Mountain Man Coats
Mountain man coats were created in a wide variety of styles to suit the tastes of each individual man.
Mountain man clothing is a topic that fascinates many people interested in the time period. For a multitude of reasons, people like to learn about what the mountain men wore from head to toe. People learn about their shoes, shirts, hats, coats, and pants. Some people take this research one step further and actually wear clothing the mountain men wore. Living history in this way can offer the wearer an even greater understanding of the mountain men’s lives rather than simply reading what they wore. Clothing was (an is) gear, and if your goal is to learn about the mountain men by using their gear, clothing is just as important as a steel striker. If you are interested in living history, you may be interested in making your own mountain man coat.
Mountain man coats were the first layer of defense in the mountain man’s daily life. As mentioned earlier, clothing is gear and the mountain men’s garment needed to serve its purpose. That being the case, not all of their coats were the same. They came in a variety of styles and materials each suited to the needs, wants, and resources of the individual trapper himself. Let’s start by taking a look at possible materials.
Materials
When most people imagine mountain men, I would guess they imagine a man clad in buckskin from head to toe. Brain tan buckskin was widely used for many garments of the period and could be made in the wilderness or traded for. Brain tan buckskin is soft and comfortable and also serves a person well in defense again mosquitos, thorns, and other objects in the wilds. Although buckskin was widely used, it wasn’t the only material option.
In addition to buckskin, mountain men occasionally wore coats made from fabrics as well. Fabric coats could have been worn out from the settlements or could have been purchased at forts as well. Interestingly, Osborne Russel is recorded as having bought a wool sweater at Fort Hall at one point in time. While not a coat, a wool sweater does serve a similar purpose.
Closely related to fabric, blanketing really deserves is own category of material altogether. Blanket coats, or more commonly called capotes, were widely used and traded for during the rendezvous period. These coats used a Hudson’s Bay Wool 100% wool blanket for the material. Trade invoices indicate men bought plenty of capotes as well as trade blankets at rendezvous. Wool would have been an excellent choice for cold weather during winter quarters camping.
If you are interested, here is a good video introducing the capote and giving a little history on the historic coats.
Open Front
Whatever the material, mountain men coats came in several different styles. Before beginning, it’s important to realize that mountain men’s clothing was often a hand made item. As a result, each item was different in a variety of ways but may have shared some stylistic similarities. Primary sources indicate the most popular style of mountain man coats may have been the open front style.
Open front coats were made of any material, but all had an “open front.” This front could have then been closed with ties, primitive buttons, or with a sash around the waist. In terms of length, coats may have extended from the waist, or as far down as past the knees. Here are a few primary sources showing the open front coats.
Buckskin knee-length open front coats like this one seem to have been the most popular among the mountain men. Alfred Jacob Miller painting. Via wikicommons.
At first this looks like a pullover, but you’ll notice it is an open front that has been tied over the left breast. Via wikicommons.
Pullovers
As you may have guessed, pullover coats were ones the mountain men had to slide over their heads to get on and off. These don’t seem to have been as popular though some are still noted as having been used by mountain men. Pullover style coats seem to have been more popular with Native Americans, and as a result were more commonly worn by mountain men who had adopted a more Native way of living.
In this Miller painting you can clearly see the pull over style worn by the man in the center of the painting. Pull over styles were common among Native Americans and mountain men may have adopted this style as well. Via wikicommons.
Primitive Coat
If you are reading History of the West with Jemmey Fletcher: Shinin’ Times, you likely have just finished the chapter where Jemmey constructs his buffalo hair coat. This idea was based off an actual coat found at the site of the Harney Massacre, or Battle of Blue Water. After General William Harney overran a village of Lakota in 1855 the battlefield was picked clean of valuables left by the fleeing people. One specimen collected was a knee-length man’s coat made from several deer hides sewn together. The interesting thing about this coat is that the sewing was done with large lengths of buckskin rather than small diameter sinew. The buckskin lengths were pulled through openings in the material and tied in order to bind the seams. Think about it this way:
Imagine you took a long sleeve shirt and cut out all of the stitching under the arm and down the side. Then, rather than sew it back together, you simply poked holes in a few places and tied it back together with shoelaces. That is what this Lakota shirt looked like. Most of the seams were actually wide open rather than tightly bound seams we are used to. I imagine this coat would have been comfortable, though not as proficient in protection.
If you are reading Jemmey Fletcher: Shinin’ Times, I’d encourage you to try your hand at actually constructing your own primitive coat like Jemmey did. Using it can give you a better insight into history and the story itself. You might not create a beautiful coat that you would wear to church on Christmas, but that’s ok. Mountain man coats, and clothing in general, wasn’t necessarily thought of the same way that we think of it today. It certainly still was used for fashion, but function was also key when creating any garment.
