What's In My (Conjectural) 18th Century Sailor's Ditty Bag?

1774 watercolor by 2nd Lt. Gabriel Bray of the 44-gun "Pallas", Captain the Hon. William Cornwallis commanding

The hand tools of the rigger and sail maker remained remarkably similar from the mid -18th century to the dawn of the 20th.  The industrial revolution would eventually produce innovations in cotton sailcloth manufacture, machine sewing and metal grommet construction.  The folk art embellishments found on some of the items used by sailors on wooden ships unquestionably reached their highest artistic development during the 1800s.  Nonetheless, the basic tools of the sailor, the materials from which they were made, and their general forms and functions, carried right through this last great age of sail.

My reconstructed ditty bag with antique, original sailor items

A sailor kept a variety of small tools and personal items in his ditty bag.  Most of these tools were primitive but highly functional - even quite beautiful -  and often made by the same individual who used them.  Some, like seam rubbers and serving mallets, had highly specialized uses for sail making or  rigging, while others were more versatile.  I carry tools for both of these shipboard occupations in my ditty bag.

Selecting the right contents for my conjectural 18th-century sailor's ditty bag required additional research.  This was less a question of identifying the sail making and rigging tools typically used by sailors on wooden ships and carried in their  ditty bags or other small containers, but of what forms and designs were appropriate for the mid to late 18th century.  There is also the considerable challenge of finding original items, or fabricating new ones, that are appropriate for this earlier era even if of a later provenance.  Some are rare, some are quite expensive, and most of these nautical antiques on the market today date from the 19th rather than 18th century.

19th century Ditty Bag and contents: Southold Historical Society, Long Island

Ditty Bag and contents: Maine Maritime Museum, Topsham ME

Later Ditty Bag and contents, Mystic Seaport Museum

During the 18th and early 19th centuries, most of the tools or containers carried in a sailor's bag were made from organic materials - hardwoods, bone, horn, leather and hemp.  Aside from the legal and ethical issues associated with ivory possession today, sailor tools or boxes made from whalebone would have been extremely uncommon in the American merchant service between 1760-1780, except perhaps from Nantucket with its advanced and specialized whale oil economy. Metals such as iron and high carbon steel, highly vulnerable to the effects of oxidation in the marine environment, had limited application for needles, forged hooks and knives.  Tin or brass may also have been used for the thimbles of leather palms in this period, as they would be later.

Here is a brief summary of the smaller sailor tools that were likely in use during in the period of my merchant sailor impression between 1760-1780, and images of what I currently carry in my ditty bag:

Fids & Bodkins

Wooden or bone fids and bodkins are nearly always among the contents of old ditty bags.  Fids are  blunt tipped cones of various lengths, usually lathe turned, and used to separate rope stands or "marl" when splicing. Usually these are of wood, though later they were sometimes made of whalebone. I have a plain, 12" vintage hardwood fid  in my ditty bag.

vintage hardwood fid, modern bovine bone bodkin, modern beeswax square

Iron marlinespikes, used for the same purpose as fids, are documented in mid-19th century nautical collections and might also date from this early period - the word came to recorded English in the early 17th century - but from a practical standpoint they are apt to punch through all but the heaviest canvas ditty bags so I have neatly sidestepped the question of their definitive provenance for this impression.  They became much more common as steel cables and ultimately synthetics replaced hemp fiber rope.

Bodkins are very small awls made of bone or pointed wood  that are used for needle hitching and other fine sewing and splicing tasks. Riggers made use of them and probably sail makers as well.  I have a very small bodkin of modern manufacture made from cow bone which was very useful in splicing hemp cord marline through ditty bag grommets.

modern 3" bovine bone fid

Needles & Needle Cases

My original, hitched needle case with its curved needle and a more recent one
(from Vinalhaven, Maine)

Iron and later steel needles were indispensable at sea. Steel needles used for sail making today have tapered and flattened ends and very sharp points for piercing heavy canvas: mine are from Wm. Smith & Son, Reddich, England.   Sail maker's needles come in different sizes and some historic examples are also curved, such as the one in the image, above that came with the needle case.  I'm not sure which of these innovations might have been available to sail makers in the 1760-1780 era and have not made a comprehensive study of them. 

Keeping needles in a rust and mildew proof container was essential at sea, and there were several types of these used during the last great age of sail.  Probably among the oldest, but used by sail makers right into the 20th century, was the grease horn.  these were tips of ox horn, sometimes with a small leather thong to attach it to a sail maker's bench, containing iron needles impaled in tallow.  These are more practical for use on land but are sometimes found in association with ditty bags.  My original horn with its tallow and needles may be seen in the image of my ditty bag contents at the top of this post.

The other type consist of hollowed out wooden tubes with fitted end caps, usually lathe turned and sometimes covered in needle grafted or hitched  macrame twine coated with tar.  I own two antique examples, one of each style, though I believe the style unhitched wooden needle case is more appropriate from the mid 19th century on based on.  While they were in concurrent use during much of the 19th century, there is provenance for a needle hitched cane needle case dating from the very early 1800s and possibly earlier.  More recent examples are hitched in cotton twine rather than linen or hemp, but it is very hard to tell the difference under the tar.  Mine is an unusual variant with a wider area of decorative needle grafted macrame below the hand whittled end cap, and comes from an old collection in Vinalhaven, Maine.  It is much larger than the mid to late 19th century example of a turned and decorated wooden needle case, also pictured below.  For my 1760-1780 impression, the larger needle hitched one is probably as good as it it gets.

original needle cases

Cord, Twine and Beeswax

modern 4mm tarred hemp marline and hemp sail twine

Cordage and seaming twine suitable for this era should be made of hemp.  I found modern suppliers for both. I carry small diameter (4mm) tarred hemp marlin provided by American Rope & Tar LLC in my ditty bag to worm rigging and for decorative knotwork like the three-strand Turk's Head knot in the image, above.   Hemp seaming twine requires wax, the same as for lighter linen thread, and for this there is beeswax.  I have a modern cake of beeswax but am anticipating delivery of an old and well used vintage piece from a nautical collection. 

I do love the smell of the Stockholm tar that was used for my tarred marline.  You can also buy tarred seaming twine, but it has a burnt, acrid smell and is extremely sticky. I have a ball of both types of twine from R&W Rope, but keep the tarred stuff in its own little bag.

Seaming and Rigger's Palms

A leather palm with a rawhide or metal thimble was a requirement for cordwainers and other leather

two vintage seaming palms

workers as well as for sail makers and riggers to protect their hands when pressing needles through thick materials. The same basic style of seaming palm was used interchangeably among the leather working and sail making professions, but riggers eventually developed a specialized palm that more fully protected the thumb. The contents of antique ditty bags almost always include palms, sometimes several of them. I have two vintage seaming palms that probably date from the late 19th or early 20th century (shown at right).  The larger one with a brass thimble came from a nautical collection in England, and one with a thick leather covered thimble came from the West Coast of the US. 18th century palms may have been of an even simpler, primitive style than these examples, but they will do until I can find better documentation for them.
Bench Hooks

19th century (1845) fixed sail maker's bench hook with a fixed eye

The sail maker needed to keep the canvas taught when sewing with needle and palm, and his "third hand" was a tool known as a bench hook or sail hook.  This was an iron hook with a narrow, sometimes even scorpion-tailed tip, and was attached by a hemp cord to the workbench or another item well fixed in place and so the sailcloth could be pulled tight without piercing it.  I have seen 19th century examples with two basic eye forms.  The one pictured at left dates from 1845 and is part of my collection.  It comes from southwest England and has a simple, fixed eye.  The other type has a swivel so the sail maker can turn the canvas without needing to reset the hook.  Vintage examples of these mundane but necessary tools of the sail maker's trade are extremely rare today and I was fortunate to acquire my two bench hooks even with their mid-19th century provenance.  One has a swivel and one is fixed.

Rigging / Sail Maker's Knives & Sailor's Clasp Knives

The knives used by riggers and sail makers do not have narrow points. The older ones have either squared tips or sheepsfoot blades, ideal for cutting heavy canvas without tearing.  One modern maker contends that that spine should be left unhardened so that it can absorb the blows of a mallet, but others familiar with 18th century metallurgy remain unconvinced.  Ward Oles of At The Eastern Door tells me; " A properly forged knife with an equally appropriate drawn temper should take not only the repeated blows of a mallet but also resist deformation, especially with a heavy 1/4" spine."

Before they were made produced and purpose made in places like Sheffield, England, rigging knives

Asian fishing knife

were often sailor fashioned, and could be a simple as a cut down knife blade with a wooden handle.  There are 19th century examples with hemp twine fancywork either hitched or grafted over the handles.  I do not own one of these, yet, but if I master the art of needle grafting, I'll probably make one for myself.

Caution: I picked up  the antique iron friction folding knife (at right) that is sometimes described in online auctions as dating from the 18th century. It is actually a Asian peasant's fishing knife,  used for mending nets.  Not sure if it originates in China or SE Asia, but regardless it does not have a plausible application for my 18th century American nautical impression.

Serving Mallets and Serving Boards

Serving mallet

"Worm  and parcel with the lay / Turn and Serve the other Way"   

Natural rope fibers are vulnerable to rot, a particular problem for a sailing vessel's standing rigging that is constantly exposed to the elements.  The solution was to treat the rigging so that water was unable to penetrate between the strands of the big cables.  Smaller diameter strands were "wormed" between the marl so the rigging diameter became cylindrical, then wrapped in the same direction - with the lay - with strips of tarred canvas. This was secured by "serving" small diameter marline as tight as possible all the way down the cable in the opposite direction.  The tools used to serve the large diameter rigging were known as serving mallets and were almost always made of hardwoods.  Over time the groove in the side of the mallet would become worn down from constant abrading against the wrapped rigging, with well used examples appearing almost crescent shaped in profile.  The marline would also wear grooves in the mallet on either side of the handle.  I have a vintage serving mallet that shows very little wear at all, and it is too large to fit in my ditty bag.

For smaller diameter rope there were serving boards made from a single piece of hardwood (or whale

lignum vitae serving mallet and mahogany seam rubber

bone) with a curved, almost scooped head.  Later examples sometimes have offset scoops, or reels attached to the handle to hold the serving line.  Mine is older and sourced from southwest England.  It is made of lignum vitae, among the hardest and densest grained of all hardwoods.  Here it is, at right, along with the prize artifact in my collection...a mahogany seam rubber

Seam Rubbers

Creasing a seam in heavy canvas or leather required pressing with something strong and easy to hold inn the hand that would neither tear the material nor crack under strain.  A sail maker would do this with a hardwood (or whale bone) tool that came to be known as a seam rubber.  The earliest ones were very basic tools, just a wedge of hardwood with a blunt edge, but by the 19th century there were becoming increasingly elaborate and some are masterful works of folk art. These are highly collectible and you are lucky if you can find an original for less than a new car payment. Mine came from Westport, Massachusetts and my car has not been repossessed. It is made of mahogany, a 6" long with a 2" wedge that curves at the base to form two hearts at the sides. The handle tapers from the middle and the geometric pummel is known as a chamfered cube.

  

A final note of caution:  There is much in this post, and the one preceding it, that remains conjectural for the mid to late 18th century.  Early ditty bags of  incontrovertible provenance remain elusive and it is possible that they came into use several decades after the period of my maritime seaman's impression (1760-1780).  Likewise, some of the hand tools used by sailors became more refined during the 19th century and may have been more primitive than some of what I've managed to collect.  My seam rubber may be too pretty for the late 18th.  Then again, perhaps it is fine.  The agnostic historian will opt for omission in the absence of definitive evidence.

These are valid areas for further inquiry.  On the other hand, this collection also provides me with opportunities for historical interpretation in appropriate settings, and teaching moments matter.

from The Elements and Practice of Rigging And Seamanship, 1794, by David Steel

Reconstructed 18th Century Sailor's Ditty Bag

American 18th century Ditty Bag
linen with hemp lanyard

I wanted to inhabit my 1760-1780 American merchant seaman's impression more fully than just wearing the period-appropriate clothing I had researched and documented for it.   Lacking a berth on an appropriate vessel, and without the time, resources and youthful audacity to devote to months at sea,  I decided to concentrate on certain elements of marlinespike seamanship that I could practice at home.  I elected to begin with construction of an 18th century sailor's ditty bag, complete with fancy work lanyard knotted in hemp marline, and started collecting suitable items as its contents for use during historical interpretation.

The ditty bag was the nautical equivalent of the long hunter's "possibles bag": a container for keeping near to hand the small gear and personal items that were needed on a daily basis.  The artifact pictured at left that sold at auction in 2010 was identified as an American 18th century ditty bag.  Its construction is typical of ditty bags made before the mid-19th century, after which cotton canvas replaced linen, and metal grommets were used instead of those made by hand from strands of hemp line.  Some ditty bags today  -  more likely to be employed as wine caddies than for seamanship - feature roped bottoms that are flat instead of rounded, but these are modern innovations.   

Analysis of surviving, early ditty bags in museum collections, along with images contained in records of private sales, indicates some variation in the smaller details of construction, such as bag diameter, lanyard length and number of strands, but they are closely related in most other respects.  The main components of such ditty bags are:

- an open, cylindrical linen canvas bag, between 5" and 7" in diameter and 16" - 20" deep,  with hand

early ditty bag without its lanyard

stitched, flat seams and a round bottom;

-  small grommets made from spliced, small diameter hemp cord marline, hand stitched in linen thread or hemp sail twine;

- a lanyard also made from hemp marline, usually tarred, comprising anything between four and twelve strands, with a loop at the end so that the bag could hang from a hammock hook when not in use.  The lanyard is usually attached to the bag by splicing loops through the grommets.  It could be quite rudimentary, or feature a number of fancywork knots that showcased the sailor's skills.  I am by no means an expert at knot identification, but the 8 strand example, above, seems to employ a double chain sennet and two stopper knots for the handle with a running Turk's Head for the closure. Only the knotted portions have been tarred or varnished in this particular lanyard.

For my 18th century reconstruction, I opted for a linen canvas ditty bag 7" in diameter and 18" deep, following the diagram, provided by Master Sailmaker Louis Bartos of MARINER SAILS in Ketchikan, Alaska.

Ditty Bag Construction Diagram courtesy Louis Bartos of Mariner Sails

4mm tarred hemp marline formed the grommets, which I hand worked with the same waxed linen twine I  used to sew the bag. The next one I make will be sewn with a thicker hemp sail twine, but otherwise I am quite pleased with the results.

I used a #13 sail maker's needle from Wm. Smith & Sons and found it pierced my line canvas easily. It was, as they say in Southeastern New England, "wickid shahp".

I followed the instructions provided by Hervey Smith in his estimable book The Marlinspike Sailor and used three 7' doubled strands to form a six strand lanyard.

Based on Smith's instructions, and a number of helpful YouTube tutorials geared primarily at the para-cord knotting set, I  taught myself how to tie the various lanyard knots.  I began with a simple sennet or braid in the middle of the three strands, then "clapped a seizing" around it with twine to form a loop from the bight.  Below that I tied the first stopper knot, of a sort known since the early 19th century as Matthew Walker's Knot.  It is described as such in Darcy Lever's (1808) The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor: Or a Key to the Leading of Rigging and to Practical Seamanship; and I'd lay you long odds that the stopper knots in the 18th century ditty bag lanyard, above, are evidence that it was in use during the previous century.  It can be made with various numbers of strands, and my lanyard has two of them made with six strands on either end of the handle.  Finishing these knots required a small fid to take in the slack (more on these tools, below).

In between the Matthew Walker's knots I placed an alternating series of round crown sennets: first laid clockwise and then counter. I found it was easier at this stage to stick a large fid through the lanyard loop and then lay the strands out in wide bights before drawing them tight. The result is a very satisfying handle with 14 alternating round crown sennet knots.

The lanyard in progress, with alternating round crown sennets
formed below a Matthew Walker's knot

The finished lanyard handle

A 3 strand running Turks Head knot closes the bag

I went with a running Turks Head to draw the strands of the bag closed once these had been spliced through the grommets.  The first one I made was a double strand Turk's Head which I varnished as the various manuals recommend, but tarred marline really doesn't need varnish and I replaced it with a three Strand Turks Head which I like much better.   This is a fun knot to tie, and a large fid proved to be an excellent form for reducing the size of the knot by pushing it closer to the tip each time I took in the slack.  The key to this knot is retracing, and it took more than 4' of marline to make a three stand knot the size I was looking for.  I just tucked in the ends and pressed it to finish and it has not slipped or unraveled yet.  I think I could have taken the slack in just a bit more in places but knotting my first ever lanyard gave me a great deal of satisfaction.

The finished ditty bag has served me well.  It is a popular ditty bag pattern that, except for the materials used,  has remained little changed during the last 2 centuries.  I'll discuss the tools and personal items I researched and acquired to carry in it in a subsequent post.

Reconstructed 18th Century Sailor's Ditty Bag
made by Tim Abbott from linen canvas and tarred hemp marline

Impression: American Merchant Seaman (1760-1780)

American Merchant Seaman (1765) in 2015

The origin of this impression was a 2014  invitation to participate in an event organized by the Newport Historical Society to be one of the historical interpreters helping to depict the events surrounding Newport's 1765 Stamp Tax Riot.  Less than a month before the event, I was asked if I could portray a sailor, so with assorted working class small clothes and a striped wool hat from my collection, I put together something passable for that era.    The event was well researched and well run, and I found it such fun that I decided to significantly up my game for the following year's 250th anniversary commemoration. 

It has become my favorite impression.  The photograph, above, shows me on the morning of the 2015 event - called the Newport Stamp Tax "Protest" because one cannot get a police permit for a riot - sporting the results of my research and the fruits of a collaboration with a fine tailor, Patrick Eckelmann.

Brown Kersey Sailor's Jacket by Pat Eckelmann

“[1777] a brown sailor jacket, and an under ditto, near the same color, of Germans Serge, bound with a binding something lighter.”  - NJ Runaway newspaper description

 This reconstructed merchant seaman's jacket is based on extensive period documentation and is suitable for an American sailor from the 1760s to about 1780.  A complete review of seafaring dress mentioned in NJ runaway and deserter descriptions in the period between 1734 and 1782 reveals 16 references to blue sailor jackets, most dating from the mid 1760s onward, but also five references to brown sailor jackets in the 1760s and 1770s, as well as examples in several other colors.

Kersey, along with other coarse, water resistant wool fabrics, is well documented for sailor’s jackets during this period.  Because I haven't found a good source for period correct German Serge, and because it is underrepresented in the hobby, Brown Kersey Wool was used for this reconstruction.   I also decided to have the coat body lined with white wool flannel.  In the same NJ runaway ads, when linings are described for Sailor’s jackets they are either white or red wool flannel. 

Single breasted sailor jackets were a prevalent style in this period.  Mine has small brass buttons with buttonholes worked in white silk twist. It has no collar or lapels and two small pockets, lined with osnabrig. The short skirts cut away at the front, which is less common than straight skirts but still decently represented in period illustrations, particularly in the 1760s.  It has slashed sleeves with placets and four brass buttons

Sailor clothing in this period was sometimes bound with tape, either a similar shade as the coat body or considerably lighter.  In keeping with the 1777 runaway description, above, the binding for this brown kersey jacket is 1” worsted twill tape vegetable dyed to a golden brown color.  It took all 5 yards I provided to bind just the the coat edges and the sleeve placets with ½” showing. 

Trowsers were quite  common seafaring dress in this period, and there are many examples in contemporary illustrations and runway descriptions, where they are often simply called ‘sailor’s trowsers’:

[1768] “long striped cotton trowsers”
[1768]  “white tow trowsers”
[1772] “long Osnaberg trowsers”
[1773] “a pair of check trowsers”

Sailor trowsers during this period were not wide legged slops, but nor were they close fitting.  They     

tended to taper with the leg until reaching just above the ankle.

Detail: striped linen ticking trowser eyelets and vent

My trowsers are of natural linen ticking with a blue and white stripe. They have a narrow, two button fall with 3/4” pewter buttons provided. The trowser stripes are vertical except for the waistband in which the are horizontal. The waistband has 2 large 1” pewter buttons (provided). The legs end above the ankle and brown and red tape (provided) closes the back vent.

One unusual feature of these sailor trowsers are the pockets.  Several of the 1774 -1775 watercolor illustrations made by Lt. Gabriel Bray, such as the one that appears below, depict sailors from H.M.S. "Pallas" wearing trowsers with side seam pockets.   Mine are lined in osnabrig.

The rest of clothing for this impression was not purpose-made specifically for it but was among my collection and suitable for a variety of interpretations.  The short brimmed, round blocked hat is one that appears in period illustrations, but also stands in for the cut down military hats worn in 1758 by General Abercrombie's ill-fated forces in the attack of the defenses of Fort Carillon on Lake Champlain.  The shirt is small-checked linen with narrow cuffs that close with sleeve links.   

It was not necessary to wear an under jacket or waistcoat with a sailor jacket, and in warm weather it was often discarded.  Sleeveless waistcoats worn by sailors in period depictions often have stripes, sometimes running laterally.  I'm working on two striped waistcoats now that could work well for this impression: one a double breasted hybrid in striped calamanco and another single-breasted, without skirts, with lateral stripes in red and yellow linsey-woolsey.

The stockings I wore for the Newport event were knit light blue wool thread, though I also wear gray

Detail:  Watson and the Shark (1778) by J.S. Copley

ones of sock length with these trowsers.  Small, buckled shoes, rather than bare feet, were worn by sailors ashore as well as on shipboard.  The cotton neck handkerchief is a spotted bandanna in a period design, though I'll eventually find one in black silk as an alternative neck covering.  It can be knotted lower down on the neck than I'm wearing it here, sometimes worn with the triangle of the bandanna unfolded at the back of the shoulders, as seen on the sailor in the painting at right.

 Jack ashore needed protection from foot pads and the press gang, and sailors with a stick, cane or cudgel of some sort are extremely common in period illustrations. Mine is an antique burl handled cane with a stout knob and lovely dark patina.

18th century linen canvas ditty bag by Tim Abbott

How one inhabits the clothing and uses the material culture lies at the heart of an effective impression and engaging historical interpretation.  I'm particularly pleased with the ditty bag I researched and made myself for this impression.  I'll document and describe the process that went into constructing the bag and knotting the lanyard in a subsequent post, as well as share the antique sail maker's and rigger's tool I've acquired for its contents. 

Documentation and Reconstruction of a Hybrid Style Double Breasted Waistcoat in Striped Calamanco

I'm collaborating with a fine tailor, Patrick Eckelmann, on a new 18th century waistcoat project. What I have in mind is a hybrid waistcoat that features both single and double breasted elements. It will feature a wonderful historic textile known as striped calamanco that is virtually unrepresented in the reenacting community, and the garment when finished will be suitable for several 1760s-1770s impressions.

While double breasted waistcoats fully came into their own after 1780, they were by no means unknown in prior decades. Examination of NJ runaway descriptions from period newspapers in the decade between between 1768 and 1777 reveals quite a number of individuals who wore double breasted jackets, waistcoats and vests in a variety of fabrics, as the following excerpts illustrate:

“ [1768] a double breasted swanskin jacket with black spots, and brown mohair buttons”
“[1769] two striped jackets, one of which is double breasted, without sleeves”
“[1769] a blue and white homespun striped double breasted under jacket without sleeves”
“[1770] blue double breasted [jacket], without sleeves, or lining, metal buttons”
“[1771] two snuff coloured cloth jackets, the under one short, double breasted”
“[1772] a blue double breasted vest”
“[1772] a striped Bengal jacket, double breasted”
“[1772] a cotton and worsted double breasted jacket”
“[1773] lincey Woolsey [vest] , double breasted, of a reddish colour”
“[1773] a red vest without sleeves, double breasted”
“[1775] a light coloured new double breasted under jacket, of fulled lincey”
“[1777] a blue double breasted jacket”


Occasionally such descriptions also contain references to a distinctive cut or construction:

“[1773] double breasted [jacket] , the fore parts red nap, the back parts striped lincey”
“[1773] a short lightish double breasted under jacket with metal buttons and no skirts”
“[1774] a red frize waistcoat double breasted, with pewter buttons on one side and none on the other”

There are also references to waistcoats and jackets made with calamanco, including “a striped calamanco jacket” and “a calimancoe striped waistcoat, with a number of small buttons”: both worn by Irish servant runaways in 1773. Another runaway in 1776 wore "a sleeveless jacket, with the fore parts of red serge, the back parts calamanco”

During the second half of the 18th century, calamanco was a thin worsted fabric, often striped in multiple colors but sometimes also checked, damasked, or with a satin weave. Norwich, England was famous for it.

The striped calamanco cloth that I have located for this reconstruction is a 17" by 60" bolt of fabric made by Eaton Hill Textile Works, and is closely matched to an 18th century example. It has stripes in several widths and arrangements and features an astonishing eight colors, including red, pink, yellow, two shades of green, light brown, black and white.

There is considerable variation in style, construction and fabric in contemporary runaway descriptions to support a choice of striped calamanco for this waistcoat reconstruction, and also for utilizing a different fabric for the back parts if there is not enough calamanco material for the entire waistcoat. Likewise, while small buttons covered in the same fabric as the front waistcoat panels are an appropriate choice, there is enough variation in the button descriptions in these runaway descriptions to support other options.

Regarding the pattern of the waistcoat itself, while general trends in double breasted waistcoat construction are discernible from 1750 to 1780, there is far more variety in the available documentation than might at first be suspected, and there are still exceptions to every rule. One of the earliest contemporary images of a sailor wearing a double breasted waistcoat, for example is the sketch (at left) held in the collections of the National Maritime Museum (UK). The central figure is a Scottish Captain whose underjacket appears to have no skirts and has a narrow distance between the paired rows of buttons. This is thought quite typical of such waistcoats from the 1780s onward, yet this sketch is thought to date from about 1750.

A second portrait from the same time period (below, at left) shows a gentleman in hunting dress wearing a double breasted striped waistcoat. The subject was a Welshman and President of the Society of Sea Sergeants. His collared double breasted waistcoat with flap pockets and cutaway skirts has small self covered buttons, with a single, third button in the center to close the two bottom halves and perhaps one as well at the collar. The stripes in this case are lateral.

Gwynne’s waistcoat is an early example of a variation of the double breasted style dating from at least the 1750s. It is actually a hybrid with both single and double breasted elements. Typically one or more of the bottom buttons on such waistcoats were single breasted, with those above arranged in two, widely spaced double rows. This button configuration is similar to those found on regimental coats of the 1750s but usually these waistcoats are without lapels.

The hybrid waistcoat style seems to have been popular with

sporting gentlemen like Gwynne based on surviving portraits of the period, but there is variation even among these examples, with skirts of different cuts and lengths and different numbers of single buttons below the double rows. The example at right depicting a gentleman named Francis Burdett dates from 1762-1763 and is one of a series of portraits made of fellow members of the Markeaton Hunt during this time by portrait painter Joseph Wright of Derby. Burdett's waistcoat is typical of the rest worn by his hunting companions: a hybrid with long skirts that are either squared in the typical 1750s style or just slightly cutaway. It is unlined, with two self covered buttons that close the bottom of the waistcoat and a wide double row of small buttons above.

There is actually a surviving example of a hybrid waistcoat from the collections of Snowhill Manor in Gloucestershire that dates from the 1760s.

It is made of red, yellow, cream and blue silk, lined with natural linen, and fastens with small flat self covered buttons. The fore parts are striped while the back parts are solid. The skirts are shorter and appear to be more cut away in the fashion that became popular in the 1770s. The pocket flaps lack button closures.

Although the images below may be reversed, it appears that this double breasted waistcoat was designed to fasten over the left row of buttons rather than the right. The rows also curve slightly inward as they rise toward the center and then curve out again as the approach the shoulders. There are four small buttons that close the bottom, single breasted portion of the waistcoat, and one that closes the neck. It has false side vents and a true back vent.

This waistcoat provides the template for the major design elements of our hybrid waistcoat reconstruction:

· - The front panels will be vertically striped calamanco, while the back panels may be white
    serge.
· - It will have two rows of 9 or 10 rather than 11 small self covered or thread covered
    buttons per row, arranged in a slight curve.
· - It will have at least three small buttons that close the bottom of the jacket front.
· - It will have short cutaway skirts
· - It will have two scalloped pockets without buttons and no collar.

Unlike this surviving example, the reconstructed hybrid waistcoat will be unlined, and it may either lack or include the top button to close the neck at the tailor’s discretion. Instead of silk and linen, it will be constructed of worsted calamanco and serge. It will not be reversible; that is, it will only button on one side, and it will button on the right rather than on the left.

When it is finished, this striped calamanco and serge hybrid waistcoat ought to work nicely for several of my historical impressions, including that of a 1760-1780 American merchant seaman, among whom striped waistcoats were a popular choice. I could see it working as part of my 1758 New Jersey Provincial Regiment impression as well, for no waistcoats were issued to this unit in that year and soldiers who had them would have likely worn civilian ones. It might likewise do for an early Revolutionary War American militia or even Continental Army impression, especially those units where a wide array of civilian coats were collected and distributed to soldiers. The greatest challenge may not be finding an appropriate, documented use for this 18th century garment, but reconciling its bold stripes and array of colors with the fashion sensibilities of our own era.

When it is ready, I will of course post pictures. I hope to have it available for this year's Boston Massacre. If so, look for me among the angry sailors.