjRoBWCZOiqEq6FeebL4Oljf4ZDwarjBPei337pkk55jgS9rvGl5MQtnFx-aF6-_PPG-yjISnc4ocl875c_D4_IpJIXo6j7eqNZelNSbkLOoMS0A_nmyIbcGMF9rjsJb1AY82DOF7T7TQ/s596/Baldwin%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="596" data-original-width="398" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1PaT4CkGhcWX3UJUG6oiLtECXckUyxojNeYJjC1LwLHJzQGjRoBWCZOiqEq6FeebL4Oljf4ZDwarjBPei337pkk55jgS9rvGl5MQtnFx-aF6-_PPG-yjISnc4ocl875c_D4_IpJIXo6j7eqNZelNSbkLOoMS0A_nmyIbcGMF9rjsJb1AY82DOF7T7TQ/s320/Baldwin%201.jpg" width="214" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtTdNU4LXTobxKia5F6gjolVu3I5dBHIAE4r8MSrfNCsFlKvMhfOvkjF-wgFbJ_rxHBAFnnkcMPz6_wCEmWrKQbSF2HCD0AGcpFZE2UZ7617PVgRl7TT2l8zcB73CvwZFG71h25hxgZ22DyGmG96LL1b5ju68g384bI1_URMIaN1dzKDtl3UxjysNSug/s597/Baldwin%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="597" data-original-width="398" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtTdNU4LXTobxKia5F6gjolVu3I5dBHIAE4r8MSrfNCsFlKvMhfOvkjF-wgFbJ_rxHBAFnnkcMPz6_wCEmWrKQbSF2HCD0AGcpFZE2UZ7617PVgRl7TT2l8zcB73CvwZFG71h25hxgZ22DyGmG96LL1b5ju68g384bI1_URMIaN1dzKDtl3UxjysNSug/s320/Baldwin%202.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">This coat, in the collection of <a href="https://fortticonderoga.pastperfectonline.com/webobject/C00422FD-D99F-412F-B39E-750663126552">Fort Ticonderoga</a> (New York),
belonged to <a href="https://adverts250project.org/tag/cyrus-baldwin/">Cyrus Baldwin</a>, a Massachusetts soldier in the Boston Corps of
Cadets between 1772 (when this uniform was established) and 1774 (when the
company resigned in protest over the dismissal of their commander, John
Hancock, by British General Thomas Gage). The coat is red with buff facings,
with functional facings, cuffs, and cape. It has full skirts with a buff
worsted wool lining visible in the turnbacks. It features domed silver buttons
and a small buttoned tab matching the coat fabric on the left shoulder. Its
details match the 1772-1774 timeframe which its provenance suggests.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Benjamin Holden Coat</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA0sUKxh85xH2XHxZnWhUpQ7zmT19V6KnFsH2-XiQ-Xnl18RsslpWQcbBKc8T4dAUyqCo8LxAEjM8seYSqiun5sQh89J1uFjSY69rbxZXyf1o9KZjv3QHuZnoSFTx_T4mgq9iwGx2z9TF89H2FbZ1Dn-k2D9a3aWUAc0yS4I9p6X6NGURmfZF1JKYrag/s938/holden%20coat.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="938" data-original-width="715" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA0sUKxh85xH2XHxZnWhUpQ7zmT19V6KnFsH2-XiQ-Xnl18RsslpWQcbBKc8T4dAUyqCo8LxAEjM8seYSqiun5sQh89J1uFjSY69rbxZXyf1o9KZjv3QHuZnoSFTx_T4mgq9iwGx2z9TF89H2FbZ1Dn-k2D9a3aWUAc0yS4I9p6X6NGURmfZF1JKYrag/s320/holden%20coat.jpg" width="244" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">This coat, in the private collection of <a href="https://www.historicalimagebank.com/">Don Troiani</a>, is
associated with Benjamin Holden, Lieutenant Colonel in Doolittle’s Minute
Regiment of 1775 (absent at Bunker Hill; thanks to Tom Dietzel for alerting me to Swett's <i>History of the Bunkle Hill Battle</i>, which notes this). The coat appears to date to
the 1760s with alterations from about 1774 or 1775. The coat is red with red
functional lapels and cuffs. It has full skirts and functional pocket flaps
with buttons set below. It has a small standing collar with tabs at the front
and features gilt (metal over bone discs) buttons and metallic tape buttonholes
on the lapels, cuffs, and pockets. The coat adheres to late 1760s-early 1770s
fashion.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><b>Peter Gansevoort Coat</b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr7RXrApHfHx1dExx5YohAGdXOyhz2_wi-fugjN010iIbueVpDcH_7pQs3upFA8dLDzBx5ZEttXHFECxM5Ewqwvtj6a7suoXtx5oKPTFWrH50lm1DX2dRRJVqyKmYxc-Vb1k7fb97uXAu0iwrOdea6fu4BCPhss_527DAN0HYKMWa8FlAo68mxMiLLvw/s737/gansevoort.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="737" data-original-width="516" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr7RXrApHfHx1dExx5YohAGdXOyhz2_wi-fugjN010iIbueVpDcH_7pQs3upFA8dLDzBx5ZEttXHFECxM5Ewqwvtj6a7suoXtx5oKPTFWrH50lm1DX2dRRJVqyKmYxc-Vb1k7fb97uXAu0iwrOdea6fu4BCPhss_527DAN0HYKMWa8FlAo68mxMiLLvw/s320/gansevoort.jpg" width="224" /></a></div><b><br /></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This coat, in the collection of
the <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_439538">Smithsonian National Museum of American History</a>, belonged to Peter
Gansevoort and is supposedly the one he wore while Colonel of the 3<sup>rd</sup>
New York Regiment and in command of the besieged Fort Stanwix/Schuyler in 1777.
Born in New York, Gansevoort served in a variety of military capacities for the
duration of the Revolutionary War and died in 1812. The coat is blue with red
facings, cuffs, and cape and white turnbacks. It is unclear from available
photographs whether the lapels and cuffs are functional. It features buttons
set in pairs with metallic tape around the buttonholes. Silver-faced buttons,
set in pairs down the lapels, feature a roped border and quatrefoil central
design with no apparent military significance. The coat adheres to 1770s
fashion.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>Thomas Pinckney Coat</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW-NPTYO71gKyYABZpTjip-t9KQ8FvP0GNkgJyaO9wPt5ge9ET7VLjq0HQHDO3Af4q7eX97G2ns2ySSQKa6a0S6OarGMKmZsk_ftF_0I7u-QOVkAPgzg59GypxoPzTsq2pAHuS_UoOsAnjY1g8N4KkYyc3AbTgF8TSVRhUnD26edvTHv3w7c6iMk9ojw/s276/pinckney%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="183" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW-NPTYO71gKyYABZpTjip-t9KQ8FvP0GNkgJyaO9wPt5ge9ET7VLjq0HQHDO3Af4q7eX97G2ns2ySSQKa6a0S6OarGMKmZsk_ftF_0I7u-QOVkAPgzg59GypxoPzTsq2pAHuS_UoOsAnjY1g8N4KkYyc3AbTgF8TSVRhUnD26edvTHv3w7c6iMk9ojw/s1600/pinckney%201.jpg" width="183" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB2JwYwZGIDOlZIT9o7EXZmqV9yIQ6fJ5unXBgT7raiLwwiQQRfq6A_uwbdYDC5t08-EkJaYinR6flzXoIPntCY4OFkAaTaNYCMc5Z6chcoWS6foFb7k3rOb-gsi0TFwDqFjgjjtrRqWkTFNYMBB9uGSc9JTfx4kU6a1RT2DzymJzQ7qdvzVbTtHe1vQ/s508/pinckney%202.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="508" data-original-width="404" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB2JwYwZGIDOlZIT9o7EXZmqV9yIQ6fJ5unXBgT7raiLwwiQQRfq6A_uwbdYDC5t08-EkJaYinR6flzXoIPntCY4OFkAaTaNYCMc5Z6chcoWS6foFb7k3rOb-gsi0TFwDqFjgjjtrRqWkTFNYMBB9uGSc9JTfx4kU6a1RT2DzymJzQ7qdvzVbTtHe1vQ/s320/pinckney%202.png" width="254" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This coat, in the collection of
the Charleston Museum, is associated with <a href="https://www.nps.gov/people/thomas-pinckney.htm">Thomas Pinckney</a>, an officer in the 3<sup>rd</sup>
Continental Dragoons. Born in Charleston in 1750, Pinckney had an active
military career during the war until he was wounded at Camden in 1780. He
served as a diplomat and congressman before his death in 1828. His <a href="http://www.2ndsc.org/uploads/7/3/6/3/73639963/clothing_arms_and_accouterments_of_the_2nd_sc_regiment_v_6.pdf">regimental coat</a> is rather unique, being made from red silk with blue silk facings (with
bastion tops), small cape, and cuffs. The cuffs are round with a rear slit that
would have originally been closed by three buttons, none of which remain
anywhere on the coat (worked grommets indicate they intended to be removed,
probably to facilitate cleaning. It is cut short in the style usually called a
coatee, with small turnbacks from the front with blue hearts, behind which are
set vertical false pocket flaps. Pinckney’s coat adheres to military fashion of
the late 1770s. Notably, a <a href="https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/artsandsciences/history/research/pinkney_papers_projects/matericalculture/index.php">1790s diplomatic coat</a> belonging to Pinckney (also of
silk and in the Charleston Museum collection) is sometimes described as a
military uniform. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tench Tilghman Coat</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm4mkdhQ9g7VkBGObjjQyPYWkmF1xAS-JQtgSea6lZ1dy7n-AKhO_1R6WEw54sxMgFo7jyrwKB_1oxTqGHY4-Z7T411Awcgku1ojKyskHsyZ4MaP5yxSJQAbW86Gg31YbT1nZrt1wWWh4vzQDEWHYPhc9fS9wZ0gIAvvw7tq-u-11_ibQWInz-wlC4VA/s597/tilghman.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="597" data-original-width="551" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm4mkdhQ9g7VkBGObjjQyPYWkmF1xAS-JQtgSea6lZ1dy7n-AKhO_1R6WEw54sxMgFo7jyrwKB_1oxTqGHY4-Z7T411Awcgku1ojKyskHsyZ4MaP5yxSJQAbW86Gg31YbT1nZrt1wWWh4vzQDEWHYPhc9fS9wZ0gIAvvw7tq-u-11_ibQWInz-wlC4VA/s320/tilghman.jpg" width="295" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This coat, in the collection of
the Maryland Historical Society, belonged to Lieutenant Colonel Tench Tilghman,
an aide de camp and secretary to General George Washington for most of the war.
Tilghman was born in 1744 in Maryland and died shortly after the war’s
conclusion, in 1786. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thlpMNXE_8o.">The coat is blue</a> with buff facings with bastion tops
currently buttons over the cape. It has plain round cuffs and long skirts with
white turnbacks. It features large gilt buttons with a stamped, civilian floral
border, set evenly on the facings behind sewn buttonholes. The fashion of this
coat suggests that it dates to the latter part of the war, and it adheres to
late 1770s/early 1780s fashion.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>Augustine Willett Coat</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguoKlJoUHQ7YrOwtilnhDdfWLc4swx3DvKWPXcs92DZwC57Tcxaj3igY1a_l7q7ZpEuE1Utifzih9SDBPkHvi-XIPFGCFZMlCCHPvr4ndYNHVu_mZgSxJXlsvPZ4HjJtu0P3swcnROXbIajj4UdsJXTsoRQ37H7CgiOfKZ3Erw8lNB7wNFnFMMCc7Qow/s1317/Willett.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1317" data-original-width="761" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguoKlJoUHQ7YrOwtilnhDdfWLc4swx3DvKWPXcs92DZwC57Tcxaj3igY1a_l7q7ZpEuE1Utifzih9SDBPkHvi-XIPFGCFZMlCCHPvr4ndYNHVu_mZgSxJXlsvPZ4HjJtu0P3swcnROXbIajj4UdsJXTsoRQ37H7CgiOfKZ3Erw8lNB7wNFnFMMCc7Qow/s320/Willett.jpg" width="185" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This coat was donated to the Bucks
County Historical Society (Doylestown, Pennsylvania) by a descendant of
Augustine Willett. The details of Willett’s life are somewhat obscure, but he
seems to have served both during and after the war in the Pennsylvania militia.
His coat stylistically post-dates the war, and is blue with buff facings with
bastion tops, cuffs, and stand-and-fall collar. It features brass buttons set
evenly behind the facings and cuffs behind worked buttonholes. It has full
skirts and two metallic epaulettes as well as functional pockets. It adheres to
late 1780s-early 1790s fashion.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>George Washington Coat</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKH8_b6nUXMuzdGhjdhQtrDI9kThDOKjCpx8MkJ0y6kZ94rxfbUxtnCvcI-1FQFXl6zo91iZQKWe2ut4p6U8ukUMQ3T7_3o4UzPOJS3WMHfUK1s_wO0k-0Mgwm_v7WU36jFOkTS_fGqgv2vyzi6ypkceqZwLutotcpZH4tEhYuBGhfCBJo0bVEgd-K8Q/s1122/washington.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1122" data-original-width="908" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKH8_b6nUXMuzdGhjdhQtrDI9kThDOKjCpx8MkJ0y6kZ94rxfbUxtnCvcI-1FQFXl6zo91iZQKWe2ut4p6U8ukUMQ3T7_3o4UzPOJS3WMHfUK1s_wO0k-0Mgwm_v7WU36jFOkTS_fGqgv2vyzi6ypkceqZwLutotcpZH4tEhYuBGhfCBJo0bVEgd-K8Q/s320/washington.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This is the only known regimental
coat that belonged to General George Washington, commander-in-chief of the
Continental Army, and is in the collection of the <a href="https://www.si.edu/object/george-washingtons-uniform%3Anmah_434863">Smithsonian National Museum of American History</a>. Though sometimes described as his wartime uniform, it in fact
dates to 1789. It is blue with buff facings, plain round cuffs, and a
stand-and-fall butt collar. It features yellow metal buttons set evenly behind
sewn buttonholes on the lapels (functional) and cuffs (nonfunctional); there is
no buttonhole or button on the collar. The coat features long, full skirts with
no evidence of turnback fixtures. Its fashion matches the historical provenance
of 1789.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>William Taylor Coat</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjvoqdH0Av8uSp-GB0Ajvu_WfG7GUdl-rFyaG71fWKpTb8T2ww85GFWVCjCvOtiEQCm58f5roPAYc1-emtTiUyevl7Z3t0UkjyGx9piLAovGQq3QCztQbmlVqmYEdk4KgXDS_Wy6f6fDyoMgk1t8g-takjz7pyvuA2E6uqwGxwjrPiVqrTZwtnMy8bXg/s509/taylor1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="509" data-original-width="389" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjvoqdH0Av8uSp-GB0Ajvu_WfG7GUdl-rFyaG71fWKpTb8T2ww85GFWVCjCvOtiEQCm58f5roPAYc1-emtTiUyevl7Z3t0UkjyGx9piLAovGQq3QCztQbmlVqmYEdk4KgXDS_Wy6f6fDyoMgk1t8g-takjz7pyvuA2E6uqwGxwjrPiVqrTZwtnMy8bXg/s320/taylor1.jpg" width="245" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3uH2Gi25LrLPN6g7j92Tlvb5ovNc97Q_l6ZTPhOrYnCG7RPWcb_Y93Gk1pnbUwwXOpwVQtPgv4jU7s0vJTpvSTzVA1_nCHqXUctjkGiC_pm90gMcQvDN8y_EPPB_r0y4b-dg_Fp1WigMUSDp6N74yW3H1gZyoMmlNBuBfl4bRYaIqd8bkQX-G5Kd5Cw/s513/taylor2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="513" data-original-width="379" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3uH2Gi25LrLPN6g7j92Tlvb5ovNc97Q_l6ZTPhOrYnCG7RPWcb_Y93Gk1pnbUwwXOpwVQtPgv4jU7s0vJTpvSTzVA1_nCHqXUctjkGiC_pm90gMcQvDN8y_EPPB_r0y4b-dg_Fp1WigMUSDp6N74yW3H1gZyoMmlNBuBfl4bRYaIqd8bkQX-G5Kd5Cw/s320/taylor2.jpg" width="236" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This coat, in the collection of
the <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/155774 ">Metropolitan Museum of Art</a>, is incorrectly catalogued as a Revolutionary
War coat and is associated with Colonel <a href="https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/LWJB-GND/col.-william-taylor-1764-1841">William Taylor</a> of Connecticut. The coat
is red with green lapels extending only to the lower chest (with embroidered
false buttonholes below), green cuffs, and a green stand-and-fall collar. There
is no evidence of turnbacks and the skirts are relatively short. It features
fold metallic embroidery throughout, including on the cuffs, arms, and skirts
(including an interesting outline of a pocket flap), as well as yellow metal
buttons. The narrow back panels and collar style date this coat to the years
after the Revolutionary War. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>Benjamin Pierce Coat</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOyt9FNN0CoxRzzWUb5Dz-_8Nbbu80BQ803eH_muC8bpZtJ4edcXBMkepp_Z8xbvNCV2BnThrag3O-pZOvDMh3deZZYWoSe5P0VuGgiKDNNq7Q5BgMn5g2Zh2bq7lzwACgEcKqLSgcDCw9S8aqn8ad2RW6kK_gUP1fmf9nNUx8TOHnzsX7MPopanLpzg/s781/pierce.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="781" data-original-width="487" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOyt9FNN0CoxRzzWUb5Dz-_8Nbbu80BQ803eH_muC8bpZtJ4edcXBMkepp_Z8xbvNCV2BnThrag3O-pZOvDMh3deZZYWoSe5P0VuGgiKDNNq7Q5BgMn5g2Zh2bq7lzwACgEcKqLSgcDCw9S8aqn8ad2RW6kK_gUP1fmf9nNUx8TOHnzsX7MPopanLpzg/s320/pierce.png" width="200" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This coat, in the collection of
the <a href="https://www.nhhistory.org/object/199614/uniform">New Hampshire Historical Society</a>, is associated with militia officer
Benjamin Pierce of Hillsborough. Pierce (1757-1839), from Massachusetts served
in the Revolutionary War before relocating to New Hampshire and serving in
various militia roles and eventually as governor of the state. The coat is blue
with buff lapels, plain round cuffs, and a stand-and-fall collar. The lapels
are functional with sewn buttonholes and yellow metal buttons. Available images
do not allow for more details about its skirts or pockets. Its collar style
dates it to the years after the Revolutionary War, and certainly after its 1785
catalog date. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>Nicholas Fish Coat</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj156rpIR-p2YzvPpzvyPH-WKG1iBONUpeCOVEAfvGhdeU8WJA2J1AN7gO8v6rvNcxhVmNjhFrgZ5hAymQhc9AhxQBzahK1ruano6DVpDIrHhfRj9ImDvj01BO7bMVx63mxdPDHEduo9XsMDuIp22LbkZMoG6BjrhPVW3tOvbskhRkhJC4JCa_7ENW0zQ/s361/fish.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="361" data-original-width="269" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj156rpIR-p2YzvPpzvyPH-WKG1iBONUpeCOVEAfvGhdeU8WJA2J1AN7gO8v6rvNcxhVmNjhFrgZ5hAymQhc9AhxQBzahK1ruano6DVpDIrHhfRj9ImDvj01BO7bMVx63mxdPDHEduo9XsMDuIp22LbkZMoG6BjrhPVW3tOvbskhRkhJC4JCa_7ENW0zQ/s320/fish.png" width="238" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This coat, in the collection of
the New-York Historical Society, is associated with Nicholas Fish (1758-1833)
and catalogued as 1775-1785. It is blue with buff facings, cuffs, and collar
and large yellow metal buttons, but the available photograph does not allow for
further analysis. <o:p></o:p></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>New-York Historical Society Coat</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHaNwSvOnrdLUOEck_LAMjtRs2ITspx6euiz20WPCB7pIFZmi_fnYfzgw8aM8By0pAyqB8NKao6RACc0u9LjSb5ZSY05fxP8crFAZFEIIyuNhHpn7p9wIki8ij9rzkzhLTh4pRp3TU74LVfyNXN4W1_s5Lydo_WTU4Dfd8t6cdzInnWWcHkmH_C0thGw/s804/nyhs.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="804" data-original-width="487" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHaNwSvOnrdLUOEck_LAMjtRs2ITspx6euiz20WPCB7pIFZmi_fnYfzgw8aM8By0pAyqB8NKao6RACc0u9LjSb5ZSY05fxP8crFAZFEIIyuNhHpn7p9wIki8ij9rzkzhLTh4pRp3TU74LVfyNXN4W1_s5Lydo_WTU4Dfd8t6cdzInnWWcHkmH_C0thGw/s320/nyhs.jpg" width="194" /></a></div><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal">This coat, in the collection of the New-York Historical
Society, was used as a prop by painter John Wards Dunsmore (1856-1945) and has
a partially illegible inscription including “Houston” inside the left breast.
It is blue will with red lapels, round cuffs with a rear slit, and
stand-and-fall collar. It features plain yellow metal buttons backmarked
“DOUBLE GILT.” The available photograph does not allow for further analysis of
its skirts or pockets. Its collar dates to the years after the Revolutionary War.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Henry Felty Coat</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggt4yVKCE_sMIR9Bf_Jp3pZMsrNPcKN8Olqjji9FLirWzEM7BcZu0FnAb1AvEjJbATNl28Q7hGSWGAFyx-Nh6-qXJlXTIRhwFbJuhqPhfBmOVyxQN1ptXm8ndoxQNg0sfoMBIuQpeznhY_Q7HbuE4iRC2RHveiL9MGcbgv-r2YWhYToiylEzgNSfmElw/s495/felty.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="484" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggt4yVKCE_sMIR9Bf_Jp3pZMsrNPcKN8Olqjji9FLirWzEM7BcZu0FnAb1AvEjJbATNl28Q7hGSWGAFyx-Nh6-qXJlXTIRhwFbJuhqPhfBmOVyxQN1ptXm8ndoxQNg0sfoMBIuQpeznhY_Q7HbuE4iRC2RHveiL9MGcbgv-r2YWhYToiylEzgNSfmElw/s320/felty.jpg" width="313" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal">This coat, in the collection of the <a href="http://statemuseumpa.org/washingtons-army-buttons/">State Museum ofPennsylvania</a> (Harrisburg) is associated with York County soldier <a href="https://patwistedroots.wordpress.com/2015/08/20/henry-felty-american-revolutionary-war-veteran-1758-1836/">Henry Felty</a>.
Though Felty served in the Revolutionary War, this coat post-dates that period
slightly. According to Fuss‘s article, Felty was an officer of the Hanover
Troop of Horse in 1798 and this uniform matches their regulations. It is blue
with functional red lapels with sewn buttonholes, nonfunctional, chevron-shaped
cuffs, and a stand-and-fall collar. It has white metal buttons and is cut
relatively short with full white turnbacks. Details of its skirts and pockets
are unclear.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>DAR Museum Coatee<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">A red wool coat with brown
facings in the collection of the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum (Washington,
D.C.) has no known provenance but adheres stylistically to the fashions of the
1780s-1790s. It is made from a course red wool with brown wool facings, cuffs,
and stand-and-fall collar, and these colors might be interpreted as the reverse
colors of a musician’s coat for a uniformed militia company. Yellow metal
buttons are set in pairs down the nonfunctional lapels and around the cuffs. It
closed with a hook-and-eye at the lower chest. Shoulder tabs are brown above
and red below, and a line of brown fabric across the top of the arms simulates
wings. It is cut short in the style usually called a coatee, with small brown glazed
wool turnbacks from the front with red hearts and vertical false pocket flaps
(red wool trimmed in brown). While its style postdates the Revolutionary War,
many details of its material and construction hint at those that might have
been apparent in enlisted wartime coats.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b> </b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>Museum of the City of New York
Coats<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Two coats in this Museum,
described respectively as a Continental Artillery coat (it is later) and a coat
worn by Lewis Morris as Washington’s inauguration, are included in Fuss’s
article but not online.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>West Point Museum Coats<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Two coats in this Museum, both
blue regimentals with red facings, are included in Fuss’s article and
catalogued as dating to 1785 and 1790, but without further photographs are
difficult to analyze<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Valentine Museum Coat<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">A coat at The Valentine
(Richmond, VA) is included in Fuss’s article and is red with white facings,
round cuffs, and stand-and-fall collar. It has white metal buttons set in
pairs, short skirts with turnbacks from the front and large red hearts, and
red, trimmed wings at the shoulders. No photographs are online. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>Bennington Museum Coat<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">A coat in the Bennington Museum
(Vermont) is included in Fuss’s article and is red with white facings, round
cuffs with buttoned side slits, and a stand-and-fall collar with buttons at
either side. Previously believed to be a captured British redcoat, is now
correctly catalogued as a post-war militia coat. No photographs are online.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>John Nichols Coat<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">A coat in the State Museum of
Pennsylvania (Harrisburg) is associated with John Nichols and is in Fuss’s
article. The coat is blue with white facings, cuffs, and stand-and-fall collar
and stylistically dates to the years after the Revolutionary War. No
photographs are online.</p></div></div><div style="mso-element: footnote-list;"><div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
</div>
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-69984080365606253432020-08-11T18:46:00.009-07:002020-08-19T14:29:04.944-07:00Horace Phillips<p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><span face="">Three summers and a thousand years ago. </span><span face="">So begins the 1975 film </span><i><span face="">The Man Who Would Be </span><span>King</span></i><span>. I’ve always liked this line. Especially now, in the age of Covid-19, when the passage of time seems to be doing strange things – accelerating one day and standing still the next – it helps me think about how some things seem so recent and yet so long ago. Now, on the cusp of finishing my dissertation in history, I’ve also been thinking back on my very first research project.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Twenty-three summers and a thousand years ago. I was nine in the summer of 1997, and my mother had decided that it was time for my brother and me to understand how to do research at the library. I’ve been interested in the Civil War for as long as I can remember, but I can’t remember how we chose the research project. Our goal was to find a Civil War soldier who was buried in our town who had left a diary we could read.That was easier said than done in 1997 in Traverse City, Michigan. Most of what I remember about that summer is inspired by a binder of papers that I’ve carefully preserved. Missing from that archive is a particular booklet I can picture quite clearly. Or perhaps it was a photocopy in a file at the library. It listed Civil War diaries and letters in state archival collections. I can only imagine that this is where we first found Horace Phillip’s name, associated with a diary at the </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/2/blog/post/edit/1867774275131956123/2377742060495705789?hl=en"><span face="" style="color: blue;">Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan</span></a></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">, and how we determined that he was from our town. We wrote away for a photocopy of the diary. It cost twenty cents a page. After postage and handling, the total came to $10.44. The Library mailed me a manilla envelope on August 21, 1997. And we wrote away for Horace’s pension records.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglxnf2WZF63FKzG9_Kn0wd2-L9_46UFiuAvjvuS6fLYEM-oi9O1QDFUcMmVL7vjdZl5MXT5P_Goj2O8HQKvJ0rvB0091LymgMBZdNXUdFIg9m1Wa-wMjtt1Lp2H1QE4Hir2CfPXrsNnqtT/s2048/IMG_2760.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglxnf2WZF63FKzG9_Kn0wd2-L9_46UFiuAvjvuS6fLYEM-oi9O1QDFUcMmVL7vjdZl5MXT5P_Goj2O8HQKvJ0rvB0091LymgMBZdNXUdFIg9m1Wa-wMjtt1Lp2H1QE4Hir2CfPXrsNnqtT/w307-h410/IMG_2760.jpeg" width="307" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA6OUvG6XvPCNJTdL7vT1uT48BQrzUbfDTtrAvpuXAwxar2IzRvv5tIpxDkPUpvdgiUKXNNgI9EXbmV1atajjcHtv0i9TlwEPevzxdpUBJv6TUHJ5e3E7GKfRLuw0WwD-6LosjVWx3QHfE/s2048/IMG_2761.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA6OUvG6XvPCNJTdL7vT1uT48BQrzUbfDTtrAvpuXAwxar2IzRvv5tIpxDkPUpvdgiUKXNNgI9EXbmV1atajjcHtv0i9TlwEPevzxdpUBJv6TUHJ5e3E7GKfRLuw0WwD-6LosjVWx3QHfE/w410-h307/IMG_2761.jpeg" width="410" /></span></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>Meanwhile, based on my archive, I can see that we also consulted an array of books that I remember were held in the the Traverse City library’s “Nelson Room.” The room contained rare local history books and was a rather vaunted place to my mind as it was the exclusive domain of adults. You can see the library tags on the spines of books in my old photocopies. <i>Michigan Men in the Civil War</i>. <i>Michigan in the War</i>. I own some of those books now, but back then, before Amazon, and as a kid, the excitement of finding them on actual shelves was visceral. I also remember visiting the “town historians” in a book-filled office somewhere. I remember thinking that was the coolest job I could imagine. One of them even had a beard.</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8vj8falKjt7evxDQTDZ3XAC7-nGShRKz35FbxfFol3BKRnnejgV6hvGZ-SUPozMFWG3ucPJbhah6JRYzbVXb6-ZN7tociuresxd1lOUARL7zMFegSN5kun9SNnpXMaW-PYol8tc9hVjgT/s2048/IMG_2765.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8vj8falKjt7evxDQTDZ3XAC7-nGShRKz35FbxfFol3BKRnnejgV6hvGZ-SUPozMFWG3ucPJbhah6JRYzbVXb6-ZN7tociuresxd1lOUARL7zMFegSN5kun9SNnpXMaW-PYol8tc9hVjgT/w307-h410/IMG_2765.jpeg" width="307" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>If I think about it, I can still feel the excitement of that summer of waiting. Knowing the forms you had completed were on their way to faraway libraries and not knowing when you would hear back or what you would get. Remember, this was still the age of the mail. Of photocopies and microfilm. Of taking photos and waiting with bated breath to get your roll of film developed and see what came out. We’ve lost so much of that world that it’s hard sometimes to even believe it was real, and to remember all the small joys that came with it.</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Horace Phillips’s pension records arrived. I must have struggled to read the script. I had only learned cursive in third grade, the year before. Now, many years later, after having spent countless hours reading eighteenth- and nineteenth-century handwriting, I can fly through these documents. In 1997, it would have been a foreign language. So what do they tell us about Horace?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF6bMFPoFoVgW2Mff93ua85ec6qT-fxofKGpILtEQS_xyjxg4Sn8GgFKf45sSsp7aF0r2aNLufAnSpGDCUfzLt7pp0q4ugzhIxHlyk8YUBB-UBxddyJa1kxNySosIEfdGxylNMtCB61w5E/s2048/IMG_2767.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF6bMFPoFoVgW2Mff93ua85ec6qT-fxofKGpILtEQS_xyjxg4Sn8GgFKf45sSsp7aF0r2aNLufAnSpGDCUfzLt7pp0q4ugzhIxHlyk8YUBB-UBxddyJa1kxNySosIEfdGxylNMtCB61w5E/w410-h307/IMG_2767.jpeg" width="410" /></span></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>Horace Phillips was a short man, 5’ 4½”. He had black hair and hazel eyes. He was 26 when he enlisted in the 26th Michigan Infantry on August 12, 1862 (158 summers and a thousand years ago). When I was nine, 26 must have seemed like a lifetime away; it was a lifetime away. Now, at 32, I wonder what it would have been like to join the army six years ago. It was the second summer of the war, and the enthusiastic young men of Horace's Company A – farmers, lumbermen, and clerks from Traverse City – nicknamed themselves with pride, the “Lakeshore Tigers.”</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="">However obscure in the story of the Civil War, the Lakeshore Tigers would become a fixture in my life. At its best, local history reminds us who we are and guides our way. We care about these stories because of where we are from. Sometimes, in serendipitous ways, they haunt us. As part of that summer of research, based on some ephemera in my old binder, my mother must have looked up Civil War reenacting. As I’ve </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/2/blog/post/edit/1867774275131956123/2377742060495705789?hl=en"><span style="color: blue;">written elsewhere</span></a><span face="">, this was near the peak of that hobby but before it flourished online, and it was rather hard to figure out how to become a reenactor (at least in northern Michigan). And I really wanted to be a reenactor. But I had to wait a bit.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOfRNtCiY5Ud1d4shh70I6dDcSZuUxzVKL1ve59hujh3u_WLhiUknunF8NrGFm2zk68lEYo5zdeEBwCBCC-4aFb2TYZlfvvjbhFgmAPZJN_9SjP_GuMvBRTkUsXkl6iLVYSUTVjpR6pYD3/s2048/IMG_2763.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOfRNtCiY5Ud1d4shh70I6dDcSZuUxzVKL1ve59hujh3u_WLhiUknunF8NrGFm2zk68lEYo5zdeEBwCBCC-4aFb2TYZlfvvjbhFgmAPZJN_9SjP_GuMvBRTkUsXkl6iLVYSUTVjpR6pYD3/w410-h307/IMG_2763.jpeg" width="410" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A few years later, by a stroke of luck, a Civil War reenacting unit formed in Traverse City, and I joined. Like most units, we named ourselves after a specific local company from the 1860s. The Lakeshore Tigers. Reenacting with this unit changed my life: it brought me into the orbit of the people that inspired me to go to college to study Civil War archaeology. As my network widened, it was reenactors who introduced me to eminent scholars and researchers, wrote my reference letters for grad school, and helped me get jobs. I have my job today in no small part because of conversations I had at reenactments.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtqQu2DrnPIy2VagmiaMgk6lZJUz66IFD9fVRq4TSUrIaCV0n7IFsRgHKEGnOiMmvJAc2Uk6uACTA9_6uDc2asmJZ7Ghog1I3fcHGqGLD9NFt5eqBhJhyUU_7FcgNW4fLwAzQ3kfrUaXdF/s1469/2002+%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1054" data-original-width="1469" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtqQu2DrnPIy2VagmiaMgk6lZJUz66IFD9fVRq4TSUrIaCV0n7IFsRgHKEGnOiMmvJAc2Uk6uACTA9_6uDc2asmJZ7Ghog1I3fcHGqGLD9NFt5eqBhJhyUU_7FcgNW4fLwAzQ3kfrUaXdF/w410-h294/2002+%25281%2529.jpg" width="410" /></span></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>Horace Phillips’s war was a different experience, of course. I don’t know much about his personal journey, but I do know that the 26th Michigan served on guard details and skirmishes in Virginia, assisted in quelling the New York City “draft riots” of 1863, and entered the spring of 1864 as part of the Army of the Potomac and the new, cataclysmic campaign to end the war in Virginia. On June 3, 1864, at the Battle Totopotomy Creek, part of the General Ulysses’s S. Grant’s Overland Campaign, Horace Phillips lost the fourth toe of his left foot to a musket ball. He spent the rest of the war in hospitals, finally ending up at Mower Hospital in Philadelphia, not all that far from where I work today.</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>After the war, Horace moved around a bit. He farmed. He got married (to a Mary Antoinette). He had a son, named after his father, who went by Archie. He joined the Grand Army of the Republic, suffered from his war wound and the diseases of old soldiers: rheumatism, kidney failure, spinal issues. He died in October of 1915, as the world's next great war was just beginning. </span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>One of the things I remember about that summer of 1997 was the difficulty of locating Horace’s grave. Though he was listed in the rolls of the largest cemetery in Traverse City, Oakwood, even after consulting with the office and groundskeeper we were unable to locate his grave. Now, of course, you could confirm that with findagrave.com. Finally – and I don’t know exactly how – we found him buried in a small cemetery in the forgotten crossroads of Yuba, north of the city. He has a simple, government-issued headstone. I’ve visited him there a few times over the years.</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhTVYJZDrG4dxPs-D4yRKPLFKaM_L8Em2PfSdz2ZfT5gY7zSEPMC9Wc3gt7P991wbimys3td7eU4qmky28nq_0iXD2xJ24ZNNqVJA5dpcjeNTduEv9wQRb75BmbDB3vrgN4GoJze7CLLhy/s2048/IMG_2762.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhTVYJZDrG4dxPs-D4yRKPLFKaM_L8Em2PfSdz2ZfT5gY7zSEPMC9Wc3gt7P991wbimys3td7eU4qmky28nq_0iXD2xJ24ZNNqVJA5dpcjeNTduEv9wQRb75BmbDB3vrgN4GoJze7CLLhy/w307-h410/IMG_2762.jpeg" width="307" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgekJyL4TGHyAMVmLz2ayXDxYzBLZcZ87_rIFv9hYaEIPhnpaf9MiR1EdHrVURazXzrwXlghh9823KePCcJGTqiJR8Q_pYFEd7d9DktmU79Rv0R0xNYW81-Sxabo6OkpeTGLCm_0lhzEXNM/s2048/IMG_2768.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgekJyL4TGHyAMVmLz2ayXDxYzBLZcZ87_rIFv9hYaEIPhnpaf9MiR1EdHrVURazXzrwXlghh9823KePCcJGTqiJR8Q_pYFEd7d9DktmU79Rv0R0xNYW81-Sxabo6OkpeTGLCm_0lhzEXNM/w307-h410/IMG_2768.jpeg" width="307" /></span></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But what of his diary, the whole point of this research project? That’s where things got strangely more complicated. Reading the photocopies that arrived that faraway August today, I realize right away that it’s not the diary of the Horace Phillips I was after. This diary, though dating to 1863, is from a 17-year-old who went off from Ypsilanti, Michigan, to visit the army camps and ended up spending a few months as an assistant to a sutler, a vendor who sold things to the soldiers. But in 1997, I struggled to read the writing. I believed this must be the same man. After all, how many Horace Phillips from Michigan could there have been in the Civil War, anyway? I took notes, trying to puzzle out the differences. I never quite solved it. But I saved it, and all my notes. The first of my research files. Now my research files are mostly online, somewhere in the cloud. But there’s still nothing quite like holding things in your hands.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT5XCtH1MNd9w2t4E39N8-UmGNeHsVDcjAPOZ0-UbpBaq-7fT7PAnpqNU8YZeF0-It5k_ATryNCTONZ3evYELhZEL6vsT7T4EvgnNwsf1bEsc3sS0hMt5_pyH1_z0_blyZyN8SOT1e8p2M/s2048/IMG_2766.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT5XCtH1MNd9w2t4E39N8-UmGNeHsVDcjAPOZ0-UbpBaq-7fT7PAnpqNU8YZeF0-It5k_ATryNCTONZ3evYELhZEL6vsT7T4EvgnNwsf1bEsc3sS0hMt5_pyH1_z0_blyZyN8SOT1e8p2M/w307-h410/IMG_2766.jpeg" width="307" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy2K6HgGLa-PfZ8U36NsYBSrpY-3u8Zd_kX0aXDZCJd_i3o8ituCI8EHTLdMmYjemMUhnd-FF-mt4PbzzAM1IFivBP5mYLt7nRu-tM58M2mGJbPSwxX87ZmL5JF5xv5eTKpJVGJqg9pVcj/s2048/IMG_2764.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1729" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy2K6HgGLa-PfZ8U36NsYBSrpY-3u8Zd_kX0aXDZCJd_i3o8ituCI8EHTLdMmYjemMUhnd-FF-mt4PbzzAM1IFivBP5mYLt7nRu-tM58M2mGJbPSwxX87ZmL5JF5xv5eTKpJVGJqg9pVcj/w346-h410/IMG_2764.jpeg" width="346" /></span></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>Some things I learned about research that summer are now quaint. Paper interlibrary loan slips. Microfilm. Waiting months for results. Our research world now moves at dizzying, digital speeds. Just this past month, I secured permission to use an image from an archive in Estonia in a matter of hours. Before the internet, I might not have ever known the image existed, much less been able to make contact or communicate with the archivists who care for it.</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>But so much of what I learned about research that summer is still with me. The detective work. The attention to detail. Even the frustration when your sources don’t align. Most of all, I still feel the sheer joy of being a historian. Of imagining what life was like once-upon-a-time, and of finding what bits of it might survive to help us imagine it better.</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>Horace Phillips – both of them, in fact – changed my life. But it was my mom who inspired this project. Her handwriting is on the pages in my old binder. She was the one who drove us around and showed us how exciting it was to discover things. These many years later, living half a country away and when I often shirk my duty and only talk to my parents every couple of weeks, I sometimes struggle to tell them how much they mean to me. They gave me the tools to craft a life doing something I love. Thanks, mom.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-5899673262525597552020-05-04T17:10:00.000-07:002023-11-16T16:30:18.201-08:00Winter Quarters: What Did Civil War Soldiers’ Huts Look Like Inside?<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Like a lot of people right now, I’m sweeping
around the dumpster of unfinished projects and loose ends. This blog is one way
I’ve been keeping up with research that is disconnected (or at least adjacent)
to my job and dissertation, and this post is one example of what still lurks in
my research files. I’m lucky to be in a position to go through those files and
do some writing amid everything else that is going on.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span><span>Since I was a kid, I’ve been interested in Civil
War soldiers, and for a while now I’ve been collecting references and images to
their domestic lives. Years ago, I wrote </span><a href="https://ranawayfromthesubscriber.blogspot.com/2013/09/what-did-union-soldier-carry-in-his.html">a post here</a><span> about what Union soldiers carried in their pockets. For months each winter during the War, many soldiers
settled into log huts in massive encampments. If you’re a Revolutionary War fan,
think Valley Forge but on steroids. These huts took all different forms, and
there’s no shortage of images and descriptions of how they looked on the
outside. There are some great studies about how soldiers built them and of what
remains of them, including </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Huts-History-Historical-Archaeology-Encampment/dp/0813029414/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=geier+archaeology&qid=1588637024&s=books&sr=1-3">by eminent archaeologists</a><span>. It’s sometimes
harder to figure out what they looked like inside. I’ve seen a handful of soldiers’
letters (most notably at the William L. Clements Library at the University of
Michigan) where the authors sketched the interiors of their huts, and I’ll
share a few other images here. Along with written records, these sources help
us answer questions about the lived experience of these domestic spaces. How
did they look inside? Were they decorated with mementos of loved ones or
wartime trophies? How did it feel to call them home?</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">John D. Billings devoted most of a chapter to “Life
in Log Huts” in his iconic memoir, <i>Hardtack and Coffee</i>. It’s the most
detailed and lengthy description of huts as domestic spaces that I've seen, and
it’s worth reading in <a href="https://archive.org/details/hardtackcoffee00bill/page/72/mode/2up/search/camp+of+a+regiment+or+battery">its entirety</a>. Billings tells us about fireplaces,
bunks, hardtack-box tables, sardine-tin lanterns, and table settings. “A
hardtack box,” he wrote, “nailed end upwards against the logs with its cover on
leather hinges serving as a door, and having suitable shelves inserted, made a
very passable dish-closet.” (1)</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqG_RnTMnDIXG5EhO3EH5lzXj9gciU7090srw4_45zonXNZJOPugbURFUmXrmnqU5cguC0TpeAlNb9VcLM4D1YC5PIh_5Qwx642kn-U1lFuA7WMjicoEPxNux5hEAiEHCxTxkA-mXyjczQ/s1600/IMG_0712.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqG_RnTMnDIXG5EhO3EH5lzXj9gciU7090srw4_45zonXNZJOPugbURFUmXrmnqU5cguC0TpeAlNb9VcLM4D1YC5PIh_5Qwx642kn-U1lFuA7WMjicoEPxNux5hEAiEHCxTxkA-mXyjczQ/s320/IMG_0712.jpeg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">From Billings, <i>Hardtack and Coffee</i>, 75.</span></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">In Union veteran C.W. Bardeen’s 1910 memoir, <i>A Little Fifer’s
War Diary</i>, he remembered that “In the absence of candles we imitated the
old Roman lamp, by filling a sardine box with grease of some kind, and igniting
a rag floating in it.” (2)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Confederate John Casler remembered
that in late 1863, “We went to work in earnest and put in a nice log shanty, covered it with
clapboards, went to an old barn near by and got some planks for a floor and
bunks, built a stick chimney, and were prepared to live in high style.” (3)</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeyFXcLJu3fICehOOJ94puiHRCSVAgqXKNeLltBO80GSTuAtSMCFRtqHMtQWjykNevtA35knmZvCiTJX5ibjp_9w40jNi60fubJBo6FrHz_S2bUI7RPAyx83XK11B1ym3s5k1dKuk7-Eqv/s1600/42.3.Sketch-1863-Hi-Res.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="952" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeyFXcLJu3fICehOOJ94puiHRCSVAgqXKNeLltBO80GSTuAtSMCFRtqHMtQWjykNevtA35knmZvCiTJX5ibjp_9w40jNi60fubJBo6FrHz_S2bUI7RPAyx83XK11B1ym3s5k1dKuk7-Eqv/s320/42.3.Sketch-1863-Hi-Res.jpg" width="297" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Union soldier David McNeilly Steuffer’s sketch
of his hut in December, 1863, from <a href="http://www.crossroadsofwar.org/galleries/camp-life/">here</a>, credited to Pearce Collection, Navarro
College.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Harry Kiefer, a drummer boy with the 150<sup>th</sup>
Pennsylvania, remembered: “The last cabin we built – it was down in front of
Petersburg – was a model of comfort and convenience: ten feet long by six feeet
wife and five high, made of clean pine logs straight as an arrow, and covered
with shelter tents; a chimney at one end, and a comfortable bunk at the other;
the inside walls covered with clean oat-bags, and the gable ends papers with
pictures cut from illustrated newspapers; a mantelpiece, a table, a stool; and
we were putting down a floor of pine boards, too, one day toward the close of winter,
when the surgeon came by, and looking in, said, - “No time to drive nails now,
boys; we have orders to move!” But Andy said, - “Pound away, Harry, pound away;
we’ll see how it looks, anyhow, before we go!” (4)</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_sA4TMUC2ghrfP4J8pEzhCPpE1PK3Ml1cjSrUGZ57RZDJFyq4tkfje5kF84QU-xwrefxiSweSTvKdhpfCITMPDYSCZB6LRP_-uDzk-GLJx7YoGeRHV5INbeW6yhxooseYbgqmE4gYkeqI/s1600/Bardeen+Winter+Q+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="821" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_sA4TMUC2ghrfP4J8pEzhCPpE1PK3Ml1cjSrUGZ57RZDJFyq4tkfje5kF84QU-xwrefxiSweSTvKdhpfCITMPDYSCZB6LRP_-uDzk-GLJx7YoGeRHV5INbeW6yhxooseYbgqmE4gYkeqI/s320/Bardeen+Winter+Q+2.jpg" width="164" /> </span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span><span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sketches of winter quarters by Union veteran Charles C. Perkins, published in Bardeen, <i>A Little Fifer's War Diary</i>, 146. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><span><br /></span></span>
<span><span>Confederate Barry Benson wrote of his winter quarters in 1862-63 had “a floor laid of poles laid close together and raised a foot or so o</span></span><span>ff the
ground… Our bed was of broomstraw, which I always preferred to wheat straw, as
not breaking up so badly.” (5)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPGEu8kJ6zH09c9MmDUawOQrbG8CgRbrCZ3PlqOFNS4D-tcNJddNbF78bSgb6eSqsAr4YlB0QX8b9BYL7qfCvZ00rrJCxmlJeF8iPBF_sGkEsw8R9TKpnX6lIVjTi6bc4EwOgwtv6OhWBL/s1600/Freeman%2527s+Interior.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="684" data-original-width="949" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPGEu8kJ6zH09c9MmDUawOQrbG8CgRbrCZ3PlqOFNS4D-tcNJddNbF78bSgb6eSqsAr4YlB0QX8b9BYL7qfCvZ00rrJCxmlJeF8iPBF_sGkEsw8R9TKpnX6lIVjTi6bc4EwOgwtv6OhWBL/s320/Freeman%2527s+Interior.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil26vm781HjvWXaV_8bizu-b3o2rmX47LW0CKOHFYTabm8yo63p0lnOXrD__wygcXX65C7R7ERgjfuO9Wba43jeFoos6C8XOc6S19WkYJu2k8HADFEl37n98HO327Qo-pSen8rySe9y5cn/s1600/IMG_5475.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="goog_1497318849"></span><span id="goog_1497318850"></span><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil26vm781HjvWXaV_8bizu-b3o2rmX47LW0CKOHFYTabm8yo63p0lnOXrD__wygcXX65C7R7ERgjfuO9Wba43jeFoos6C8XOc6S19WkYJu2k8HADFEl37n98HO327Qo-pSen8rySe9y5cn/s320/IMG_5475.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6uKz_ysG_QjbDac1wBBVQPtJbKA3L3k9bUTMoGbGOD7njSMj0R8OHCjm7lpHstvOgtltRE1TCoy90KhVwFwKDbEk6a7UrKLREoW8nRlkNVuxxOpm2u1u0ckExxSwjA8U575FmIsysEni9/s1600/IMG_5473.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6uKz_ysG_QjbDac1wBBVQPtJbKA3L3k9bUTMoGbGOD7njSMj0R8OHCjm7lpHstvOgtltRE1TCoy90KhVwFwKDbEk6a7UrKLREoW8nRlkNVuxxOpm2u1u0ckExxSwjA8U575FmIsysEni9/s320/IMG_5473.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">These images are of an unsigned and undated sketch sold several years
ago at Freeman’s Auction (Philadelphia) which I believe show the winter quarters
of a group of Civil War officers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">But, of course, winters came to an end and campaign season – and
life in tents – began each spring. Union veteran Abner Small remembered what
this meant for the little homes soldiers had built. </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“This
doomed all our furniture, the tables and chairs and desks made out of barrels
and boxes, all our handy aids to housekeeping, and all the things the men had
fashioned to while away the time.” (6) </span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Life in log huts, after all, no matter how homey, was temporary.</span></span></div>
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<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> * * * * *</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(1)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee (Old
Saybrook, CT: Konecky and Konecky, reprint of 1887 first edition), 76.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(2)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">C. W. Bardeen, <i>A
Little Fifer’s War Diary</i> (Syracuse, NY: C. W. Bardeen, 1910), 199.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(3)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">John O. Casler, <i>Four Years in the Stonewall
Brigade</i> (Dayton, OH: Morningside Bookshop, 1971), 195.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(4)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Harry M. Kiefer, The Recollections of a
Drummer Boy (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911), 55.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(5)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Berry Benson, Berry Benson’s Civil War Book (Athens,
GA, and London; The University of Georgia Press, 2007), 34.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(6)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Abner R. Small, The Road to Richmond (Berkely
and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1959), 77.</span></div>
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{margin-bottom:0in;}</style>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-90248789561156958042020-04-01T14:50:00.000-07:002020-05-04T17:17:28.918-07:00Obadiah Mead's Belted Jacket, Part Two<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What drew me to Obadiah Mead’s jacket was an image of it
that appeared in a <i>New York Times</i> article about an exhibition at the
<a href="https://greenwichhistory.org/">Greenwich Historical Society</a>. I’ve been studying common men’s clothing from the
18<sup>th</sup> and 19<sup>th</sup> centuries for years, even though very few
actual garments survive (most were used up and thrown out). When I saw the
article, I could tell even from the small photo that Mead’s jacket was right up
my alley. Jackets were common working garments but people rarely preserved them
for posterity. And striped linen was common in working clothing while unusual
in finer men’s garments. In these qualities, Mead’s jacket echoes what you see
in some visual sources and a handful of surviving objects, like the jacket supposedly worn in 1778 by Revolutionary War soldier Colonel Joseph Noyes.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIbz5yyzlFj4EP3hTKTVYu3A8_K4a21L5tlEsJZvyujMhDwihsgaT2jnicWYuUlS-MCu8UXHr5jYckZ93LPt5x8GHOrI6Z2qOISbISOZu7_AyKKH8Rerm9fL9Gl8PmXXUDJMHcWhmRty14/s1600/AN00164485_001_l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="301" data-original-width="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIbz5yyzlFj4EP3hTKTVYu3A8_K4a21L5tlEsJZvyujMhDwihsgaT2jnicWYuUlS-MCu8UXHr5jYckZ93LPt5x8GHOrI6Z2qOISbISOZu7_AyKKH8Rerm9fL9Gl8PmXXUDJMHcWhmRty14/s1600/AN00164485_001_l.jpg" /> </a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Detail of "Saint Monday in the Afternoon," (etching, 1770s), from the <a href="https://research.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=686434&partId=1">British Museum</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyhPZnPKVYmGvb6WnwBl-D7J-RGM__Qy4DThXNeouwO3C2PxiS8PGxL9ClFeITsSw-FJCkuzIA1fCAKBLI7YOiqKxAbF5ZGlGEwvTbuu374znPU-JG_vEAVyVwdK8TuRl__Wh6A7y9kyDa/s1600/Noyes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="769" data-original-width="624" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyhPZnPKVYmGvb6WnwBl-D7J-RGM__Qy4DThXNeouwO3C2PxiS8PGxL9ClFeITsSw-FJCkuzIA1fCAKBLI7YOiqKxAbF5ZGlGEwvTbuu374znPU-JG_vEAVyVwdK8TuRl__Wh6A7y9kyDa/s320/Noyes.jpg" width="259" /></a></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="goog_969824388"></span><span id="goog_969824389"></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Joseph Noyes jacket, photo and credit to Rhode Island Historical Society <a href="https://www.providencejournal.com/article/20151127/ENTERTAINMENTLIFE/151129428">here</a></span></span></span></div>
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</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But you'll notice that Mead's jacket looks a little different than these. Most importantly, it stops at the waist in a "straight-cut" style, without the skirts (what we might call tails) or other garments, including the two above. People used a lot of terms for garments like Mead’s in the
eighteenth century: jacket, waistcoat with sleeves, and so on. “Roundabout” and
“monkey jacket” appeared slightly later as terms for similar jackets, in the
1790s and 1810s, respectively. As an outer garment and without skirts extending
below the waist, I
consider Mead’s garment a jacket. But that doesn’t mean that someone wouldn’t
have called it a waistcoat with sleeves in the 18th century (and that same person might have called Noyes's waistcoat with sleeves a jacket). Look out for
a forthcoming article I’ve coauthored with Matthew Brenckle on working men’s
jackets that discusses other examples of these garments that survive around the
world.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And so, I found myself on the day after the 2016 election,
in the midst of a pre-planned research trip, doing nothing more civically
engaged than counting stitches in a ragged, 240-year old jacket. It seemed
rather ridiculous at the time (maybe it still does), but Mead’s jacket is
nonetheless a fascinating object. Like Mead’s personal history, the jacket itself
continues to foil me. I can’t make firm conclusions about parts of it, but I
thought I’d share a few images and some commentary here before getting to the
most interesting part of the garment: the remnants of its belt.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mead’s jacket matches what we know about garments of the
1770s. It is hand-sewn, pieced for economy’s sake, and made from at least two
different striped linens.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The jacket had twelve buttons down its front, though non
survive. It is entirely unlined, though it has an extra layer, called a facing,
to reinforce the buttons and buttonholes.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBQZYNcKokkLAGS_6ddm3YnXK_I21L_jJ4CVWHCQaRfhfnLM9N3yCwocdf6_IcHWYY7iivS6Jgy-Ah6PKr1QIPJqdKUxXTSPAb5P4rspFBBnftnuzqwEoeSjCKQQAf7QFzPiM2_NoT8GRS/s1600/Collar+Inner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBQZYNcKokkLAGS_6ddm3YnXK_I21L_jJ4CVWHCQaRfhfnLM9N3yCwocdf6_IcHWYY7iivS6Jgy-Ah6PKr1QIPJqdKUxXTSPAb5P4rspFBBnftnuzqwEoeSjCKQQAf7QFzPiM2_NoT8GRS/s320/Collar+Inner.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhblWb2zOl8mg9vOly16QYL7zI2wvigSAUFKbEYRWbDyi9zBg7JSgPgFjPSb-nN3-R1gOquUc2-MgFJXa8ta_d86ghxcg-EJZwh2D_53ggBr-t-cXVJ2dsRSLQm8M7Q34W4b4aNCou-agNF/s1600/Inner+facing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhblWb2zOl8mg9vOly16QYL7zI2wvigSAUFKbEYRWbDyi9zBg7JSgPgFjPSb-nN3-R1gOquUc2-MgFJXa8ta_d86ghxcg-EJZwh2D_53ggBr-t-cXVJ2dsRSLQm8M7Q34W4b4aNCou-agNF/s320/Inner+facing.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The jacket has sleeves with several patches (one probably
original, as it matches a piece of striped linen on the inner facing, and
another that I think may be a later attempt to patch the lower sleeve) and
cuffs that fold up.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The jacket’s collar is “false,” meaning it’s a sewn strip of
fabric (or, rather, several small pieces sewn together to form a strip) that’s
sewn right onto the jacket body. Collars like this gestured towards fashionable
styles (functional, separate collars) but also reinforced the neckline, which
would be worn out faster than other parts of the jacket.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimlFlqtnOuT3cfJRkNcahPsiCWhCHCRE0aCmgl06ChIoVdkJVanIY9GDjEJ2WmQWBgyE9uq7zmfBfl8R8rj3ZDyxuk7jRjfvVro6zCQizrRzeYemfPrHZ61sZDjZiDCXDzuzvXoCeW61ge/s1600/Collar+Top.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimlFlqtnOuT3cfJRkNcahPsiCWhCHCRE0aCmgl06ChIoVdkJVanIY9GDjEJ2WmQWBgyE9uq7zmfBfl8R8rj3ZDyxuk7jRjfvVro6zCQizrRzeYemfPrHZ61sZDjZiDCXDzuzvXoCeW61ge/s320/Collar+Top.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The jacket has only one pocket, constructed as a “welt” on
the lower right side. I’ve seen evidence for jackets made with only one
functional pocket, but usually they have two welts to give the illusion of
symmetry.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD-ZwGBPv0Zw1wYdCNGpXt2qkEKNLUXE7AZrdYC_OGceaDmeAFOMwkTKtrNgCtj0ObU7iBclIfqQ9CGPuJTo4baB0NO1Ocz1u2A5JkZbrcCDx3oon0o4IB6l9wmwepM0fZHl7kj02mk9J5/s1600/Pocket+Bag+and+Facing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD-ZwGBPv0Zw1wYdCNGpXt2qkEKNLUXE7AZrdYC_OGceaDmeAFOMwkTKtrNgCtj0ObU7iBclIfqQ9CGPuJTo4baB0NO1Ocz1u2A5JkZbrcCDx3oon0o4IB6l9wmwepM0fZHl7kj02mk9J5/s320/Pocket+Bag+and+Facing.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">By far the most interesting part of the jacket – and perhaps
its most significant contribution to our understanding of the material culture
of this period – is the remnant of a waist belt. You can see the two signs in
these images: a reinforcement patch and two button scars (attachment points) on
the right-hand side seam next to the pocket bag and the barest remnant of a
sewn-down end on the left-hand side.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw0T9ifgJ6QL14WQTSTwkfeLmkJ7bOm7PXXW7TZ_R6qExtRkmy7pcwL9IT8Yw7QJ2KFMljsTeJjuzREd34ONTZQRsybH0widyunVHT6cEASz92P7A4_zJVy-ZiJVebU84PFcF4Uni18lxc/s1600/Belt+Button+Back.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw0T9ifgJ6QL14WQTSTwkfeLmkJ7bOm7PXXW7TZ_R6qExtRkmy7pcwL9IT8Yw7QJ2KFMljsTeJjuzREd34ONTZQRsybH0widyunVHT6cEASz92P7A4_zJVy-ZiJVebU84PFcF4Uni18lxc/s320/Belt+Button+Back.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh16yUHbyASrN5djRkNeulGo1Efbc9vTh7yj1KwS93THBs7FNj1myYWUv0aAdKEG8KvUmt3dxNuSR-SCsOo4tXr9kZBrykPfj9yJmdfd5bQINRu_WdhtI3Mrus9rdqwAPRtu445NH3J233B/s1600/Belt+Button+Scars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh16yUHbyASrN5djRkNeulGo1Efbc9vTh7yj1KwS93THBs7FNj1myYWUv0aAdKEG8KvUmt3dxNuSR-SCsOo4tXr9kZBrykPfj9yJmdfd5bQINRu_WdhtI3Mrus9rdqwAPRtu445NH3J233B/s320/Belt+Button+Scars.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRBN0LL-EMZiqogAhBoYU-OK0Sl7cyHopAvxLFwfylxafZRvY6ePZsB09srp4Wbbefya7mEKNrmBuQFRAandFgorCMXxAQHumOGfv00qViGTTi2xuNrkrycl6UTQzaUzzinkl4Cvv6g_NA/s1600/Belt+Tab.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRBN0LL-EMZiqogAhBoYU-OK0Sl7cyHopAvxLFwfylxafZRvY6ePZsB09srp4Wbbefya7mEKNrmBuQFRAandFgorCMXxAQHumOGfv00qViGTTi2xuNrkrycl6UTQzaUzzinkl4Cvv6g_NA/s320/Belt+Tab.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s quite possible you’ve never heard of belted waistcoats.
But for the handful of people in the world who care about this stuff, this is
pretty significant. There is no other known example of a man's belted waistcoat or jacket that still exists. Portraits of the 1770s and 1780s show military men and even the occasional civilian wearing
these peculiar waistcoats, usually “straight cut” – without skirts (tails) – that
feature separate fabric belts (belts also appear in documentary descriptions of garments and on at least one woman's riding habit waistcoat). Here are a few examples (1):</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmVtbD1pdSd8VT7xZRqp4CbkaHBKyspQIAZ-QSp-QL29d3mssnSNUXDml2rRX14mW6FSdhwTBBeYSaPt1z5H2zJ1xG-wYXImAMX6ua4b7a2NroyrEbAUGV4R_htI4uaYGq9YJSw430Uibn/s1600/Purves.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1200" height="341" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmVtbD1pdSd8VT7xZRqp4CbkaHBKyspQIAZ-QSp-QL29d3mssnSNUXDml2rRX14mW6FSdhwTBBeYSaPt1z5H2zJ1xG-wYXImAMX6ua4b7a2NroyrEbAUGV4R_htI4uaYGq9YJSw430Uibn/s400/Purves.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Captain John Purves and His Wife, Eliza Anne Pritchard</i> by Henry Benbridge, 1775-1777, <a href="http://www.winterthur.org/collections/online-collections/">Winterthur</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo8zJ1_RdzdxvJb3Ex4qE4en2q3Z7xiS1koevxImlxcXT7b7wIr9rrMBjrlnO8RnGzdxDseCXc9zsvW717rYO2UrrUlgRr5RTjR9KPVHb3rdkJgHqqwD7iGD5hL62CruWbxUA6JVz3RCtV/s1600/Portrait_of_Joseph_Bloomfield.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="566" data-original-width="465" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo8zJ1_RdzdxvJb3Ex4qE4en2q3Z7xiS1koevxImlxcXT7b7wIr9rrMBjrlnO8RnGzdxDseCXc9zsvW717rYO2UrrUlgRr5RTjR9KPVHb3rdkJgHqqwD7iGD5hL62CruWbxUA6JVz3RCtV/s400/Portrait_of_Joseph_Bloomfield.jpg" width="327" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Joseph Bloomfield by Charles Willson Peale, 1775-1777, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Bloomfield#/media/File:Portrait_of_Joseph_Bloomfield.jpg">private collection</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOEhhxj3XU_fEAZMs9ouWJprVaYheTHo-s7ol2LFl1a3x1JFq9OTXpwIBpNn4aPMhph5tPCh-nilA_wKxrAZENCsrO0gaxvDtizLE63YC89MtT0pcJirDViSiZQL7BKjt4O6cIVfdyQAQC/s1600/DE-05-01-77-3d.obv.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="404" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOEhhxj3XU_fEAZMs9ouWJprVaYheTHo-s7ol2LFl1a3x1JFq9OTXpwIBpNn4aPMhph5tPCh-nilA_wKxrAZENCsrO0gaxvDtizLE63YC89MtT0pcJirDViSiZQL7BKjt4O6cIVfdyQAQC/s400/DE-05-01-77-3d.obv.jpg" width="308" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Delaware currency, 1777, with figure on left wearing a belted waistcoat matching New Castle County militia regulations, from <a href="https://coins.nd.edu/ColCurrency/CurrencyText/DE-05-01-77.html">here</a></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI0qKk7L6E6P5INBViyEmgBepo7OdFzP8vZpu9g_LLaYvCyhvjLwgo-2quIK6ajiGJQw6pQdcoKaoeGc7MYjnaIuonK8UWkF3DHGHD8LZBs9KvvaLcAcRH8bOaXuIAfXcTMOvGob8HoqOZ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-04-03+at+7.14.27+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1137" data-original-width="845" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI0qKk7L6E6P5INBViyEmgBepo7OdFzP8vZpu9g_LLaYvCyhvjLwgo-2quIK6ajiGJQw6pQdcoKaoeGc7MYjnaIuonK8UWkF3DHGHD8LZBs9KvvaLcAcRH8bOaXuIAfXcTMOvGob8HoqOZ/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-04-03+at+7.14.27+PM.png" width="237" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Detail, "The German Recruiting Serjeant," (engraving, 1775), from <a href="https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:233807/">Brown University Library</a> (thanks to Matthew Skic for bringing this to my attention!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgipS0XzQELdoJQCmJY-RGOWCIq-KnVjtgxIkhWx18nEMvimkWvwpwvWthn4kPSwhVft76U5FwrpGSkaK7LCjar1KgeCXS5vnRsaYyxGPXpNihhPN8kLI-V9LPmpD2en5W4fu-fjTMYcWB/s1600/canvas.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="461" data-original-width="349" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgipS0XzQELdoJQCmJY-RGOWCIq-KnVjtgxIkhWx18nEMvimkWvwpwvWthn4kPSwhVft76U5FwrpGSkaK7LCjar1KgeCXS5vnRsaYyxGPXpNihhPN8kLI-V9LPmpD2en5W4fu-fjTMYcWB/s400/canvas.png" width="302" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Detail, Soldiers in Uniform" by Jean Baptiste Antoine de Verger, 1781, <a href="https://www.wdl.org/en/item/2960/">Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library</a></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwIan50lGECglcoZ8NFck6CTBo1-0aBrwDqokiMHdPPfJd48feHz2hP9aJTWagenxahi8kkDSBWvGVfiuWaTKD5Oy_31GD6K208xBgZISS6UgPVC4S-IJOIwi-hUv3r7nORh0R_Ds77Klo/s1600/The+Connecticut+Gazette+and+the+Universal+Intelligencer%252C+New+London%252C+CT%252C+July+27%252C+1781.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1214" data-original-width="1485" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwIan50lGECglcoZ8NFck6CTBo1-0aBrwDqokiMHdPPfJd48feHz2hP9aJTWagenxahi8kkDSBWvGVfiuWaTKD5Oy_31GD6K208xBgZISS6UgPVC4S-IJOIwi-hUv3r7nORh0R_Ds77Klo/s320/The+Connecticut+Gazette+and+the+Universal+Intelligencer%252C+New+London%252C+CT%252C+July+27%252C+1781.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> An example of a runaway ad mentioning a "belted striped cotton jacket," from the <i>Connecticut Gazette and the Universal Intelligencer </i>(New London), Jul 27, 1781 </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span> </div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And thanks to the scholarship of and research of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Neal-Hurst-Tailor-169541856440401/">Neal Hurst</a>,
Philip Katcher (2), James L. Kochan (3), and <a href="http://museumblog.winterthur.org/2016/01/06/stand-fast-in-the-liberty-a-rare-waistcoat-belt/?fbclid=IwAR1Ooa5NMVCBSaOP4e0I7I5R7SaQqVmqb777rFIG9moZSKBfcef6qM-zpQw">Matthew Skic</a>, we know a quite a bit about
the documentary history of these garments. They’ve traced many references to
belted waistcoats in military orders, deserter descriptions, and artwork. One
longstanding mystery has been how these belts were attached.
Perhaps as a separate piece tied behind (as one period document suggests) or
buttoned on both ends to the side seams, as suggested by the belt studied by Matthew Skic? Perhaps sewn down on one side, wrapped
across the front, and buttoned on the other? The Mead jacket gives us our first
glimpse at the latter style, with the remnants of a narrow belt sewn down on
the left and two closely spaced buttons to secure it on the right side.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The other mystery of belted waistcoats is – quite frankly –
WTF is the point of a belt anyway? All of the explanations have
counterarguments.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Perhaps it's a form of truss to support the abdomen of soldiers? Then
why would elite officers under less strain wear them as well? Were they just
matching the fashion of soldiers in general?</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Perhaps it allows a straight-cut waistcoat (which would have required
less fabric than a regular one and would be more economical for clothing many soldiers) but also spans the potential gap between the bottom of the
waistcoat and the top of the breeches. But then why not just make the waistcoat longer
in the first place?</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Perhaps it is to tighten the waist of the garment, cinching it in. Then why not
cut the waistcoat differently in the first place (no other men’s garments in
this period are cinched in this way)? It would have made a garment bunch oddly
to be done this way.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Unfortunately, without its complete belt, the Mead jacket
only offers us tentative answers. It could be a sort of truss, but the belt was
so narrow as to offer relatively little abdominal support. Similarly, because it is so narrow, the belt doesn’t seem to have extended below the waistline of the jacket, so it
wouldn’t have covered any gaps. And the cut of the jacket doesn’t suggest that
the belt would have been needed to cinch it in.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">My final conclusion is that the Mead jacket (and other belted waistcoats) had a belt for
one major reason we haven’t <span style="font-family: inherit;">really
discussed: fashion. Apparently people thought belts on waistcoats and jackets
looked good, including ones like Mead’s that might have done absolutely nothing
functional.</span></span></span></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And the vagaries of fashion, after all, are still why we wear
a lot of the strange things we do. We may not know how exactly Obadiah Mead
died or why he was wearing a rather unusual jacket, but we do know that, in his
time, he had some fashion sense.</span><b> </b></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Update: </b>Listen to Neal Hurst, Matt Skic, and me talk about waistcoats with belts in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfzuTh78Yxk&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0GYtALrqNd9kDv8HRBVbZgv-lvI_tk2VyZ7M_h10WUlm7tvDKKlvhC-6g">this video</a> from April 13, 2020.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">* * * * *</span></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Thanks
to the Greenwich Historical Society and the University of Delaware for
supporting the research behind these blog posts. I am very grateful for
the technical insights of James L. Kochan, Matthew Skic, Neal Hurst, and
Keith Minsinger; the gracious hosting of the Perry-Englund family; and
for most everything else to Nicole Belolan. </span></span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">(1) Two other examples, not shown here, are the portraits of Major General Jabez Huntington, by John Trumbull, at the Connecticut State Library, and of Lieutenant John Harleston, Jr., by Charles Willson Peale, at the Art Institute of Chicago.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">(2) P.R.N. Katcher, "The Belted Waistcoat," <i>The Brigade Dispatch: Journal of the Brigade of the American Revolution</i> IX, no. 1 (Jan/Feb. 1972), 1-2. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">(3) James L. Kochan, "The Belted Waistcoat," <i>The Military Collector and Historian</i> 33, no. 4 (Winter 1981), 178-179.</span></div>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-45270390731620492022020-03-24T10:27:00.000-07:002020-03-24T10:41:01.183-07:00Obadiah Mead's Belted Jacket, Part One<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">In 2016, I had the chance to examine a remarkable garment in the collection of </span><span style="font-size: 14.666666984558105px;">the</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> Greenwich (Connecticut) Historical Society. This striped linen jacket survives with a provenance that it was worn by a man named Obadiah Mead on the day he was killed by British soldiers who raided Greenwich during the Revolutionary War.</span></span></div>
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Obadiah Mead's jacket, photo by <a href="https://greenwichhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/GHS_may_june_2017.pdf">Paul Mutino/the Greenwich Historical Society</a>.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">I'll get into </span><span style="font-size: 14.666666984558105px;">the construction and other details of the garment itself in Part Two of this post, but first let's discuss the jacket's provenance and what we actually know about Obadiah Mead. Despite being from a relatively prominent family of the time, he's</span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> an elusive figure. Like many early Americans, especially those who died young, he left very little documentation behind. He lived in Greenwich during the violence of the Revolutionary War, his jacket is in the fashion of the 1770s and features apparent bullet holes and bloodstains, and he was dead and gone by the time his father died in 1783. But if he was indeed killed by British or Loyalist raiders, there is no smoking gun besides the material evidence of his jacket. What do we know about the man who wore it?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Obadiah’s father, Benjamin Mead, Jr., was a prominent Greenwich resident and part of the expansive and old Connecticut Mead family. Born in 1729, Benjamin married Mary M. Reynolds in 1751 and together they had five children, including Obadiah in 1759 (1). Obadiah’s schooling began in May of 1769, according to his father’s account book (2). From the beginning of the Revolutionary War, Benjamin Mead supported the Revolutionary cause, helping to fund the erection of a cannon battery in Greenwich and the equipping and supply of local troops (3).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Obadiah, meanwhile, felt the same political leanings and served at least two stints in the state militia, including in Captain Mathew Mead’s Company of the Eleventh Regiment in August and September 1776 and between October 1776 and January 1777 under the same captain in the Ninth Regiment (4). He was still alive on May 2, 1779, when he delivered a load of provisions for troops to Horseneck, outside of Greenwich (5). By that time, he was apparently engaged to Charity Mead, a distant cousin, at a younger age than was common among Connecticut families (6).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">It was a dangerous time to live in Greenwich. Residents called it a “frontier situation” between British and Revolutionary forces (7). In 1778, Benjamin Mead’s horses, cows, and oxen were stolen in two nighttime separate raids, presumably by a “Tory Party," (8) In October of 1779, John and Amos Mead wrote to the state Assembly to report the “</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">frequent Incursions of the Enemy in to the said town, they have made great ravages upon the good Citizens there, in plundering many of their Houses, Burning some of their Buildings, Captivating many of the Inhabitants who have been long confined in their Goals, where several are to this time languishing under the mercyless hand of tyranny,” (9). Notably, however, they did not mention any deaths. Such incursions continued for the rest of the war. Benjamin Mead’s taxes were abated for several years during the war in compensation for his losses. He owned and lost more than most people in Greenwich; his abated taxes were among the highest in the town and a 1783 inspection noted that he had lost at least </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">£</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">100 worth of property since 1779 (10). And, at some point during the War, he lost his only son. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">We still don’t know how. Although many of the Mead family’s papers survive, including Benjamin Jr.’s account book and personal papers, Connecticut state records, legal documents, and family correspondence, none of the ones I've discovered</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> describe or even note Obadiah’s death (11).</span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> It is possible that such a record exists in another collection or archive, perhaps even in Great Britain, but I </span><span style="font-size: 14.666666984558105px;">haven't</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> found it. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">In fact, the earliest direct description of Obadiah’s death appeared frustratingly late, in an 1895 newspaper article:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">“…a raid was made upon this place. The son, Obadiah, hid himself in a neighbor's barn, standing just south of the southeast orchard. Some one of the Tory neighbors, knowing the fact, informed the red-coats who surrounded the barn, threatening to set fire to it and to smoke him out. To escape their clutches, he ran from the barn across the orchard to jump down the rocks to "Dyspepsia Lane." He was followed, however, by the soldiers. Obadiah, seeing the impossibility of escaping, surrendered. He was then at once shot, the ball passing through his left arm and entering his side, killing him instantly. The coat he wore, showing the bullet holes, which has been so carefully preserved all these years, was inspected by all the company present.” (12)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">The story was largely repeated, sometimes with more dramatic flair, in later accounts of Mead’s death (13).</span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> An undated late nineteenth or early twentieth-century genealogical document in the Mead family papers at the Connecticut Historical Society includes quotation marks suggesting it was copied from another document and reads: “Obadiah Mead, son of Benjamin Mead departed this life the 26 day of June in the year 1780. In the contest between the United States and Great Britain, aged 21 years and one month" (14).</span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> The last account </span><span style="font-size: 14.666666984558105px;">related</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> to Obadiah in his father’s account book is in regards to settling an old debt on October 17, 1783 (15).</span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> Obadiah does not appear in his father’s will, likely prepared that same year (16). </span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">His burial site was forgotten by the time the story was recorded in the nineteenth century and there is no mention of his life or death in various state-wide archival catalogs maintained by the Connecticut State Library (17).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">And so, all that remained of Obadiah Mead after a century was a peculiar linen jacket, torn and bloo<span style="font-family: inherit;">died, preserved as a relic of one family’s Revolutionary sacrifice. What can that jacket tell us about the Revolutionary War? Find out in Part Two!<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">* * * * *</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: xx-small;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Thanks to the Greenwich Historical Society and the University of Delaware for supporting the research behind these blog posts. I am very grateful for the technical insights of James L. Kochan, Matthew Skic, Neal Hurst, and Keith Minsinger; the gracious hosting of the Perry-Englund family; and for most everything else to Nicole Belolan.</span></i></span> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(1) Spencer P. Mead, <i>History and Genealogy of the Mead
Family of Fairfield County, Connecticut, Western New York, Western Vermont, and
Western Pennsylvania, from A.D. 1180 to 1900 </i>(New York: The Knickerbocker
Press, 1901), 389.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(2) Account Book of Benjamin Mead Jr., 1765-1779, Mss 641,
New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(3) Ibid. See also Letter, Benjamin Mead Jr. to “Sir,”
February 14, 1780, Document 72b, Volume 30 Part II/Reel 150, Connecticut
Archives, Revolutionary War, 1763-1789.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(4) Henry P. Johnston, ed., <i>The Record of Connecticut Men in
the Military and Naval Service During the War of the Revolution, 1775-1783</i>
(Hartford, CT: The Adjutant General’s Office, 1889), 457 and 487.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(5) Document 416, Volume 25/Reel 145, Connecticut Archives,
Revolutionary War, 1763-1789.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(6) Mead, History and Genealogy, 389. For a recent study of
two men who grew up in Connecticut at the same time as Obadiah Mead, see
Virginia DeJohn Anderson, <i>The Martyr and the Traitor: Nathan Hale, Moses
Dunbar, and the American Revolution</i> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017),
including commentary on marriages, 23-31.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(7) Letter, John Mead and Amos Mead to the Assembly, October
27, 1779, Document 267, Volume 15/Reel 135, and Committee Report, May 12, 1780,
Document 266, Volume 18/Reel 138, Connecticut Archives, Revolutionary War,
1763-1789. For more on the relations of opposing sides in this region, see
Judith L. Van Buskirk, <i>Generous Enemies: Patriots and Loyalists in
Revolutionary New York</i> (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(8) Account Book of Benjamin Mead Jr., 1765-1779, Mss 641,
New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(9) Letter, John Mead and Amos Mead to the Assembly, October
27, 1779, Document 267, Volume 15/Reel 135, Connecticut Archives, Revolutionary
War, 1763-1789.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(10) Report, December 27, 1783, Document 19, Volume 36, Part
I/Reel 156, Connecticut Archives, Revolutionary War, 1763-1789. See also
reports of tax abatements throughout this document set: Report, December 24,
1779, Document 271c, Volume 15/Reel 135; Report, May 12, 1780, Document 266,
Volume 18/Reel 138; Report, October 6, 1780, Document 80, Volume 19/Reel 139;
Report, October 2, 1782, Document 274g, Volume 24/Reel 144.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(11) As part of this research, I visited the collections of
the New England Historic Genealogical Society (Boston, MA), the Connecticut
Historical Society (Hartford), and the Connecticut State Library (Hartford). I
am also grateful to the Greenwich (Connecticut) Historical Society for allowing
me access to their collections files on Mead’s jacket, which directed me to
several of the secondary sources cited here.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(12) “A History of the Hyde Branch Read by One of the
Descendants,” <i>Greenwich Graphic</i>, October 26, 1895. A typographical error of a
period in place of a comma after “however” has been silently corrected here.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(13) See, for example, <i>Commemorative Biographical Record of
Fairfield County, Connecticut</i> (Chicago: J. H. Beers & Co., 1899), 361;
Mead, <i>History and Genealogy</i>, 60–61; Spencer P. Mead, <i>Ye Historie of Ye Town of Greenwich</i> (New York:
The Knickerbocker Press, 1911), 147.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(14) For this and other records of this branch of the Mead
family, see Mead Family Papers, 1764-1897, MS 79427, and Benjamin and Obadiah
Mead papers, 1751-1877, MS 63965, Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(15) Account Book of Benjamin Mead Jr., 1765-1779, Mss 641,
New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(16) The copy of Mead’s will in the Connecticut State
Library Archives is somewhat problematic because it is dated (on its exterior)
1786 and 1788, though he died in 1783 according to Spencer, History, 389. See
Mead collection of Greenwich items including bonds, deeds and estate papers
relating to the Mead family, 1755-1858, Connecticut State Library, Hartford.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(17) Mead, <i>History and Genealogy</i>, 61. There are no entries for this
particular Obadiah Mead in the following card catalogs maintained by the
Connecticut State Library: Barbour Collection Town Vital Records, Church
Records Index, Family Bible Records, Newspaper Death Notices, Newspaper
Marriage Notices, Probate Estate Papers, and Veterans’ Death Records.</span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-81587898584673392792020-03-16T14:40:00.000-07:002020-03-16T14:54:44.756-07:00Oh, Well<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
A couple months ago, I took an unusual path out of work after dark and passed by an excavation pit in the middle of one of Old City Philadelphia’s original street blocks. I’m always curious about what such digging is turning up, but it took a while to figure out exactly where I was. Beginning in the 1680s, William Penn and other planners envisioned an city built on an orderly grid pattern. They mostly got it, especially when you compare Philadelphia’s street plan to those of other cities, like Boston, the developed more organically into spiderwebs instead of grids. But early in the Philadelphia's history people subdivided their property and cut alleyways in between the main streets. These alleys came and went over time, to the extent that whole websites and articles (like <a href="http://www.philahistory.net/alleys.html">this one</a>, <a href="https://www.phillyhistory.org/historicstreets/default.aspx">this one</a>, and <a href="https://hiddencityphila.org/2014/01/pedestrian-streets-past-present-and-future-footways/">this one</a>) are now devoted to puzzling out their names and which ones still exist. My personal favorite is Little Boy's Court, purportedly the only street with extant 18th-century cobble- and pebblestone paving (and also adjoining the site where developers partially destroyed an 18th-century burying ground in 2017 before archaeologists began salvage operations and <a href="https://archstbones.org/">study of the human remains</a>).</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDK90R9dTvobY4Wr7DyJ4PJHX_bgUeBaNSqAy6g3urEDEgxo8K83WvFsmIjnWhO_B6CUhu-4ekSYhNcHT0ugSH2QnvmkD4s2W5IbUSTKo5ZObcw7VEpvmEVHe76G4cJikAvpLx8HyWYR7q/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-03-16+at+5.19.43+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1011" data-original-width="1291" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDK90R9dTvobY4Wr7DyJ4PJHX_bgUeBaNSqAy6g3urEDEgxo8K83WvFsmIjnWhO_B6CUhu-4ekSYhNcHT0ugSH2QnvmkD4s2W5IbUSTKo5ZObcw7VEpvmEVHe76G4cJikAvpLx8HyWYR7q/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-03-16+at+5.19.43+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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A Google street view of Little Boy's Court</div>
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The excavation I came across is at the corner of today’s Bank Street and Elbow Lane, in the block bounded by Second and Third Streets and Chestnut and Market Streets. If Google is any guide, there hasn’t been a structure there for some time. But by the looks of it, someone is digging a new foundation for a building. That’s the sort of digging in Philadelphia that usually disturbs archaeological remains. But, as I’ve written elsewhere, there’s no legal mandate or practical apparatus to enforce archaeological excavations on private sites (unless a federal permit is required). That means that most such excavations destroy archaeological remains without any documentation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDjVbhR05sTiWhKOkRRom-LOsXF7bFacRas5O7B3T8-irJiIV-Lj-rTwnxWbx3j77UZacfra0V-tKr5w0l5XvfzA8_3FafrVlmSlTTrTUvcSIlni8UAKxPXBTDG2hyphenhyphenUBpQH0AV5d6LTjLd/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-03-16+at+5.24.15+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1006" data-original-width="979" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDjVbhR05sTiWhKOkRRom-LOsXF7bFacRas5O7B3T8-irJiIV-Lj-rTwnxWbx3j77UZacfra0V-tKr5w0l5XvfzA8_3FafrVlmSlTTrTUvcSIlni8UAKxPXBTDG2hyphenhyphenUBpQH0AV5d6LTjLd/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-03-16+at+5.24.15+PM.png" width="311" /></a></div>
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A Google map of the block in question. The lot is the blank gray rectangle above Bella Bridesmaids</div>
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I was particularly excited – or, perhaps, disheartened – to see a distinctive standing column of bricks on one edge of the excavation. Because it was empty, I knew it was a well shaft rather than a privy (privies – used as toilets – were gradually filled and remain so when uncovered today). Unfortunately, but the time I returned to photograph it in daylight two days later, it had already been removed by excavators. You could see a few artifacts scattered around the pit: mostly 20<sup>th</sup>-century bottles. But thanks to <a href="https://www.leviathant.com/">Matt Dunphy</a>, I did secure a few images of the well and another view of the site before its destruction.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A view of the well against Elbow Lane. This view was taken facing south, standing on the narrow alley now called Bodine Street</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuUdPHtCOum5_FaCEeQWbNG1L9G3k2xNJnbmS5e1n6o5MGqBKOBvueIMs88S9DPNv41478-bUYeQvdVCSUgQu5-L1_Buqyx6j6i1pCJRm067cXoaJx0f8i9pVcw5lUU2Afkxf6dzcmWFpB/s1600/IMG_20191204_145637.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuUdPHtCOum5_FaCEeQWbNG1L9G3k2xNJnbmS5e1n6o5MGqBKOBvueIMs88S9DPNv41478-bUYeQvdVCSUgQu5-L1_Buqyx6j6i1pCJRm067cXoaJx0f8i9pVcw5lUU2Afkxf6dzcmWFpB/s320/IMG_20191204_145637.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Looking north from Elbow Lane (Bodine Street is on the left), you can also see a brick archway near the bottom of the excavation. This shot was taken standing almost directly above the well</div>
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I got curious about this lot’s history and the well’s potential origins. In the eighteenth century, the southern end of Bank Street was called White Horse Alley, and Elbow Lane was a more literal elbow: coming down from High (now Market) Street and making a ninety-degree westward turn in the middle of the block. Without going into too much detail (or, frankly, too much research on my part), it’s interesting to find a few traces of the lot in digitized sources and to speculate on who might have used the well.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Despite their apparent orderliness, it’s notoriously hard to puzzle out the history of Philadelphia houses for a couple reasons. Most importantly, addresses <a href="https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/street-numbering/">have changed</a>, most notably when they were renumbered around 1856. This latter change involved the implementation of the "Philadelphia System," now common in many other places, in which each block of a given street is assigned to a set of 100 numbers. In other words, for example, houses stand in the 600 block. When you cross a major street, the next house numbers begin at 700 and 701, on either side.</div>
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Scharf and Westcott’s famous 1884 <i>History of Philadelphia</i> noted that there was a brewery on <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=w0sOAAAAIAAJ&q=%22elbow+lane%22#v=onepage&q=%22corner%20of%20elbow%20lane%22&f=false">the corner of Elbow Lane</a> and White Horse Alley as early as 1737. George Gray (namesake of gray’s ferry) operated the brewey beginning in 1752, and his widow Mary kept up the business after his death. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I think that the brewery must have been on the southwest corner of the intersection, and that the structure on the lot I saw under excavation was the three-story brick house listed as being on the northwest corner in this 1791 advertisement:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG34lwLOXBFFY0f0PKWjtU1gNeWQsmFQ8Fjznwp7I_-pxeuFYsyJZXrNu0Qa9V3xWDv1Y2sI9y-pKEGjAv_EseTKKeBi_w5_NnK8sWNKAFkeT5CooRQ-VpTPHy4iIK9ZUCjOH74fKwnaq3/s1600/Dunlap%2527s+American+Daily+Advertiser%252C+January+10%252C+1791.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="769" data-original-width="693" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG34lwLOXBFFY0f0PKWjtU1gNeWQsmFQ8Fjznwp7I_-pxeuFYsyJZXrNu0Qa9V3xWDv1Y2sI9y-pKEGjAv_EseTKKeBi_w5_NnK8sWNKAFkeT5CooRQ-VpTPHy4iIK9ZUCjOH74fKwnaq3/s320/Dunlap%2527s+American+Daily+Advertiser%252C+January+10%252C+1791.png" width="288" /></a></div>
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From Dunlap's American Daily Advertiser, January 10, 1791</div>
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Shoemaker had been in the house since at least 1774, when he took out an insurance policy for the house from the <a href="http://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/contributionship/ho_display.cfm?RecordId=CONTRIB-S01825">Philadelphia Contributionship</a> (whose digital archives are one of the great and overlooked gems of Philadelphia's historical sources). It was an impressive place for the alley. At the time, it was 14 ½ feet wide and 28 feet deep and included two rooms on its first and second floors, plastered walls, stairs, and a plastered garret (its third story). Behind the house stood a 10 foot by 10 foot one-story kitchen. Either the kitchen or, perhaps, the kitchen and the whole house were 7 years old in 1774.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Shoemaker's policy from the Philadelphia Contributionship</div>
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The only city directories published before Shoemaker’s death list an address for him on Second Street, and it’s hard for me to tell exactly which number was assigned to the Elbow Lane lot. That makes it difficult to determine who bought Shoemaker’s house in 1791 (though it would be rather easy with an in-person title search, I imagine). The 1795 city directory was the first to be organized by lot (rather than alphabetically), so it gives us a glimpse of the residents of Elbow Lane at the time:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMxbQgaIhM4-P6I758AqdqH0FKrmnu5e0NBxVEW2q-4rz9cfZ3vLrxM0Q09DKgR_NLmon1Z9SanXrWlGCiPhfnhtD8gMEs0g9n-VQsAVNJMNX11KLLyhVA_L4dT4oaL5N7yDtHrGhaOUmm/s1600/Prospect+of+Philadelphia+%25281795+Directory%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="453" data-original-width="467" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMxbQgaIhM4-P6I758AqdqH0FKrmnu5e0NBxVEW2q-4rz9cfZ3vLrxM0Q09DKgR_NLmon1Z9SanXrWlGCiPhfnhtD8gMEs0g9n-VQsAVNJMNX11KLLyhVA_L4dT4oaL5N7yDtHrGhaOUmm/s320/Prospect+of+Philadelphia+%25281795+Directory%2529.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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From <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/philadelphiadire1795phil/page/n2/mode/2up">The Prospect of Philadelphia</a></i> (1795)</div>
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Though I only viewed them from the street above and in these images, the bricks and the well itself on the Elbow Lane edge of the lot looked, to me, to date from some time in the 19th century rather than to the earlier periods of occupation noted above. Perhaps it was even meant to offer water to others besides the residents of the building, given its proximity to the street itself. </div>
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Unfortunately, other than the images and cursory research here, there’s no longer a trace of this well or the other archaeological remains of the lot. Maybe someday I’ll do a bit more archival digging and see if I can come up with the later history of this lot. For now, we’ll leave the scene in 1791. And not for nothing, but that’s just in time to avoid one of Philadelphia’s first epidemics, the yellow fever outbreak of 1793. Sometimes it’s hard to escape the present, even in the past. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-91327623834665968612019-11-26T13:25:00.000-08:002019-11-26T13:25:16.086-08:00A Pipe Kiln Waster and ImperfectionI've long been attracted to antique ceramics that exhibit accidental signs of their production. Aesthetic flaws that might take away from decorative value are what draw me to old pottery. As <a href="http://nicolebelolan.org/">Nicole</a> can testify, I pick up and flip over old stoneware crocks at the antique shops we visit to look for these things. I love misshapen crocks, pieces of other pottery adhered to finished ones, scars from the small clay "furniture" used to stack things in a kiln, and "turkey droppings" of excess glaze. Sometimes you can detect the streaks and impressions of the potter's hands and even individual fingerprints. Old bricks occasional feature animal footprints from creatures that got into a brickyard as things were drying. Dramatic kiln failures, unsuitable for sale, were called "wasters," and discarded at the kiln sites themselves.<br />
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<img height="200" src="https://cdn0.rubylane.com/_pod/item/1439788/Stonewarex20Jug/Antique-Stoneware-Jug-Orange-Peel-Turkey-full-1A-700%3a10.10-5008401a-f.webp" width="200" /> <img height="200" src="https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/vagAAOSwsrlcOkx9/s-l1600.jpg" width="176" /> <img alt="Kiln Waster, 1640-1660, Musueum no. C.10-2005" height="200" src="http://www.vam.ac.uk/__data/assets/image/0019/230671/62303-large_290x435.jpg" width="133" /> <img alt="Clay brick with footprint of a cat paws, Ur 2112 BC – 2004 BCE" height="200" src="https://img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/aD1bw9N_460s.jpg" width="178" /></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Examples of turkey droppings, a potter's fingerprint, a 16th-century Dutch kiln waster, and a 4000-year-old tile with a cat footprint from <a href="https://www.rubylane.com/item/1439788-Stonewarex20Jug/Antique-Stoneware-Jug-Orange-Peel-Turkey">Ruby Lane</a>, <a href="https://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-Vtg-19th-C-Small-Pottery-Jar-Half-Glazed-W-Potters-Fingerprint-Stoneware-/333155447445?nma=true&si=2OEYg0opf6tMMKvwhBBmGh0zJao%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557">Ebay</a>, <a href="http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/journals/research-journal/issue-02/review-the-childrens-book-by-a-s-byatt/">the V&A</a>, and <a href="https://m.9gag.com/gag/aD1bw9N">here</a>.</span></div>
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What could be more interesting than these little material signatures of some past failure? I far prefer flawed objects to perfect ones. And sometimes it's not accidental. Navajo rug weavers deliberately introduce flaws into their work. Japanese culture values <i>wabi-sabi</i>, an acceptance of natural imperfection. That sort of acceptance is not a strength of "Western" cultures, even if many people believe that perfection <i>is</i> best left to God.<br />
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<img alt="Detail of Navajo textile" height="257" src="https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/mar/article/download/1033/2037/8023" width="320" /></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">A "spiritline" in a Navajo rug that Western eyes might read as an unacceptable imperfection. From the Smithsonian Museum of American History, <a href="https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/mar/article/view/1033/2037">here</a>.</span></div>
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My most moving experience during a recent <a href="https://limeworks.us/events/hands-on-workshops/">class</a> I took on historic window restoration was when the craftsman leading the workshop was examining a century-old plate glass window and detected, in the awkward streak of glass on top of the pane's surface, evidence of an accident during production. "This is an amazing piece of glass," he said, staring into the pane, "See that streak, that odd blob? Someone messed up. That's someone in the shop tripping and accidentally throwing a bit of glass onto this finished pane." You could almost hear the echoes of a glassblower cursing his clumsiness across a century of time.<br />
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Since seeing it on my colleague Brenda Hornsby Heindl's <a href="http://libertystoneware.blogspot.com/">blog</a> in 2013, I've also coveted a particularly sculptural failure she acquired, a fused waster of mid-nineteenth century pipe heads uncovered on a kiln site in Ohio. This accident could hardly be more artistic, to my eye, if someone had tried to create it on purpose.<br />
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<img height="236" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sRP1KG3m5us/UP8ytWyeHgI/AAAAAAAAFTI/JohhKg87XKg/s400/Pipes1.jpg" width="400" /></div>
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From <a href="http://libertystoneware.blogspot.com/2013/01/pipes-and-kiln-blobs.html">Liberty Stoneware</a></div>
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I was in Gettysburg this past weekend when, in one of the town's innumerable relic shops, I came across a small example of a similar accident, this one from the 1860s kiln of John Taber of Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. Taber was a prolific potter who produced distinctive redware clay pipe heads (smoked by inserting a reed stem into a socket next to the bowl) which have been found on archaeological sites across the country. In the late twentieth century, it seems that someone (not an archaeologist) dug Taber's kiln site. Many of the recovered pipe heads have subsequently made it onto the <a href="https://www.winterberryfarmprimitives.com/product-page/civil-war-era-redware-bowl-pipes">antiques market</a>. The dealer I visited had a number of intact pipe heads, but what caught my eye was a waster: two heads that had collapsed and fused together.<br />
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Normally I don't buy "dug" materials. You can find plenty of things in antique shops that have been excavated by people for fun from battlefields, privy pits, and homestead sites. Without any written documents or records, and with none of the attention to detail that professional archaeologists deploy to capture information about the past through the buried records, these individuals effectively loot our collective heritage for fun and profit. Purchasing dug items encourages the ongoing excavation of similar things.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1r1KpXGaxuHpqgYibhmw3z51tN5JSqecfH35m4D_J0Qq7QVSehwfrdnjy3DH1muYtW1m-lBSdH-qeNkFJYd0NkQUfaTqL0csvtAIwadm2sR8pRQ2uyS3StipVCWSIUXZX5VarkJEdswoW/s1600/IMG_6744.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1r1KpXGaxuHpqgYibhmw3z51tN5JSqecfH35m4D_J0Qq7QVSehwfrdnjy3DH1muYtW1m-lBSdH-qeNkFJYd0NkQUfaTqL0csvtAIwadm2sR8pRQ2uyS3StipVCWSIUXZX5VarkJEdswoW/s320/IMG_6744.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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In this case, however, I couldn't resist an ethical compromise. It's unfortunate that whoever dug Taber's kiln site doesn't seem to have left any record of what they found. But in this small artifact, we can see the shadow of an accident that happened 150 years ago. It reminds me that things rarely end up as we intend. It reminds us to look for the beauty in the imperfect. No good for smoking - no good for most anything in 1865 - this bit of trash, it turns out, is quite good for thinking.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-91671931173896660102018-11-06T15:09:00.001-08:002018-11-06T15:09:52.528-08:00"Continental" Jackets<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Around June 24 or 25, 1777, John
Mills, a swarthy, twenty-year-old New Jersey native deserted from George Ross’s
company of the 11<sup>th</sup> Pennsylvania Regiment. Mills was one of
thousands of Revolutionary War deserters. What made him unique, at least among runaway
ads for these sorts of soldiers, was one of his garments. Two advertisements
appeared from Mills that summer, both in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pennsylvania Packet</i>. One noted his “white Continental jacket” and
the second “a white Continental under ditto [jacket].” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">These are the only references to a “Continental
jacket/underjacket” I’ve encountered, and Captain George Ross certainly meant some sort
of waistcoat (that's what these </span>words usually referred to)<span style="font-family: inherit;">. But what made it Continental? Was it unique in its cut, material,
or buttons? Perhaps it was one of the short-cut, <a href="http://museumblog.winterthur.org/2016/01/06/stand-fast-in-the-liberty-a-rare-waistcoat-belt/">belted waistcoats</a> that were
becoming popular among American soldiers. Or perhaps it was something else
entirely, whether some peculiar uniform or a more mundane garment with a label
unique to Ross’s vocabulary. Without more evidence, it’s impossible to say. If
you’ve ever seen another reference to such a garment, I’d love to hear from
you.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-75687046890904482382018-07-14T17:00:00.000-07:002018-07-14T17:00:03.998-07:00Introducing Will, Grace, and World War OneIn 2015, in the process of cleaning out the estate of a family friend, my parents came across a nondescript brown paper grocery bag headed for the trash. It contained the letters and paperwork of a Michigan couple named William and Grace Foote. In 1918, Will shipped out for France with the Y.M.C.A. Over the next year, he sent home dozens of letters that his wife Grace carefully preserved. Those letters tell stories of everyday life in France, of petty quarrels and minor ambitions, and of a world war.<br />
<br />
You can follow these stories, day by day, a century after they happened, at <a href="https://willgracewwi.blogspot.com/">Will, Grace, and World War One</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYOToyBvETwFSRbc0HmNmsD9IWmQL0GxhJnoku6HDmEigfQXpAVzGy7oK4_BlAf68_fiFNQPXbrGGFB2ELSY0r7nYVKEyfRCc8VEtHS6GB9Ix0e6OWnJkhtkjb7f84tMHCMx66q7lY63xs/s1600/IMG_4252.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1571" data-original-width="1600" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYOToyBvETwFSRbc0HmNmsD9IWmQL0GxhJnoku6HDmEigfQXpAVzGy7oK4_BlAf68_fiFNQPXbrGGFB2ELSY0r7nYVKEyfRCc8VEtHS6GB9Ix0e6OWnJkhtkjb7f84tMHCMx66q7lY63xs/s400/IMG_4252.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-87391972616553397292018-07-11T21:18:00.000-07:002018-07-11T21:18:38.250-07:00Dismantling 239 Chestnut Street<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Demolition is mostly only dramatic at the start. The final fate of 239 Chesnut Street, as I wrote about earlier this year at "<a href="https://hiddencityphila.org/2018/03/repeating-history-in-old-city-after-chestnut-street-fire/">Hidden City Philadelphia</a>" and on <a href="http://ranawayfromthesubscriber.blogspot.com/2018/03/two-fires-on-chestnut-street.html">this blog</a>, began with a bang and a dramatic fire on February 18 and ended with a whimper that is still faintly audible. After a month of investigations and stabilizations (and a <span style="font-family: inherit;">laser scan of the building's fa<span style="color: #222222;">ç</span>ad</span>e, in the hope that it might someday be replaced), work crews began disassembling the building in March. </div>
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Now, for the first time since 1852, only empty space fills the lot at 239 Chestnut Street. What comes next depends, as usual, on money. The revival of the neighborhood means that sooner or later someone other than nature will pay to fill the vacuum here. I hope that will come with an effort to learn more about this space and its place in Philadelphia's history. Right across the street, <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/20160520_Philly_s_revolutionary_history_unearthed_beneath_museum_site.html">archaeologists</a> working on the same sub-basement level as what remains undisturbed at 239 Chestnut Street made a series of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/13/arts/design/american-holy-grail-punch-bowl-to-go-on-display.html">amazing discoveries</a> in 2014-2016 ahead of the construction of the Museum of the American Revolution. </div>
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The silver lining waiting here - if we care enough to ensure it is gleaned - is a chance we never would have had otherwise, to look beneath what was once 239 Chestnut Street before it becomes 239 Chestnut Street again.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQGyxTt1hgrug1-DFQXMb5X_FIN-n4Xjd58NfOW2EVKbnaSGIDAWNcnsddLry851y26p3TRnFzRrAre3Viig50QCuanUimCw2wUg6CccYpWRTvVDOp3cTmwzHNknFTxKb_PZa4U2Sm2DqL/s1600/022018__1840.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQGyxTt1hgrug1-DFQXMb5X_FIN-n4Xjd58NfOW2EVKbnaSGIDAWNcnsddLry851y26p3TRnFzRrAre3Viig50QCuanUimCw2wUg6CccYpWRTvVDOp3cTmwzHNknFTxKb_PZa4U2Sm2DqL/s400/022018__1840.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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February 20, 2018</div>
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February 20, 2018</div>
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March 29, 2018</div>
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April 9, 2018</div>
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April 11, 2018</div>
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April 13, 2018</div>
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April 13, 2018</div>
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April 13, 2018</div>
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April 15, 2018</div>
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May 3, 2018</div>
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May 3, 2018</div>
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May 3, 2018</div>
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May 23, 2018</div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-4572762645400008682018-06-25T16:18:00.003-07:002018-06-27T19:41:08.613-07:00Flax to Linen, the 1765 Way, Part VIII: Weaving and Conclusion<span style="font-family: inherit;">Four summers and a thousand years ago, to paraphrase a line from the 1975 film <i>The Man Who Would be King</i>, I planted a garden in the yard of the Cooch House outside Newark, Delaware. It proved a welcome distraction as I worked my way through several hundred books in preparation for my PhD comprehensive exams. In that garden I planted a small patch of flax, with the goal of using <span style="background-color: white;">John Wily's 1765 </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif; font-size: 13px;"><i>Treatise on the Propagation of Sheep, the Manufacture of Wool, and the Cultivation and Manufacture of Flax</i><span style="background-color: white;"><i> </i>as a guide to see flax seed all the way to woven linen</span></span>.</span><br />
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It wasn't the first or the last time I grew flax; I also planted it on the Winterthur estate in 2010 and at a University of Delaware community garden in 2016. But so far it's the only time I've managed to actually actually make linen. <a href="http://nicolebelolan.org/">Nicole</a> and I retted, heckled, spun, and wove flax into linen over the course of four years, two states, and three homes. That's a pace that would make any eighteenth-century farmer laugh, but luckily my agricultural pursuits thus far have been purely avocational.<br />
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When I last <a href="http://ranawayfromthesubscriber.blogspot.com/2017/03/flax-to-linen-1765-way-part-vii.html">checked in</a> about this project in March of 2017, my yarns were bucked and ready for weaving. "The weaving of Linen I suppose I need say little about," wrote John Wily somewhat unhelpfully, "as it is wove in the plain Way." Without enough linen yarn to warp a large loom (or, for that matter, without a large loom to warp), I instead borrowed a friend's small tape loom, used to weave narrow trims and ribbons ("tapes") and got to work one day this spring.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The tape loom warped and ready for weaving to begin.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The tape as it nears completions.</span></div>
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I used about half of my stock of yarn, and weaving it into a strip was a quick job. Almost before I knew it, I had a 13"-long piece of half-inch linen tape. By a rough estimate, I think I have enough extra yarn that I could weave about twice that, meaning that my eight-square-foot patch of ground, planted at a 1765 seed density, yielded about 13 square inches of linen. I wouldn't take that as a conclusive insight into the productivity of linen in the eighteenth century. Most importantly, the yarns I spun were large and clumsy, meaning I generated <i>far </i>less yarn length than a skilled spinner would have.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7wxUptkTbV36R2XUFextl-U5_sIMnRVYn5EoIQ6H6MtgqsYV0fU1uWgV8uqf9gQO7BdoKcQnzx4gxJV7r1xXyZOr2x8OFSOzDsyMikakR7hNWGuTvRGGS7LK6v6EopQggfK85B-VNbWUR/s1600/Flax2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="649" data-original-width="844" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7wxUptkTbV36R2XUFextl-U5_sIMnRVYn5EoIQ6H6MtgqsYV0fU1uWgV8uqf9gQO7BdoKcQnzx4gxJV7r1xXyZOr2x8OFSOzDsyMikakR7hNWGuTvRGGS7LK6v6EopQggfK85B-VNbWUR/s320/Flax2.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Details of the woven tape.</span></div>
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Wily discussed bleaching (whitening linen) in a bit more detail than weaving, though he was honest about the limits of his knowledge: "This process I must confess I never saw performed." I decided not to bleach my linen, mostly for aesthetic reasons. My tape looks pleasingly natural and, anyway, people didn't always bleach their linen in the eighteenth century, either. Anyone with ambitions to do so only needs a grassy yard, some soft cow dung, a bit of lye, and some sour milk.<br />
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That meant I had finished making linen, long after my comprehensive exams and on the other end of a trans-Atlantic voyage, a wedding, two moves, nine cat rescues, a new job, and four years. John Wily didn't offer much insights into all those other steps, but they were part of my own process nonetheless.<br />
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In 1769, a few years after he published his book, John Wily wrote to the <i>Virginia Gazette</i>, still advocating for the domestic production of cloth in the face of British oppression. More than anything, it is the charming nature of his humility that reaches out across two hundred and fifty years. "To conclude," he wrote at the end of his letter, "I must beg leave to inform the readers I am but a poor Buckskin, with a slender education; therefore hope no one will be offended at this poor unpolished piece, but kindly accept of it as my honest endeavors herein to serve my country."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-9524338166885391452018-03-13T19:21:00.003-07:002018-03-13T19:23:56.586-07:00Two Fires on Chestnut Street<span style="font-family: inherit;">A piece I wrote for "Hidden City Philadelphia" is live over at their site for those interested in historic structures, Old City Philadelphia, and the fragility of our built environment:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://hiddencityphila.org/2018/03/repeating-history-in-old-city-after-chestnut-street-fire/">https://hiddencityphila.org/2018/03/repeating-history-in-old-city-after-chestnut-street-fire/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And in case you want to learn more, the source material for this article can be found in:</span><br />
<i style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></i>
<i style="font-family: inherit;">The Daily Age</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> (Philadelphia, PA), March 1, 1864</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Philadelphia Inquirer</i>, March 5, March 8, May 20, and May 24, 1872</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Public Ledger </i>(Philadelphia, PA)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">,</i> July 10, 1852, and March 18, 1872</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Public Ledger Almanac, 1883</i> (Philadelphia: George W. Childs, 1882)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ken Finkel, "The Jayne Building: Chestnut Street's Coulda-Shoulda-Woulda," <i>The PhillyHistory Blog</i>, November 11, 2013, <a href="https://www.phillyhistory.org/blog/index.php/2013/11/the-jayne-building-chestnut-streets-woulda-coulda-shoulda/">https://www.phillyhistory.org/blog/index.php/2013/11/the-jayne-building-chestnut-streets-woulda-coulda-shoulda/</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Richard Webster, "Chestnut Street Study Area," Historic American Buildings Survey, before 1976, <a href="http://cdn.loc.gov/master/pnp/habshaer/pa/pa1100/pa1149/data/pa1149data.pdf">http://cdn.loc.gov/master/pnp/habshaer/pa/pa1100/pa1149/data/pa1149data.pdf</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Winston Weisman, “Philadelphia Functionalism and Sullivan,” <i>Journal of the Society of Architectural </i><i>Historians</i> 20, no. 1 (March 1961), 14.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-22229599733253013662018-02-26T13:34:00.003-08:002018-02-27T18:46:58.619-08:00More from the Wreck of the Mast Ship St. George<span style="font-family: inherit;">Longtime readers of this blog or new visitors may have seen my post (<a href="http://pickingforpleasure.blogspot.com/2013/01/cloth-covered-buttons-from-mast-ship-st.html">which originated on Nicole's blog</a>) four years ago about cloth-covered buttons from the 1764 wreck of the British mast ship <i>St. George</i> near Hampton, New Hampshire.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="106" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4eBHvzGv0bPk1zZ-MqpYxbxs9kQe8sy_4sTz3YW8fE7sw_ZBO6oNMNgA1n2rOkpSl322CnnnJZxTSdxSw_KDN7L3EbjyQP7LVfk5RbYIfq316uGxemneZ457rH1PD-jrJeUKgrYwbld2_/s320/Gazette.png" width="320" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><span style="text-align: start;">From </span><i style="text-align: start;">The New Hampshire Gazette and Historical Chronicle, </i><span style="background-color: white; text-align: start;">December 7, 1764.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Just recently, a descendant of Christopher Toppan, who oversaw the salvage of the wreck in the winter of 1764-1765, contacted me to say that she had in her possession similar buttons. Even more remarkably, Lori Cotter and her cousin Michael Toppan also have a document detailing payments made by Christopher Toppan to townspeople for salvage work on "The St. George, Mastship lost on Hampton Beach." The document, and its association with surviving buttons, finally proves the identity of the ship, its connection to Toppan, and the story of the buttons, things that remained uncertain when I last wrote. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8UeSjQZDnpM7C5m9Znhn0POTKMzIVdmyyBWk_UMfjcujO0rvdOJSUfbCIQNqCOR6fJyrszyuDn0YWq8xWr4oXa71QAqj6u0mQN1D8CQ0qhuPYIKXNEJC-ORStEu6Pe4KHuvqIKRFfyIZv/s1600/Toppan+Doc+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8UeSjQZDnpM7C5m9Znhn0POTKMzIVdmyyBWk_UMfjcujO0rvdOJSUfbCIQNqCOR6fJyrszyuDn0YWq8xWr4oXa71QAqj6u0mQN1D8CQ0qhuPYIKXNEJC-ORStEu6Pe4KHuvqIKRFfyIZv/s320/Toppan+Doc+1.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfk8xvTaD2b1TSOISGWl4FkP-ba5eaPxefxlwHxwWcSu0Kz5YRNFlsuQtiRffHb4fn5TpXQgbggj0LteT1f1Bw8IXm09IWIs38c7tcYBK_JgzzhisA3RZ0A3YepLcTRIXBaqK97f3d3n8V/s1600/Toppan+Doc+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfk8xvTaD2b1TSOISGWl4FkP-ba5eaPxefxlwHxwWcSu0Kz5YRNFlsuQtiRffHb4fn5TpXQgbggj0LteT1f1Bw8IXm09IWIs38c7tcYBK_JgzzhisA3RZ0A3YepLcTRIXBaqK97f3d3n8V/s320/Toppan+Doc+3.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXD8bxWvijAwsH9ghRHp8k8NibcGGdPgNmePFnxbBTMlKabAAK_KFPb7ACLqD0oABhy-PyoBrfGCTKQ7rw1k_ATYReQD3CvFmG0Z604qyLKWEbASmIEfgHLBhwAyE7-IHk73ydMZza8gFa/s1600/Toppan+Docs+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXD8bxWvijAwsH9ghRHp8k8NibcGGdPgNmePFnxbBTMlKabAAK_KFPb7ACLqD0oABhy-PyoBrfGCTKQ7rw1k_ATYReQD3CvFmG0Z604qyLKWEbASmIEfgHLBhwAyE7-IHk73ydMZza8gFa/s320/Toppan+Docs+2.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But perhaps even more remarkably, Lori also shared images of two original packages of buttons. Based on the handwriting and paper, they are a remarkably rare-thing: eighteenth-century packaging material. It's possible these were assembled as the wreck's cargo was salvaged, but I suspect that they are actually the buttons' original shipping containers. In that case, they were assembled after the buttons were completed in England in 1764. Then the packages (containing large quantities of 7 1/2 and 9 1/2 dozen buttons, distinguished between larger "Coat" and smaller "Waiscoat" sizes) were probably placed in a crate or bale for transatlantic shipment. As far as I know, these may be the only eighteenth-century packages of imported buttons that exist. Thanks to Lori and her family for so carefully preserving them and sharing their story. You can read more about the early history of Hampton in a book Lori transcribed from an ancestor's records, available <a href="https://www.perpublisher.com/per127.html">here</a>.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRbpH_ynY-K-zAYNIoKGpCqviYFAlYWl7YmAPWBy8s8RfghXN7tPT3x60PTxMUv-Cw7y3uH1qSCSSPwUz3LgVKgzpvIx0q8qROxFTR5IjZaBMs8ElOtQx8giNuyQPa5Sv7ERK46eZQsn7-/s1600/Toppan+Buttons+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1524" data-original-width="1536" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRbpH_ynY-K-zAYNIoKGpCqviYFAlYWl7YmAPWBy8s8RfghXN7tPT3x60PTxMUv-Cw7y3uH1qSCSSPwUz3LgVKgzpvIx0q8qROxFTR5IjZaBMs8ElOtQx8giNuyQPa5Sv7ERK46eZQsn7-/s320/Toppan+Buttons+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-90271114960508017932017-04-29T19:52:00.000-07:002017-04-29T19:54:43.695-07:00The Arch Street Bones ProjectThis could be a long blog post. I have a lot of things to say about the <a href="https://hyperallergic.com/373393/the-arch-street-bones-project/">surprise discovery</a> of the remains of the historic burial ground of the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia, uncovered during a construction project on Arch Street <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/20161102_Old_bones_turn_up_during_construction__regulatory_agencies_shrug.html">last fall</a>. As an archaeological site, the burial ground was partially destroyed by construction equipment operating there. It was only through the intervention of some dedicated (volunteer) archaeologists that any real archaeology was completed at all, and that work was speedy and only a few steps ahead of the backhoes. I could easily lament the rather shameful disengagement of various local and state agencies who <a href="https://hyperallergic.com/373393/the-arch-street-bones-project/">claimed they lacked jurisdiction over human remains and/or the site</a>.<br />
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And we could certainly discuss the lack of any real enforcement mechanism for the cultural heritage guidelines Philadelphia and Pennsylvania have on the books. I have strong feelings about how a city that prides itself on its cultural heritage simultaneously ignores the rampant destruction of archaeological resources on private land (often despite the laudable advocacy of organizations such as the <a href="http://www.phillyarchaeology.net/">Philadelphia Archaeological Forum</a>). In 2014, for example, <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/news/Race-to-dig-at-historic-cemetery-a-mere-hint-of-what-ails-Philadelphias-oversight-of-buried-treasures.html">a site at the corner of Third and Market</a> that included a number of eighteenth-century foundations, privies, and wells was destroyed and looted by private collectors. All legal. All to the great detriment of each of us, because each of us owns the legacy of the people, many anonymous, enslaved, and forgotten, whose only traces are things like broken bits of pottery thrown down a well and the human bones that lie buried under our feet. These are artifacts that can tell profound stories about our ancestors.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo by Evi Numen, from <a href="http://hyperallergic.com/">hyperallergic.com</a></span></div>
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But I want to get right to the point. Now that the eighteenth-century human remains found on Arch Street - over seventy individuals and many more fragmentary bits - are above ground, they are in urgent need of proper storage, conservation, and analysis. However you feel about the conditions of their recovery, we can probably all agree that the least we can do for the people who were buried on Arch Street - and for ourselves, because of all the things we can learn about our predecessors from studying their bones - is restore some sense of individuality and humanity to their remains. Thanks to the dedication of a few ke<span style="font-family: inherit;">y volunteers, the Mütter</span> Museum, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, and other institutions, <a href="http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/healthscience/103074-archaeologists-embark-on-next-phase-of-arch-street-excavation-project-photos">this work has begun</a>. It needs your support.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Take a minute to consider the <a href="http://arch-street-bones-project-43170.causevox.com/">Arch Street Bones Project</a>, the crowdsourced funding campaign to support the urgent needs of this collection. You might be surprised at how much we will learn about the past.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-41330819392039671972017-03-11T11:27:00.001-08:002017-03-11T11:36:39.280-08:00Flax to Linen, the 1765 Way, Part VII: BuckingOnce you have spun and hanked (wound into coils) your flax yarns, wrote John Wily in 1765, they should be "boiled in Water and Ashes, to make it soft and pliable, that it may weave the closer and tighter together" (49).<br />
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Wily was frustratingly vague here, but other sources help flesh out his meaning. Samuel Johnson, in his <a href="http://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/">1755 <i>Dictionary</i></a>, defined "buck" as laundry, laundry water, and the act of laundering. So one could presumably buck your buck in buck. But more specifically, bucking was the first step in softening and bleaching flax for linen. A <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=k5jcid_fsa4C&dq=complete%20dictionary%20of%20the%20arts%20and%20sciences&pg=RA1-PT249#v=onepage&q&f=false">1766 volume</a> described in detail how flax yarns were bucked by soaking them in water and treating them with lye (s.v. "Buck" and "Bleach"). One <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=zclAAQAAMAAJ&dq=flax%20soften%20ash&pg=PA266#v=onepage&q&f=false">1809 source</a> even suggested boiling flax in seawater, unslaked lime, and potash <i>before</i> spinning it (265-266).<br />
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In 1765, a "lye" (a derivative of "alkali") was a very basic (versus acidic) solution. The most common household lye was rendered from <i>potash</i>. In short, water was passed through wood ashes (<i>ashes</i> in a <i>pot</i>) and a filtering medium. People used what trickled out for a variety of purposes, especially soap. Or, in the case of some farmers, softening and bleaching flax.<br />
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But, unlike other sources, Wily doesn't say to use lye or potash. He just says ashes. So, I experimented with these instructions alone. As far as ratios go, I decided to go with a <a href="http://find.galegroup.com.udel.idm.oclc.org/ecco/retrieve.do?docLevel=TEXT_GRAPHICS&inPS=true&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=udel_main&doDirectDocNumSearch=false&tabID=T001&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&currentPosition=1&contentSet=ECCOArticles&showLOI=&bookId=0281200100&collectionId=&relevancePageBatch=CW112781234">source from 1769</a>. Granted, it's talking about the treatment of grain to avoid fungal infections. But it's the closest I've found to an actual ratio: "Make some lye, such as is used for linen, in a bucking-tub, putting four pounds of water to every pound of ashes," (s.v. "Burnt-grain"). But instead of steeping the ashes in water to make lye, as these instructions suggest, I simply used the 4:1 weight ratio as the basis for otherwise following Wily's instructions.<br />
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That is, after I imposed on a friend to collect a bag of ashes from his wood stove (the handoff of this bag, of course, generated a number of tasteless jokes about drug deals and grandmother's ashes).<br />
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"You should boil it," wrote Wily," until you see it begin to lint, that is, when you see a Lint or Fuzz rise on the thread" (49).<br />
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Vague again, you Wily bastard (see what I did there?). More experimenting was in order.<br />
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After doing a small test to make sure that my linen wouldn't simply disintegrate, <a href="http://nicolebelolan.org/">Nicole</a> helped me dutifully measure out the appropriate amounts of water and ashes.<br />
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We prepared four small hanks: a control, one boiled for five minutes, one for ten, and one for twenty.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2vmr1QPa1x1IWeRAj-uiSzBioa9EvkWREre9hd5-qA69uNVy6JF6zCfcuEz-BiGCv4qeorJM9Eb7GoiLf6dVxzbsmbYFMjhIiwl8pKD0nMHUFWnBCLbumwkiM3Hzfvv3sjI-qscwLOoEm/s1600/DSCN0143.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2vmr1QPa1x1IWeRAj-uiSzBioa9EvkWREre9hd5-qA69uNVy6JF6zCfcuEz-BiGCv4qeorJM9Eb7GoiLf6dVxzbsmbYFMjhIiwl8pKD0nMHUFWnBCLbumwkiM3Hzfvv3sjI-qscwLOoEm/s400/DSCN0143.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Three of the miniature flax hanks before boiling.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The problem, we instantly realized, was that it was impossible to see anything in the ashy water. I had assumed Wily meant you would be watching your flax while it was submerged, but clearly he wanted you to fish it out periodically to examine it. But even when we fished the linen out, it was hopelessly dingy and clotted with small bits of charcoal, making it impossible to see any linting. So we went with the timer method, even if it's anachronistic. This was an experiment, after all.<br />
<br />
I was skeptical whether the ash had many any difference when we first removed the flax hanks from the water. But lo and behold, after I washed them clean and let them dry overnight, they did indeed show stark changes.<br />
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<br />
Each of our three tests showed that increasing the boiling time both softened the flax and significantly lightened its color. Wily never mentioned color changes, but that helps explain why bucking was a first step in bleaching flax to a pure white color.<br />
<br />
I wish I had prepared a few more miniature hanks and really let them cook. I suspect a half hour would be about ideal under my stovetop conditions, but who knows what an hour or two would do? At some point, of course, the flax threads would begin to break down and the hanks would disintegrate, but I suspect that would take quite some time. People boiled linen textiles when they laundered them, after all, and they didn't disintegrate.<br />
<br />
With my bucking experiment over, there is only one final step in this long saga of my journey from flax to linen: weaving. And that's a story for another day.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Thanks to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/JPrivottMaker/">Joseph Privott</a> and Mark Hutter for their insights on bucking, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/mmickletzmaker/">Matt Mickletz</a> for his ashes, and <a href="http://nicolebelolan.org/">Nicole Belolan</a> for her able assistance in all things.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Volumes linked above:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Temple Henry Croker, et al., <i>The Complete Dictionary of Arts and Sciences...</i> (London: Printed for the Authors, 1766).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Evert Duyckinck, <i>Valuable Secrets in Arts, Traces, &c...</i> (New York: Published by Evert Duyckinck, 1809).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Samuel Johnson, <i>A Dictionary of the English Language...</i> (London: W. Strahan, 1755).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">A Society of Gentlemen, Members of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, <i>The Complete Farmer...</i> (London: R. Baldwin et al., 1769).</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-70195930654943005112017-02-03T19:49:00.002-08:002017-02-03T20:21:03.790-08:00From Trenton to Princeton<div class="MsoNormal">
Last month, I arrived in my university’s health clinic with relatively unusual case
for them. They diagnosed me with a “mild cold injury” resulting from “exposure
to extreme, natural cold” (the way the nurse lingered on that second adjective
–<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> natural </i>– made me wonder about the
alternatives). According to my doctor, “frostbite” and “frostnip” are not very
scientific diagnoses. But luckily for me, I’m not a very scientific person, so
I can stick with the more dramatic description. I had frostbite.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the doctor’s
office, I had tried to dodge around exactly how I got frostbite. “Well,” I
answered to their questions, “I spent a night outdoors… in New Jersey… in the
snow… walking…” My voice trailed off until I barely muttered,
“…wearingwoolclothesandleathershoes.” The nurse raised her eyebrow. The doctor,
when he came in, finally settled the issue. “So you were at some sort of
enactment?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Yes. I got
frostbite. At a reenactment.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The
reenactment in question was part of a complex of historical programming meant
to commemorate the 1777 Battle of Princeton, New Jersey, including events at <a href="https://morven.org/">Morven</a> (an
eighteenth-century house in Princeton), <a href="http://www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/parks/princeton.html">Princeton Battlefield State Park</a>, and
the <a href="http://www.barracks.org/">Old Barracks Museum</a> in Trenton. Part of this involved recreating an
overnight march of the Philadelphia Associators, a unit in George Washington’s
army, from Trenton to Princeton. It’s the second time reenactors have conducted
this event. Matthew C. White analyzed the first one, staged in 2015, in "'<span style="background-color: white;">Do You Guys Own Slaves?' A Case Study of a High-Minded Living History Event," <i>ALHFAM Bulletin</i>, 45, no. 4 (Winter, 2016). L</span>ike many of the young
reenactors who attended this round, I seized on the opportunity to participate when
it was repeated.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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At the several associated sites, the event organizers had gathered a concentrated
mass of dedicated living history interpreters and had plans for excellent
public programs. The crew up in Princeton did manage to pull off
some compelling scenes despite the weather. At the Old Barracks, where I spent Saturday, we had
only perhaps a dozen visitors throughout the day because of how quickly the
roads turned to ice. Nonetheless, we conducted drills, cooked our rations
outdoors, worked on sewing projects, and fired our muskets. By mid-afternoon,
we were beginning to operate smoothly as a two-platoon company, even in five
inches of snow. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In our last formation, one of our officers read Thomas
Paine’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Crisis</i>, which was making
the rounds of the Continental Army at precisely the time of the “<a href="http://revolutionarynj.org/guided_tour/ten-crucial-days/">Ten Crucial Days</a>” of the battles of Trenton and Princeton in 1777. Facing the
eighteenth-century stone barracks, under a cloudy sky with crows flying over,
and the snow still falling heavily, we listened. I’d never read the whole thing
– indeed, I think most people don’t realize that the compelling rhetoric about
sunshine patriots and British tyranny actually bookend a long and less stirring
(at least to listeners in 2017) middle section about then-current events. Every minute
or two as he read it, the officer had to shake the paper to knock away the snow
that piled up on it. Hearing it in such company was a remarkable experience.</div>
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Peale's Associators. Courtesy the <a href="http://www.barracks.org/">Old Barracks Museum</a>.</div>
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We all fell
asleep that night in the barracks rooms, but I think most people were too
excited and nervous to get much rest before midnight, when we were awoken with
a harsh sergeant’s voice. “Up!” And so we stumbled around clumsily, dressed,
and piled on our accouterments.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We marched
thirteen miles that night. The snow had stopped, but as the clouds cleared off,
the temperature fell, I’m told, below ten degrees. We marched through Trenton
proper and passed a few bars that were still open. A couple hardy drinkers tumbled out and gawked at us. And into the suburbs, where
two police cars passed us blaring a fife-and-drum “Yankee Doodle” from their
loudspeakers. Other late-night drivers encouraged us with, respectively, “The
British are coming! Kill them! Fucking kill them!” and “Vote Trump!” Some cars
slowed down just long enough for the drivers to assure themselves we were real
and snap a cell phone photo.</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJcT0XDmffSwB6P40vYCYywx0pIGGSdBJ3LGXzaboQLX444qKKGHa4ePFkIPcBilia0F8MQ-QuskpqRbMJ3oXYrlwnZh5WRsfEwCYK6Bc7Qxv5hIqOFxXM2m9O4B1JFefPedxg-fN0BigX/s1600/Trenton_5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJcT0XDmffSwB6P40vYCYywx0pIGGSdBJ3LGXzaboQLX444qKKGHa4ePFkIPcBilia0F8MQ-QuskpqRbMJ3oXYrlwnZh5WRsfEwCYK6Bc7Qxv5hIqOFxXM2m9O4B1JFefPedxg-fN0BigX/s400/Trenton_5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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In Trenton. Photograph by Wilson Freeman, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DriftingFocusPhotography/">Driftingfocus Photography</a>.</div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">Much had changed between 1777 and 1918, and we should be careful using sources from one period to understand another, especially when it comes to military experiences. But I've just begun research on a dissertation chapter about World War One, and infantry officer Hervey Allen wrote something about marching in his 1926 memoir, </span><i style="text-indent: 0.25in;">Toward the Flame</i><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">, that resonated with my experience in New Jersey:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times";">“You
must imagine us moving along both sides of the road in single file with a
couple of paces between each man, rifles slung and heads hung low, everyone
trying to accomplish the next step with the least bit of energy possible…
Everything we wore began to trouble us. My pack made my shoulders ache
intolerably… Places on my feet and legs began to hurt. The outer world seemed
to recede to a vast distance; the landscape took on an odd grey appearance. One
became preoccupied with musing upon one’s self.” (101)</span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">Back in 2017/1777, our own preoccupied column came to a halt in some
woods near the <a href="http://www.visitprincetonbattlefield.org/">Clarke House</a> on Princeton Battlefield. Through some
miscommunication, we were unaware that a large fire awaited us nearby, and
instead we struggled to build our own from deadfall and tinder. We couldn't manage even that. In times past, this
might have been fatal, or at least very dangerous. It made me think of a short
story by Jack London that my grandfather first introduced me to, </span><i style="text-indent: 0.25in;">To Build a Fire </i><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">(1902),</span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"> that revolves around
the halting and eventually disastrous attempt by a prospector to light a fire
in the Yukon. Luckily for us, someone eventually located the existing bonfire
and led our shivering column to it. The sight of it alone began to rejuvenate us before we ever got close enough to feel its heat.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIl_nqxG7muOmzEikacjAsD1me58PLpnCPVKL6m04oYkx0aM5sWGj6T4bHmX70aP3ScheSxZnXxItIrjSdZhaf46_H5SOaOx2x3zUrm05PLT-DrFcqfrbASgXfi9Ly581lnYgWIOf-7oMe/s1600/Trenton_8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIl_nqxG7muOmzEikacjAsD1me58PLpnCPVKL6m04oYkx0aM5sWGj6T4bHmX70aP3ScheSxZnXxItIrjSdZhaf46_H5SOaOx2x3zUrm05PLT-DrFcqfrbASgXfi9Ly581lnYgWIOf-7oMe/s400/Trenton_8.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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On Princeton Battlefield. Photograph by Wilson Freeman, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DriftingFocusPhotography/">Driftingfocus Photography</a>.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">We stood close to the fire, turned
sideways so that more people could fit near, and watched our leather shoes
begin to steam. A pot of coffee was there. Men began to smile again, and laugh.
One young soldier, sitting with his arms on his knees and his pack still on,
sat slightly slumped forward, fast asleep. Shortly after sunrise, we conducted a battle demonstration. Even this brief affair, marching and across a snowy field at Princeton, loading and firing, was exhausting. When we concluded, the last
few hundred yards we marched to the Clarke House felt interminable.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSReTPLhqsrCjtFuRaLntwW470iFgfVZYpj1LtzCN8RkIUBGmBBUZr-Ls9Z2Lz3KOct2XKglJFjgR3FJyM2_6OF7rQaHklidtlw6Y2a6OSys65s69F1LFlevgA4Q9LVPTThAvKkao9voRc/s1600/Trenton_7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSReTPLhqsrCjtFuRaLntwW470iFgfVZYpj1LtzCN8RkIUBGmBBUZr-Ls9Z2Lz3KOct2XKglJFjgR3FJyM2_6OF7rQaHklidtlw6Y2a6OSys65s69F1LFlevgA4Q9LVPTThAvKkao9voRc/s400/Trenton_7.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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On Princeton Battlefield. Photograph by Wilson Freeman, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DriftingFocusPhotography/">Driftingfocus Photography</a>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">What I find particularly
remarkable about this whole experience is that it was not even close to the real
thing. For a few hours, we marched a few miles on sidewalks, paved roads, and
farm fields. The original Philadelphia Associators, after their march to
Princeton, continued on several more miles, without food or blankets until they
finally stopped for the night and collapsed in exhaustion on the side of road. Other Continental and British soldiers conducted similar marches, almost
routinely, over the course of the war. Some soldiers endured months and years
of such labor. I got frostbite after only one night – and I had been
vigilant about wiggling my toes, drying my feet, and changing into new socks as soon as we finished the event. One of my feet blistered so badly that it bled, but my feet were cold enough I didn't even realize it until later, when I removed my stockings. What would have happened to me if I had to continue
on for days in such conditions?</span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzGWSCvS-eTLl0VBtPUunpXN7ZCcUCByMa15bJzGMm3KlaNO9pK3PoLwYeZRFn4eAhc4-KrmmDkGJfRTKtKbg2KQgcT6voIkEKShfFmbDkmIK3eBd5HT2HL1WtaSJVSYlyPqHuiMK7Kaug/s1600/IMG_6920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzGWSCvS-eTLl0VBtPUunpXN7ZCcUCByMa15bJzGMm3KlaNO9pK3PoLwYeZRFn4eAhc4-KrmmDkGJfRTKtKbg2KQgcT6voIkEKShfFmbDkmIK3eBd5HT2HL1WtaSJVSYlyPqHuiMK7Kaug/s320/IMG_6920.jpg" width="243" /></a></div>
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">My point here is not that people
in the eighteenth century were in some way better, harder, or stronger than us. Yes, some (but not all) would have entered the army with two decades of strenuous prior
life experience under their belts. But I don’t
think it’s useful to revere our predecessors as somehow superhuman. They are inaccessible enough without crediting them with physical prowess. They were men and women, just like us. </span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">They were men and women, though, whose daily life involved more hardships, physical trials, and outright suffering than most Americans
encounter today. For them, exhaustion, pain, and deprivation were not, as they are for me, remarkable exceptions to a comfortable everyday life. Instead, such experiences were at the core of everyday life. For many people in the United Staes and abroad, they still are. But for most Americans of a certain class level, such conditions are rare if not entirely absent from life in 2017.</span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.25in;">Which brings me back to the
doctor’s office. The doctor told me that the results of frostbite – tingling
and numbness – can take weeks or even months to wear off. So I’ll have plenty
of time to think about my experiences in New Jersey even when I'm enjoying my painless, everyday comforts. The doctor told me that he had once used acupuncture to treat a World War Two veteran of the
Battle of the Bulge, who even fifty years later had painful frostbite symptoms. My cold injury is mild enough that
no such treatments – and no such lingering effects – are at all likely.
Instead, I’ll carry only memories and the historical insights I gained from
this exceptional experience. I think those are well worth some
temporary suffering, though my doctor might disagree. As I left, he had a wry
smile on his face. “Thanks for your service to our country,” he said, “I think
you should avoid winter campaigns from now on."</span></div>
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In the Clarke House. Photograph by Brandyn Charlton.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-73328285402025850852016-12-18T17:52:00.000-08:002016-12-18T18:16:28.059-08:00Flax to Linen, the 1765 Way, Part VI: Heckling and SpinningIn my ongoing experiment in making linen from seed to fabric (about which you can read <a href="http://ranawayfromthesubscriber.blogspot.com/search/label/Flax%20Growing" target="_blank">here</a>), I've run rather behind (two growing seasons, in fact). But I've finally found the time to heckle and spin my linen into something resembling yarn!<br />
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John Wily, the author of the 1765 <i><a href="http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=evans;idno=N08000.0001.001">Treatise on the Propagation of Sheep, the Manufacture of Wool, and the Cultivation and Manufacture of Flax</a></i>, describes in detail how to make a heckle, the wooden-based, iron-toothed comb that you use to strip flax of remaining "hards," or pieces of non-fibrous core of the stalks. For the most refined flax production, Wily says, get yourself a graduate set of heckles, because you can work down to smaller teeth and thus finer flax fibers. "But," he concludes, "many People have only one, of a middle Size," (43).<br />
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Living as I do in 2016, and I have a much easier recourse to the internet than to a blacksmith capable of making the the 176 tapered, 4-inch long, steel teeth that Wily says you need to make a heckle. So I bought an antique one. It dates to the nineteenth century, and it's clearly seen some use.<br />
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Wily says to take a bunch of your flax, shake it to loosen it, wrap it around a couple fingers, and "fling the other Ends of the Flax on the Points of the Heckle Teeth." Do this enough times, and what you end up with is "the longest of the Flax," which "will make very good Thread," (45).<br />
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The problem, I discovered, was that if your initial twist of flax is too big (mine were), you end up hopelessly fouling both the twist and the heckle. Moreover, I suspect that my previous scutching/swingling had left many more hards than Wily would have liked, which also contributed to the mess.<br />
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Most importantly, I discovered, you need to keep your twist of flax well in hand, because as soon as I set it down and began to try to pick through it, the neat bunch of fibers transformed itself into a bird's nest.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg300AJJZGHgSZS2RmMEu06ShgHZMce978-QWS7jha5G4iB1dtvjbPIvmdDvzf_L1C1TH2wVQdhH-P4Fl1pSMwx9LanIVSWpxLRPsKwSDuNvI3T7E7EsoyXSwvpka2NpQI3ZRwg-pBAQzv/s1600/IMG_0565.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg300AJJZGHgSZS2RmMEu06ShgHZMce978-QWS7jha5G4iB1dtvjbPIvmdDvzf_L1C1TH2wVQdhH-P4Fl1pSMwx9LanIVSWpxLRPsKwSDuNvI3T7E7EsoyXSwvpka2NpQI3ZRwg-pBAQzv/s320/IMG_0565.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I was rather crestfallen at the results. Bertie the cat was rather crestfallen to be trapped indoors.</td></tr>
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What I ended up with was one small twist of pretty decent flax. As you can see from the picture below, as I heckled the flax, the lengths of my fibers decreased because I was breaking more and more of them as I worked them through the heckle's teeth.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bertie inspects the flax.</td></tr>
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I also salvaged a wad of "tow," the shorter, bird's nest fibers. Over a couple nights, I managed to pick most of the hards out of the tow wad so that I ended up with a softball-sized, puffy ball of tow. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ3vl39EYuFdrOP7XhCfnaWO0YGcF4euLV99uKfpNm-cbdWBo418ewNTVEaqB7wO37g6QcjG8ctFlrKC2Zj6E9ERYHBUzxeWF-YyRYMPX0j3qK0fyRRU_xHJtzUCxJJMuKB8BmBOSClx-L/s1600/IMG_0576.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ3vl39EYuFdrOP7XhCfnaWO0YGcF4euLV99uKfpNm-cbdWBo418ewNTVEaqB7wO37g6QcjG8ctFlrKC2Zj6E9ERYHBUzxeWF-YyRYMPX0j3qK0fyRRU_xHJtzUCxJJMuKB8BmBOSClx-L/s320/IMG_0576.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tow before I removed the hards (visible here as lighter-colored splinters).</td></tr>
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I took these rather underwhelming materials to a friend, Heather Hansen, who is an accomplished spinner and knitter. Luckily for me, Heather has a flax wheel and the knowledge to operate it. Lucky because, I'll be honest, the spinning part of this process is what I find most confusing, even now that I've done it with Heather.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfKdHfGbQAuezXQ6B1-eOXlKzrAIVchYjbo7FyGG-KXq3MuUY1T19aqHj6FQLRzT0UXZhotVrInfmvtFdb3lR2uw5f2i0O65L_Xs1fpUgewx6-KOG45iqPW6xuL8uRaNeYBRzAP9pk42oC/s1600/IMG_0684.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfKdHfGbQAuezXQ6B1-eOXlKzrAIVchYjbo7FyGG-KXq3MuUY1T19aqHj6FQLRzT0UXZhotVrInfmvtFdb3lR2uw5f2i0O65L_Xs1fpUgewx6-KOG45iqPW6xuL8uRaNeYBRzAP9pk42oC/s320/IMG_0684.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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In theory, spinning makes sense. You just twist the fibers together like a very tiny rope, and this tension holds them together. But in practice, spinning flax on a wheel is like playing a drumset (I've never played a drum set, but I can barely rub my stomach and pat my head at the same time, so you get where this is going). You power the wheel with foot peddles, the wheel spins and engages with various mechanisms, and you manipulate the raw flax with your hands so that it is gradually spun and sucked up onto a revolving spool. Even with Heather's patient tutelage, I found the my hands and feet were often out of sync. I ended up spinning too fast, creating something that looked far more like twine than thread, or breaking the yarn.<br />
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Luckily for me, Heather was able to produce a more continuous thread (I contributed by operating the foot peddles). Even with my tow ball, which I had neglected to card as Wily instructed. He recommended processing tow with cards, the same sort of toothed paddles used for processing wool, in order to gather up and align short flax fibers. In fact, Heather, perhaps because she is more familiar with spinning wool, found it easier tow work with the ball of tow fibers than with the finer bunch of flax.<br />
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Our result is clearly much heavier than the yarns that early Americans would have wanted for weaving fine linen textiles, but it's still within the realm of possibility for use in things like upholstery webbing.<br />
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All told, we ended up with 236 inches (19.66 feet) of tow-based thread and 388 inches (32.33 feet) of finer linen thread. A better heckler could almost certainly have salvaged more fiber from my bird's nests, and a practiced flax spinner could have spun far finer threads and thus produced <i>much</i> more.<br />
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But for what it's worth, my 52 feet of yarn is the product of my eight square feet of mediocre soil, planted at the seed ratio Wily recommended in 1765 (which, when reduced down from acres, means two teaspoons of seed per eight square feet). If we assume that average for a whole acre of flax planted in 1765, based on the math I did when I planted back in 2014, we get a result of 278830.5 feet of linen yarn, or a remarkable 52.8 miles! And that's certainly on the far low end of what you could produce with an acre of flax.<br />
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So just how much finished textile can 52 feet of coarse linen thread produce? To find out, I need to boil my thread and weave it. Why boiling, you ask? Stay tuned to find out.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867774275131956123.post-32271771044206853822016-09-19T13:21:00.007-07:002016-09-19T13:21:56.465-07:00An Early American Slop Shop, Now in Full ColorLast year, I published <a href="http://www.tylerruddputman.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Putman_WP_Slops.pdf">an article</a> on slop shops and the ready-made clothing they offered in early America, and I included the only two known images of early American slop shops. One of these, drawn by tinsmith William Chappel and now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, shows a New York City streetscape in the early nineteenth century. Using Chappel's location description, I was able to identify this shop as that of Jacob Abrahams, who owned a clothing store on Water Street in 1813.<br />
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When I published my article, Chappel's image was only available in black-and-white. I'm delighted that you can now <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/10447?sortBy=Relevance&ft=dog+killer&offset=0&rpp=20&pos=1">view it</a> - and Chappel's many other fascinating paintings - in full color and stunning detail as part of the Met's Open Access for Scholarly Content program.<br />
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The detail below captures the garment variety, cloth color, and display techniques of a slops-seller like Abrahams. Chappell even delineated the tiny buttons of the trousers and coats hanging from Abrahams's storefront. He drew the shop years after 1813 and as background to a gruesome dog-catching scene, but Abrahams's store clearly left an impression on Chappel, who remembered how important slop shops once were to American waterfront communities.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Detail, William P. Chapel, "The Dog Killer," from The Edward W. C. Arnold Collection of New York Prints, Maps, and Pictures, Bequest of Edward W. C. Arnold, 1954, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 54.90.513.</span></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0