Long hunter brand bags and Knives or the Mystery of Symmetry

 

18th century sporting image. good idea for basic bag shape and size

                 

simple edged bag (possible belt pouch) 

So Lets keep this ball rolling. Keep the Brains working and the ideas flying. The next Long Hunter brand item I’d like to talk about is Knives and bags. I mentioned this a little bit about the penny knife post but to be honest there is SOOOO many bad knives floating around labeled as “long hunter” its tough to know where to begin. Ok so if there was A knife that was common to the virginia longhunters, the market hunters from Fort pitt, Natives, the men of new England and everyone in between it would have to be 100% the Cutteau Knife.  Jim Mullins broke this down some time ago in his blog. https://ofsortsforprovincials.blogspot.com/2013/03/cuttoe-knives-revealed.html

Modern school of knives might have all the same working parts as an original knife (deer parts, cutting edge etc) but that in no way alone makes them 18^th century. By far the go to for most new folks is a woodbury style knife because it “looks old timey”.  You cant swing a dead cat and not come across someone making their version of this knife and labeling it “18^th century” or “long hunter style”. Calling it as it is these knives have way more to do with modern black powder culture then they do the 18^th century.

 antler handled knives are made in the 18^th century in fact everytime this debate comes up someone wll dig up the one with the sheath marked “1758” and proclaim the debate over. Problem is antler handled knives were made by European knife makers (the factories) and they looked very little like the common knife on the modern market. That particular example is more proof of factory made knives then the work of a backcountry smith. Look at Madison Grant’s book on Knives and one detail you’ll notice is that most of the knives have NO attribution apart from “old knife”. Grant was famous for marrying pieces together he thought looked good and using a process that was simply the uglier the item the earlier it had to be. This was due to the fact that obviously anything ugly must have been made on the frontier in a rush because why not. He ignored the crazy amount of ready-made cutlery being shipped to the backcountry because it didn’t fit his mindset. Plus, we cant ignore the amount of research done on the subject since his books were published. A lot of information we have easy access to was simply not available to these early collectors and they often did the best with just what they had on hand.

A lot of this is also the product of the “longknife” idea of 18^th century backcountry folks. I broke this down a number of years ago in a separate posting. The basic run down is that this was the name given to the virginia governor by natives and was then applied to virginians. It has nothing to do with carrying giant knives. Later in the 19^th century this name does start to affect the fashion of “frontiersman” and big knives become a mark of a “frontiersman” so you really see big knives take off.

https://buffalotrace1765.blogspot.com/2011/09/long-knife-described-your-clothes-not.html

The problem with a lot of these knives is like bags there is really no way to date most of them and if Simon Kenton owned a big knife when he was in his 80s and this knife is in a local historical society labeled “simon kenton’s knife” to many this is evidence that it was carried by him in his 20’s. despite the fact the knife’s shape etc is all in line with knives from the 19^th century. You see this a lot as well with rifle’s etc. To put a fine point on this, The coke bottle you drink out of today is not gonna be the same as the coke bottle from 1976.

So just how do you solve this? Ask the maker questions, ask them for documentation. Ken Gahagan and Ken Hamilton are two knife makers I know of that will provide you with a packet of information when you buy stuff from them or at the least will break out a folder of info to show you just why the knife you are interested in is documented. To me this should be the Norm for makers and buyers in this hobbie. If a guy cant provide you with research and just says “ it’s a Long hunter knife”  then maybe you should keep looking for makers and info. great resource for some knife s and knife making images can be found here https://www.scribd.com/document/274582394/Food-Service-Utility-Clasp-Knives

 

18th century antler handled knife...funny I know but this blade shape shows up in the archeology 

So now that ive angered all the knife makers lets go after the bag makers. Often bags are based off just what the current reenactor fab is at the moment. Road kill bags inspired by the Madison grant idea “uglier is earlier” was the norm for a number of years. Now it seems to be the more scrap pieces of leather you can sew together the better. It all needs to be topped off with an angular piece of bark tan that still maintains the nastiest part of the bark tan hide. If that flap is symmetrical then you have obviously failed as a person and your bag is wrong.

I know I sound like a broken record on certain things but that is one idea I just can’t get over. Its like ok these folks made all their own stuff but they obviously didn’t have access to a straight edge when they were sewing up their bag? If you’re an individual then why does all that stuff look the same? Quit using the frontier as an excuse and dare to be different, dare to use documentation.

These are just a few of the bag images that are out there. As in a very few. Looking at sporting images, trade cards the background of larger paintings are all ready resources for folks looking for images of bags. No they don’t give you construction details and you always need to look at the context of the painting. Is this an 18^th century image? Is this a reworking of another image (this was before copyright laws)?  Do I know of an original bag this basic shape?

Ok to show this in action I'll go to a native bag and an image that pops up quite a bit. Ok so here is a 1770s image of Robert Rogers.

To alot of folks this is now documentation that rogers carried a large native bag and is also documentation for super big native pouches. Except you have to look around and you'll see quickly this image is simply a period rip off of this image.

SO you can see some very clear similarities. Also the bag pictured and used ALOT by Benjamin west does exist and is currently in the brit museum. The problem is the scale of the original bag is way off compared to the bags in the images:

And here is the original and it measures 6.5 inches by 7 inches. So the native wearing that bag would have to have been a super small guy. West took some liberites with scale to show the bags details and the other artist just tried to add the bag to his version of rogers because it looked "american". This is why doing your research and casting a wide net is so important in doing period reproductions. ALl of this was dug up in less then a half hour with some web searches. If you find a piece your interested in Jump in the rabbit hole. Dig, look around, ask questions more often then not you'll learn something in the process. Not always the info you started looking for but its something.

I love using original bags but the problem is with most they have no way of knowing just when they were made and the basic style of shot pouch never really goes away. If you compare some of these 18^th cent images with photographs of black powder shooters from the 20^th century you really don’t see a difference. For example, my favorite original bag that is at the king’s mountain historic site was NOT collected there and has no real connection to the site apart from being an “old” bag. The reason I went with that specific bag was it matched in shape a rev war era sketch of a rifleman.  SO, it’s a guess but its also an educated guess. I could have just stitched together a coverlet and old piece of leather and called it a day but I couldn’t find an original done like that or in an image so…

I used this pouch with the construction of the King's mountain pouch to come up with my take on this shot bag

my take on the kings mountain pouch and the gear I carry in it

Also as with knives you gotta always be aware of the creep of 19^th century items backward into the “surviving” examples. With the number of frontiersman who lived into the 19^th century  there are a number of bags out there attributed to someone BUT is very clearly made for them later in life. Super fringed bags, cut outs, double bags etc. while they might be great for the shooting match do they really belong at an 18^th century event?

Larger bag in this image. Just a dutchman frustrated with shooting

    Ok so everyone is good and riled up. There will be many harumphs and groans reading this post. This

 is what happens when I spend way to much time in the hotel so you have the railroad to blame. Now 

that I’ve done a few negative-ish posts I'll be jumping back into stuff on the helpful side. maybe a few 

how to's and some camp craft. I’ve also asked a few makers if they’d be up for Q&A's on their gear to 

help folks find some quality stuff. I'm now going to try and weave while keeping the threads away 

from a puppy. Levi is a ball of chaos that has been keeping me on my toes but he already has a small 

wallet for dog food with his name on it for treks and he’s pretty pumped about that..

 

Oh and some shameless  promotion for the Altoona Rifle and pistol clubs " Rifle Frolic"  its a great event put on by some amazing folks. A great time to just get out and shoot.