Cleaning Your Gun In The field.

Cleaning Your Gun In The Field is part of my "A Woodsrunner's Day" series.

Living history re-enactors at Maine Wildlife Park.

Maine Wildlife Park volunteer Miriam Bisbee throws the hatchet with Dave Bryant of Maine living history group The Ancient Ones.

http://www.sunjournal.com/living-history-re-enactors-at-maine-wildlife-park/

A Member's Story By Swampfox. Texas Free Trappers Shoot!

http://neclhg.freeforums.net/thread/319/texas-free-trappers?page=1&scrollTo=415

Southern Cross Free Trappers Latest Newsletter.

Detail from Millmerran 2017 pencil drawing by Charlie Timma.

http://freetrappers.org.au/newsletters/vol-60-november-2017/

Update On Our Group's New Forum.

Well the help people still haven't replied, either there are a lot of complaints, or they are just bloody useless. I gave up trying to change the forum via their board, & found another way. I have not done too badly considering, & it looks as though the forum is usable. More problems may arise, but if they do I will work on it. Better than having to start a new forum elsewhere & lose all those years of posts & information. The new forum looks different to the old one, I have installed new & different images in some of the sections. Check it out for yourselves at: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/eighteenthcenturylivinghistory/index.php?sid=75d999d1f3064aa04a403a813cc2cb2a

Southern Cross Free Trappers Newsletter Vol. 59, June 2017

http://freetrappers.org.au/newsletters/

The Revenant Movie, Disappointment.

If you are a history buff, or know anything about muzzle-loading guns or even if you posses a normal degree of common sense, then don't bother watching this movie. There was apparently a 19th century living historian hired to train the actors in the use of muzzle-loading guns, but either this person did not know his stuff, or he was totally ignored. No one was present to adjust the on screen visual mistakes, either that or they simply had no clue either!

Very few historical facts in this movie, which is a great pitty because the real story, IF DONE PROPERLY, would have been worth watching. There are simply too many mistakes in this movie to make it worth watching from my point of view. I thought that after the Last Of The Mohicans, some breakthroughs in historical accuracy had actually been made, there were some mistakes, but they could be ignored, but in The Revenant, there are more mistakes that you can shake a stick at & for me at least it spoilt the whole movie. If DiCaprio wanted an Oscar for his part in this film, then he should have done his own research & made his own part more believable. I find it really hard to believe that in this day & age film makers are still unable to make a decent historical based movie of this type. Very disappointing.

Keith.

Free Trappers Australia.

http://freetrappers.org.au/newsletters/vol-54-november-2015/?utm_source=Around+the+Traps+Newsletter&utm_campaign=ba4db0fb59-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f44cd1b79f-ba4db0fb59-245456841

The Fur Trade. Video.

Delicate Balance By Robert Griffing.

More On The Shot Pouch-A Personal Choice.

The shot pouch was and is a practicle item worn by some hunters/shooters. This pouch carries the shot and tools necessary for the functioning of a muzzle-loading gun or rifle. As to the wearing of a shot pouch, it is not my purpose here to dictate how it should be correctly worn, as I think this is a personal choice. I have found though that carrying the shot pouch too low poses problems when hunting in the bush, so I wear my own pouch as high as I can under my right arm and still get my hand into the pouch without having to move it to my front.
My shot pouch is not large, and a larger opening would I think allow me to wear it higher. Also I may be a little restricted from a past shoulder injury, so these are things to take into account when viewing original painting of the period. The paintings here are 18th and 19th century, as it is the position of the pouch we are concerned with when it is worn by those who earn their living from hunting and trapping.
Someone recently made the observation that Gentlemen may not necessarily wear a shot pouch in the same way as a hunter or trapper. This could quite possibly be true, so I have included artwork of Gentlemen shooters as well as hunters and trappers. But as you will see, very few Gentlemen actually used a shot pouch, preferring instead to carry their accouterments in their coat pockets. 

Attributed to David, Antonio (Italian painter, active 1684) , William Howard, Viscount Andover (1714-56).

England 1769 William Hulton with Gun-Dog and Shotgun by Henry Pickering (British artist, fl 1740-c 1771).

Fleetwood Hezketh

Joseph Wright of Derby (1769)

England 1680 John Poulett, 1st Earl Poulett by John Closterman (British artist, 1660-1711).

The pouch hanging on the tree looks too small to be a game bag.

England 1774 Sir Edward Hales, Baronet, of Hales Place, Hackington, Kent by Philip Mercier (German-born painter, c 1689-1760).

Detail from James and Mary Shuttleworth...

Joseph Wright of Derby (1764)

This English Gentleman appears to have a shot pouch on a waist belt, which can be seen on the rock to the right.
England 1752 A Sportsman by Edward Haytley 1752.

This Gentleman is indeed using what appears to be a shoulder slung shot pouch, but this I believe was painted in America.
1782 Colonel John Onslow by Ralph Earl (American painter, 1751-1801).

The following paintings are of hunters and trappers in America.

The Trapper's Bride, Alfred Jacob Miller.

charles-deas-jake-el-largo-museos-y-pinturas-juan-carlos-boveri.

No artist named for this painting.

Joseph Brant 1790.

Again, no artist named, but notice the pouch hanging over the powder horn.

Two American riflemen as drawn by a Hessian. These could be cartridge boxes or shot pouches. Also note the bayonets ! Some artistic licence being used here I suspect.

The Revenant | Official Teaser Trailer [HD] | 20th Century FOX

Period Fire Lighting & Tinder Quotes.

American Aloe, Agave or Sentry Plant. Also found in Australia.

Their grow’s here Large Berch trees…on the Root of the branches of the Said tree, grow’s Large Knops of wood of Different form’s, which they style (posogan) which posogan is of great service to the Natives, they use itt to strike Light to, as we do touch wood… itts Substance Resembles Spunge…once Light is Very Difficult to put out…will Clow and Bur’n tell Consum’d to ashes and never Blaze.”
~James Isham, Hudson’s Bay, 1743-49

“They employ tree mushrooms very frequently instead of tinder. Those which are taken from the sugar maple are reckoned the best; those of the red maple are next in goodness, and next to them, those of the sugar birch, for want of these, they likewise make use of those which grow on the aspen tree.”
~ Peter Kalm, Canada, 1749

"Maple trees usually have large growths on them, which are cut and dried in the sun, making a sort of touchwood which the Canadians call tondre."
- Jolicoeur Charles Bonin, 1750’s

“…fungus that grows on the outside of the birch-tree…used by all the Indians in those parts for tinder…called by the Northern Indians Jolt-thee, and is known all over the country bordering on Hudson’s Bay by the name of Pesogan…there is another kind…that I think is infinitely preferable to either. This is found in old decayed poplars, and lies in flakes…is always moist when taken from the tree but when dry…takes fire readily from the spark of a steel: but it is much improved by being kept dry in a bag that has contained gunpowder.”
~Samuel Hearne, Northern Canada, 1772

“I said to them…you Fools go to the Birch Trees and get some touchwood,”
~David Thompson, Lake Athabasca, 1790s

“This induced me to resolve not to travel more by land without my gun, powder and shot, steel, spunge and flint, for striking a fire…”
~Patrick Campbell, Canada/New York, 1792

“A Canadian never neglects to have touchwood for his pipe”
~David Thompson, Red Lake River, 1798 

"There was Dry leaves and sticks under our shelter. I stoped the tuch hole of my gun with tallow and then did ketch fire and we made up a fire and Dryed our selves."

Westward Into Kentucky, Daniel Trabue, 1779:

"There happened to be an iron pot and an ax on board--- they cut off a piece of the boat rope, and picked it to oakum, and putting it in the pan of a gun, with some powder, catched it on fire, which with some thin pieces cut from the mast, they kindled in the pot, and then cut up their mast, seats, &c. for fuel, and making a tent of their sail, wrapt themselves as well as they could;"

From The Pennsylvania Gazette, 1765, 3 men trapped in the ice in their boat during a waterfowl hunt and likely to freeze to death:

'Our party having separated, the important articles of tinder and matches were in the baggage of the division which had proceeded: and as the night was rainy and excessively dark, we were, for some time, under anxiety, lest we should have been deprived of the comfort and security of a fire. Fortunately, my powder-flask was in my saddlebags, and we succeeded in supplying the place of tinder, by moistening a piece of paper, and rubbing it with gunpowder. We placed our touch paper on an old cambric handkerchief, as the most readily combustible article in our stores. On this we scattered gunpowder pretty copiously, and our flint and steel soon enabled us to raise a flame, and collecting dry wood, we made a noble fire.

http://www.mspong.org/percy/travellers.htm

Birkbeck, Morris. Notes on a Journey in America . London: Severn and Co., 1818.

They rubb'd Fire out of particular sorts of Wood (as the Antients did out of the Ivy and Bays) by turning the end of a hard piece upon the side of a piece that is soft and dry, like a Spindle on its Inke, by which it heats, and at length burns; to this they put sometimes also rotten Wood, and dry Leaves to hasten the Work.

Robert Beverley 1705.

To make Tinder.

Take three ounces of Salt-petre, put it to a Pint and a half of fair Water, set it on a Fire in a Kettle or Pan to heat till the Salt-petre be dissolved; then take a Quire of smooth brown Paper, and

put them in Sheet by Sheet into the hot water till they are wet through, and then lay them on a clean Floor or Grass to dry. You may at any Time tear a Piece off, and put it in your Tinderbox,; it will catch like Wild-Fire. By this Means you may save all your Linen Rags in the Family, keep them clean in a Bag, and, if you are careful of them, they may produce you a Pair of Shoes and Stockings at the Years End; and by this Frugality you will have the Pleasure to think of encouraging the making of Paper, and employing the Industrious.

 Madam Johnson's present: or, every young woman's companion in ... - Page 181 .

"and with a girdle of their making, bound round about their middles, to which girdle is fastned a bagg, in which his instruments be, with which hee can strike fire upon any occasion"

Thomas Morton: Manners and Customs of the Indians, 1637

Thomas Morton 1579-1647

http://www.nativetech.org/clothing/pouch/pouches.html

"Tree fungi are used very frequently instead of tinder. Those which are taken from the sugar maple are reckoned the best; those of the red maple are next in quality; and next to them, those of the sugar birch. For want of these they make use of those which grow on the aspen tree.”
Pehr Kalm,
Travels in North America, 1749

"Maple trees usually have large growths on them, which are cut and dried in the sun, making a sort of touchwood which the Canadians call tondre."
Jolicoeur Charles Bonin,
Memoir of  French and Indian War Soldier, 1750's

Their grow’s here Large Berch trees…on the Root of the branches of the Said tree, grow’s Large Knops of wood of Different form’s, which they style (posogan) which posogan is of great service to the Natives, they use itt to strike Light to, as we do touch wood… itts Substance Resembles Spunge…once Light is Very Difficult to put out…will Clow and Bur’n tell Consum’d to ashes and never Blaze.”
~James Isham, Hudson’s Bay, 1743-49

“They employ tree mushrooms very frequently instead of tinder. Those which are taken from the sugar maple are reckoned the best; those of the red maple are next in goodness, and next to them, those of the sugar birch, for want of these, they likewise make use of those which grow on the aspen tree.”
~ Peter Kalm, Canada, 1749

"Maple trees usually have large growths on them, which are cut and dried in the sun, making a sort of touchwood which the Canadians call tondre."
- Jolicoeur Charles Bonin, 1750’s 

“…fungus that grows on the outside of the birch-tree…used by all the Indians in those parts for tinder…called by the Northern Indians Jolt-thee, and is known all over the country bordering on Hudson’s Bay by the name of Pesogan…there is another kind…that I think is infinitely preferable to either. This is found in old decayed poplars, and lies in flakes…is always moist when taken from the tree but when dry…takes fire readily from the spark of a steel: but it is much improved by being kept dry in a bag that has contained gunpowder.”
~Samuel Hearne, Northern Canada, 1772

Fomes fomentarius - the tinder fungus

-a wood rotting fungus (Aphyllophorales) that produces hoof shaped basidiocarps up to2 feet in diameter; basidiocarps are prennenial, producing a new layer of pores each year; was once

common in North Asia, North America and Europe

-suggested to be the earliest fungus to have been used by humans with discoveries dating to

mesolithic settlements around 8000 BC

-flesh of basidiocarp was treated to produce amadou, which had two functions depending upon method of treatment

1. softest part of flesh was removed, soaked in hot water and pounded with a mallet until it was felt-like; resulting material was very absorbent and was used as a styptic; also used to make parts of hats and purses

2. tougher parts soaked in hot water with ashes, pounded and soaked again in potassium nitrate; end product was excellent tinder

http://www.plant.uga.edu/labrat/mims/overheads03.pdf

“Mr MacKay lighted a bit of touch-wood with a burning glass, in the cover of his tobacco box…”

                Alexander Mackenzie, 1793.

“Fire making is a simple process with the mountaineers. Their bullet pouches always contain a flint and steel, and sundry pieces of “punk”-a pithy substance found in dead pine trees-or tinder; and pulling a handful of dry grass, which they screw into a nest, they place the lighted punk in this, and closing the grass over it, wave it in the air, when it soon ignites, and readily kindles the dry sticks forming the foundation of a fire.”

Ruxton, 1848.

“…rain began hammering down so heavily that, one hundred miles from the nearest trees, and with nothing available but moss, nobody could start a fire.”

                Samuel Hearne, 1770.

 “…he was left to amuse himself all night a long side his fier (fire) which he made with his gun.” ~A. McKenzie, 1804.

“In the woods we were under some disadvantage, having no fire-works”. Journal of John Woolman, 1720-1742.

Take those great things which are called olde Todestooles growing out of the bottomes of nuttrees, beechtrees, okes, and such like trees, drye them with the smoke of fire, & then cut them into as many peeces as you will, and hauing well beaten them, boyle the  in strong lie with waule floure, or saltpeeter, till all the lie shal be consumend. After this laying them in a heape uppon a boorde, drie them in an oven which must not be made verie hotte, and after you haue so done, beate them well with a wooden mallet, and when you shall haue cause to use any parte of those Todestooles (now by the means above declared made touchwood) rubbe well that parte betweene your handes for to make it softe and apte to take fire. But when you will make tinder for a Gunners tinder boxe, take peeces of fustian, or of old and fine linnen clothe, make them to burn and flame in a fire, & suddenly before the flame which is in the  doth die, choke the fire, & keepe their tinder so made in a boxe lined within with clothe, to the ende that it may not be moyste at any time.

Appendix 20-1,  Lucar, C., Translation of Tartaglia, Three Bookes of Colloquies Concerning the Arte of Shooting in Great and Samll Peeces of Artillerie with Appendix, London,1588.

 “An Indian often goes off alone…with only his musket, powder and shot, and tinderbox… 
Pouchot, Pierre. Memoirs on the Late War in North America between France and England pg. 482 

 “…by the help of their punk, made a fire.” 

A Narrative of the Captivity of Mrs. Johnson (1754-57) as found in Calloway, Colin G. North Country Captives pg. 61 .

Shall I instruct you in the practical science of getting a light with flint and steel? The first thing is to make your tinder, by burning or rather scorching a piece of rag. Toast it or char it till it is tenderly made into tinder. Neither do it too little, nor too much; cook your rags to a turn. Be very mindful to keep your tinder dry as a bone; for a spark will be of no service if it does not fall where it will be nourished; and the least damp will kill it. The sparks of temptation would be harmless if it were not for the tinder of corruption in our hearts. Good teaching is also lost unless it falls upon a mind prepared to receive it: so that the metaphor can be used either way.
Having secured your tinder, you had next to know how to strike your flint and steel so as to create sparks. Many a knock of the fingers would you get if you did not look alive. Possibly you would also bark your knuckles if you did know the art, if the weather was cold and your hands were half frozen. So is it in your dealing with men's consciences: you may give a hard knock and fetch fire out of them, or you may break your own knuckles by bringing upon yourself personal ill-will.
If you were so skilful or so fortunate as to cause a spark to drop into the tinder, you had to blow upon it very gently; just as the first sign of grace in any heart needs encouraging with the fostering breath of sympathy. How often have I seen a servant go down on her knees to blow at a coal which seemed to have a little life in it! Let us do the like with those persons concerning whom we are somewhat hopeful.
When the spark had become fairly prosperous in the tinder, then you applied the point of your brimstone match. You do not quite know what I mean. Well, mind you do not make a brimstone match when you get married. The brimstone, at the sharpened point of the match, would take fire when it touched the spark, and then your labour approached its reward. When you had your match flaming, and smelling, you lighted your candle; and having done with your elaborate apparatus, you popped the flat lid of the box upon the tinder to put it all out.

http://www.spurgeon.org/misc/candles2.htm

“He carrieth about him a purse of tewed leather, a mineral stone and a flat emery stone, tied fast to the end of a little stick. Gently, he striketh upon the mineral stone, and within a strike or two, a spark falleth upon a piece of touchwood and with the least spark, he maketh the fire."

- John Brereton describing the firemaking skills of the Wampanoag Indians (early 17th century).

Fortunately the water was not deep about the rock, nor between it and the land, and though a thin ice had formed, I was able to break it, and carry my children on shore. But here we had nearly perished from cold, as my spunk wood was wet, and I had no means of kindling a fire, until I thought to split open my powder horn, when I found in the middle of the mass of powder, a little which the water had not reached. This enabled me to kindle a fire, and was the means of saving all our lives.

Owing to our hands being benumbed with the cold, it was long before we could extricate ourselves from our snow shoes, and we were no sooner out of the water than our moccasins and clothes were frozen so stiff that we could not travel. I began also to think that we must die. But I was not like my Indian brother, willing to sit down and wait patiently for death to come. I kept moving about to the best of my power, while he lay in a dry place by the side of the bank where the wind had blown away the snow. I at length found some very dry rotten wood which I used as a substitute for spunk, and was so happy as to raise a fire. We then appliedourselves to thaw and dry our moccasins, and when partly dry we put them on, and went to collect fuel [Page 24] for a larger fire than we had before been able to make.

The wind was high, and the snow driving violently. In a vast extent of the plain, which we overlooked, we could see no wood, but some small oak bushes, scarce as high as a man's shoulders; but inthis poor cover we were compelled to encamp. The small and green stalks of the oaks were, with the utmost difficulty, kindled, [Page 50] and made but a poor fire. When the fire had remained some time in one place, and the ground under it become dry, we removed the brands and coals, and lay down upon the warm ashes.

The prophet, we are told, has forbid us to suffer our fire to be extinguished in our lodges, and when we travel or hunt, he will not allow us to use a flint and steel, and we are told he requires that no man should give fire to another. Can it please the Great Spirit that we should lie in our hunting camps without fire, or is it more agreeable to him that we should make fire by rubbing together two sticks than with a flint and a piece of steel?" But they would not listen to me, and the serious enthusiasm which prevailed among them so far affected me that I threw away my flint and steel, laid aside my medicine bag, and, in many particulars, complied with the new doctrines. But I would not kill my dogs. I soon learned to kindle a fire by rubbing some dry cedar, which I was careful to carry always about me, but the discontinuance of the use of flint and steel subjected many of the Indians to much inconvenience and suffering.

 A narrative of the captivity and adventures of John Tanner, (U.S. interpreter at the Saut de Ste. Marie,): during thirty years residence among the Indians in the interior of North America.

https://archive.org/details/cihm_42507

http://imp.lss.wisc.edu/~jrvalent/AIS/Assets/Pdfs/BookTanner.pdf

Southern Cross Free Trappers News Letter.

http://freetrappers.org.au/newsletters/vol-49-july-2014/?utm_source=Around+the+Traps+Newsletter&utm_campaign=4f68050619-Vol_49_July_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=

0_f44cd1b79f-4f68050619-245456917

Rendezvous.

The Fur Trade.

The Economic History of the Fur Trade: 1670 to 1870

Ann M. Carlos, University of Colorado
Frank D. Lewis, Queen's University

Introduction

A commercial fur trade in North America grew out of the early contact between Indians and European fisherman who were netting cod on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland and on the Bay of Gaspé near Quebec. Indians would trade the pelts of small animals, such as mink, for knives and other iron-based products, or for textiles. Exchange at first was haphazard and it was only in the late sixteenth century, when the wearing of beaver hats became fashionable, that firms were established who dealt exclusively in furs. High quality pelts are available only where winters are severe, so the trade took place predominantly in the regions we now know as Canada, although some activity took place further south along the Mississippi River and in the Rocky Mountains. There was also a market in deer skins that predominated in the Appalachians.

The first firms to participate in the fur trade were French, and under French rule the trade spread along the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers, and down the Mississippi. In the seventeenth century, following the Dutch, the English developed a trade through Albany. Then in 1670, a charter was granted by the British crown to the Hudson's Bay Company, which began operating from posts along the coast of Hudson Bay (see Figure 1). For roughly the next hundred years, this northern region saw competition of varying intensity between the French and the English. With the conquest of New France in 1763, the French trade shifted to Scottish merchants operating out of Montreal.

 After the negotiation the of Jay's Treaty (1794), the northern border was defined and trade along the Mississippi passed to the American Fur Company under John Jacob Astor. In 1821, the northern participants merged under name of the Hudson's Bay Company, and for many decades this merged company continued to trade in furs. Finally, in the 1990s, under pressure from animal rights groups, the Hudson's Bay Company, which in the twentieth century had become a large Canadian retailer, ended the fur component of its operation.

The fur trade was based on pelts destined either for the luxury clothing market or for the felting industries, of which hatting was the most important. This was a transatlantic trade. The animals were trapped and exchanged for goods in North America, and the pelts were transported to Europe for processing and final sale. As a result, forces operating on the demand side of the market in Europe and on the supply side in North America determined prices and volumes; while intermediaries, who linked the two geographically separated areas, determined how the trade was conducted.

 The Fur Trader By John Buxton.