Colonial period hats

[E.vonAschwege]

Hey folks,
    Perhaps hats don't quite qualify as longrifle accoutrements, so if the moderators want to move it to the back fence that's fine too.  I'm looking to buy a nice cocked hat - have looked at Jas Townsend, Clearwater, and Dirty Billy's sites - all seem to have very nice hats, and some steep prices (understandable for really custom pieces).  I'm wondering what you all wear for hats?  Bring out your best dress-up photos - I'm looking for a nice civilian hat and would love to see pictures of your style.  Thanks a bunch!
-Eric

[James Rogers]

I dont know if any of those are correctly made on a round block form. Maybe Billy's are.  I had a Clearwater and it was not. Well made though, just not HC. If you want a reasonably priced hat that is more correct, search for Jay Howlett in Williamsburg. Va.
The email I had for him was rushonboys@yahoo.com

[Joey R]

Didn't one of the Shea fella's build nice period hats? I think Dr. Tim purchased one and maybe chime in. Good luck!!

[Kermit]

Morgan Shea. I have one of his lids and love it. Blackleaf Leather and Hats--this is as close as I can come:

http://blackleafleather.handzonsitemaker.com/

Don't recall Morgan or Scott being visible in these woods of late. Two very nice men.

[Mark Elliott]

All my hats have been bought from Clearwater.   I have never been able to find a proper round hat to fit me.    I am told that my head is too big. 

[Kermit]

 . My Morgan hat is 7 5/8 to 7 3/4. Big isn't a problem with custom. Kinda like with guns.

[Ky-Flinter]

Ok Eric, here's a hat I made.  I bought the hat blank at Friendship, from Panther Primitives, I think.  I cut off the rough edges, steamed and folded it up.  The edge trim is cotton binding.  The hat is lined with linen.  The cockade is satin with a silver button.  All hand sewn.



-Ron

[Artificer]

Evon,

May I ask what kind of civilian attire you are trying to emulate and perhaps more importantly the time period, location, social status and even religious affilitation?  The latter because in many Protestant and Quaker communities, the cocked hat was scorned as being "frippery of the wealthy classes."  

Here is something from a well researched link:

But if a partiality for deerskin footwear fits our stereotype of backwoodsmen, their reluctance to wear coonskin caps does not. Felt hats were the norm in the backwoods as elsewhere, but overwhelmingly hats with respectable, protestant round brims. Whatever their shape, hats everywhere were described in newspapers by the type of felt they were made of. "Wool," "fur," "beaver," "castor," and "raccoon" were all descriptions of felt hats, and not knit or animal skin caps. Oliver Johnson explained how in the backwoods of Indiana in the 1820s and '30s coon fur was used to make the felt and nap of bell-crowned hats. They "looked purty slick [when they was smoothed up]," he said, but they "fuzzed up like an old mad coon for sure" when wet. Johnson's father refused to wear the "bell-crown style" of his day for the same reason backwoodsmen west of the Blue Ridge refused to wear cocked hats a century earlier: fancy head gear "made him feel stuck up." Like most dissenters, Mr. Johnson "always wore a plain, broad-brim wool hat."

Backwoodsmen scorned three-cornered hats as a display of upper class vanity. At Boonesborough in 1778 North Carolina lowlander William Bailey Smith wore a plumed "Macaroni hat" to a parley with besieging Indians to impress them he was a person of high rank. But most frontiersmen would probably agree with the Draper correspondent who thought surveyor George Bedinger's "old Revolutionary cocked hat" was "an oddity" on a par with the feathered goose skin cap worn by his chain carrier.

J. D. F. Smyth says backwoodsmen generally wore flapped hats "of a reddish hue, proceeding from the intensely hot beams of the sun." The flapped hat was so called because its flexible brim could be "flapped before," pulled down in front to shield eyes from the weather like the "broad brimed hat" a New Jersey laborer "generally [wore] flopped down" when he jumped bail in Gloucester County in 1785. Such hats should not be confused with the skin caps colonists of New Sweden "provided with flaps."
http://people.virginia.edu/~mgf2j/clothes.html
Gus

[Ky-Flinter]

Well, maybe I am frippery   I'll have to look it up.  I fixed that hat up to wear downtown on the Fourth of July, when I shoot my rifle to start the Bluegrass 10,000 footrace.  The citizenry seem to like it and readily identify the hat with that glorious day in 1776.

I will admit, I do have a broad brimmed brown wool felt hat that I wear when the shooting is serious, for just the reasons mentioned above.

-Ron

[Artificer]

Well, maybe I am frippery   I'll have to look it up.  I fixed that hat up to wear downtown on the Fourth of July, when I shoot my rifle to start the Bluegrass 10,000 footrace.  The citizenry seem to like it and readily identify the hat with that glorious day in 1776.

I will admit, I do have a broad brimmed brown wool felt hat that I wear when the shooting is serious, for just the reasons mentioned above.

-Ron

Ron,
PLEASE don't take my post above as being critical of you. I LIKE your cocked hat and gentlemen like us, who are more "chronologically challenged," can get way with wearing something a younger man could not have afforded in that period.   

Gus

[Canute Rex]

"chronologically challenged,"

I like that - I'm adopting it.

What interests me is how varied clothing styles were over social status, culture, and geography. When we were shown pictures of "the colonial period" in school, the figure of a man had breeches, white stockings, buckle shoes, a waistcoat, large cuffed double breasted coat, and the ubiquitous tricorn hat. Of course, that look was a tiny sliver of the pie. As Artificer referenced, the absolute standard in one place was an object of mockery in another.

I have seen some original (later 18th cent.) references to men wearing "a small round hat." Round crown and a narrow round brim - as simple and practical as you can get.

[Ky-Flinter]

Hi Gus,

No offense taken.  My reply was meant in jest.  I always look forward to reading your posts, as they are always well researched and well thought out.  Great link, by the way, great info.

According to Websters: Frippery 2a: Finery, esp. something showy, tawdry, or non-essential. 2b: affected elegance, ostentation.

Yep, that's my hat!

-Ron

[rallen]

George Franks Hatter.  Mostly British and American military but he makes late Rev war French-influenced civilian styles for the Federalist dandy.  His hats are round-blocked.  He has differnt pricing and options, like hand sewn vs machine, silk or horsehair cockades etc.  Anything you could want or need.
I wear a British officers camp duty or 2nd.
Ryan

[E.vonAschwege]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.  Gus that is some excellent in depth information, thank you for sharing.  For the moment, I'm not looking to reproduce a particular persona, but want to at least look the image for shows, demonstrations, talks, etc.  I'm going for civilian, perhaps what a gunsmith might have worn, but also something close to the Boston area, where I imagine a bit of "frippery" was expected.  This will eventually go along with a great coat of sorts - not as much hunting attire as dress up civilian attire.  Thanks again!
-Eric

[smylee grouch]

  Frippery and Chronologically challenged, my life is getting more sophisticated just reading these posts. I love it.   

[David Rase]

Eric,
Here is a nice cocked hat from the Tom Curran collection.  It was from his mad hatter line.  If you are not into cocked hats you could always go for the powdered wig look.  2 great options, either available from the Tom Curran gallery.

[Artificer]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.  Gus that is some excellent in depth information, thank you for sharing.  For the moment, I'm not looking to reproduce a particular persona, but want to at least look the image for shows, demonstrations, talks, etc.  I'm going for civilian, perhaps what a gunsmith might have worn, but also something close to the Boston area, where I imagine a bit of "frippery" was expected.  This will eventually go along with a great coat of sorts - not as much hunting attire as dress up civilian attire.  Thanks again!
-Eric

Evon,

OK, a hat for a gunsmith in the Boston area.  Well, that depends on whether you are portraying one who was a Journeyman or a Master of a shop and very importantly, how old and successful either or both were. The older and more successful one was, then their hat would have been a bit fancier and perhaps even in the style of their youth.

I hope I don’t butcher what I’m trying to suggest, but I’ll try to give it a go. 

We have to remember that people then were very much more social class conscious than we are today.  To get “bespoke work” or orders from wealthy patrons or even large contracts for guns or work to repair/maintain arms in public magazines, the Master of the shop had to dress in a respectable manner for his station and in keeping with the “fashion norms” of his locality.  Wealthy or influential patrons would not bestow “bespoke work” if the Master dressed like a bum, BUT if he tried to dress “above his social station,” that would turn the wealthy and influential off even faster, as they would have seen that as being pretentious or even ridiculous.  So if cocked hats were the normal fashion in his locality for the wealthy, the Master most likely wore a conservative cocked hat on a daily basis when not in his shop.  He may have worn a slightly fancier one to important social occasions and church, though a good hat was even more expensive then than now and he may have only owned one.  If you are doing an impression of a Master of a shop, you might also think about wearing a short bag wig as that would have been likely in Boston and close by.

I doubt many or even most Journeymen would have worn even a less expensive cocked hat outside the shop on a daily basis.  In spring and fall, he may have worn a linen cap, stitched from four panels with a lining and the cuff turned up - both in the shop and on occasional errands outside.  In cold weather and in the Boston area, a Journeymen might well or probably have worn a knitted Monmouth Cap.  A Journeyman in perhaps his mid to late 20’s may have had a fairly plain cocked hat for church or social occasions and especially if he wanted to present himself as being financially capable for marriage.  Of course to go along with a period frock coat, one would expect to see a cocked hat in the areas they were considered respectable and fashionable.

Gus

[LehighBrad]

Longriflemens wide brimmed hat. I like it so much, I wear it around more than you'd think. ;-)

[Jefferson58]

Morgan Shea made a tri corner for me and it is absolutely fabulous. He really works to make what you want, not something off the shelf.

I can recommend his work highly.

Jeff

[James Wilson Everett]

Guys,

When I do an 18th c gunsmith show-n-tell I try to present both historical accuracy and at the same time some out of the "ordinary".  A few weeks ago a very knowledgeable individual was quite surprised that I was able to make on the spot several lock screws that exactly matched size and threads on his original pistol, all with strictly 18th c hand tools.  Anyway, here are some paintings of workers wearing folded paper hats in joinery shops of the early 19th c.  The square heads are from 1813 and the pointed heads are from 1815.  It is likely that gunsmiths worked in similar settings, but not exactly provable.  Perhaps the guy in the far background of the square heads is Artificer's master of the shop as he is better dressed  and wearing a real hat.










Here is a photo of me and my square head paper hat at the Somerset Pa Mountain Craft Days.  By the way, my head really is squared and my wife has been trying to round off the corners for 40 years - without success.

Jim

[Kermit]

Amazing where these threads can meander, isn't it? I like it when not every person with a flinter wants to be a longhunter! I sometimes think that maybe one percent of the colonial population engaged in this romanticized enterprise.

So now it would seem we need someone to post a thread on how to fold these various paper hats.

[Artificer]

Wow, James, I thought about mentioning paper hats in my post above, and here you have already done it!  That’s neat!  I don’t believe I’ve ever seen it done. 

Since the primary purpose of wearing these paper hats was to keep the hair clean for tradesmen, I very much agree they may have been worn in a gunsmith’s shop, though like you I haven’t found a source that mentions it.  But in this case, it was a head covering mentioned in other trades that did things similar to gunsmiths. 

I bet you have gotten MANY comments and questions on your paper hat where you have worn it.  I’ll gladly second the motion to ask for a tutorial on how to make and fold your hat, if you would care to write one. 

Gus

P.S. The picture of you also gives me a better perspective of the size of your tool chest we have discussed before.  I appreciate that.  Also, I admire the effort you go through to take a rifling bench to such events. 

[Kermit]

Just wasted some time looking for hat instructions. Found some. There's a yoUtUbe video, and a couple of sets of instructions. Here's one:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_se6nHEbQTJ4/R6zccdZXbQI/AAAAAAAABY4/OFbOzQdxTeE/s1600-h/pressman

[James Wilson Everett]

Guys,

The square paper hat is folded as the above link shows, however . . . .

1,  Newspapers of today are much smaller than the old LA Times, and are too small to make the pressman's hat as shown in the link.

2.  Newspapers of today always seem to have a color advertisement for automobiles or computers where it will show and ruin the H.C.

3.  I use plain brown wrapping paper that starts as a rectangle 25 x 28 inches.

4.  One artisan at the Fair at New Boston made one out of bright blue paper, he was a joiner or chair maker, the hat was outstanding in many ways!

Jim

[Artificer]

Thanks for the further information.
Gus