Through the Mists of Time...

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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#326 Post by tjburr »

Thanks for the post. Some truly cool stuff. It would be hard not to stand around waiting to see what came up next.

Terry
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#327 Post by das »

Terry, PM your email address and I'll keep ya posted--Al
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#328 Post by das »

Here's a 'Time Team' (UK) episode on the Jamestown Rediscovery project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohfAx4a-Ijo#t=1434 The shoe pops up maybe halfway through--longish but an interesting show!
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#329 Post by dw »

6,000 year old shoes...

Otzi's shoes
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#330 Post by proxy_posting »

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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#331 Post by paul »

Gee, this question was never answered. Any of our long timers an historians?
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#332 Post by das »

Paul,

Which question exactly?
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#333 Post by Andrew Rapoza »

This is my first post on this site - I sure hope I'm entering this request for help right where and how I should be doing it ... forgive me for any mistakes.
I have been research and writing a book on health history in one Massachusetts town and have located a homeowner in that town who found a toddler's shoe (5" long) behind a fireplace in a home built about 1690. The shoe LOOKS very old - colonial - to us. I assume the two straps on one side was meant to lay over the one on the other side, with a small buckle or lace holding them together? The really BIG question I'd like to get answered is what would you estimate the age to be - i.e., when was it made? The whole shoe is stitched (no nails visible). Your thoughts and information will be a HUGE help to me in my research. THANKS SO MUCH!!
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#334 Post by das »

Very nice! You have a fine example of a "concealed" shoe, boy's I'd say. It's buckle shoe from the mid 1700s. A few pictures of the bottom, straight on, showing the sole and heel, as well as toe shoe would tell us more.
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#335 Post by Andrew Rapoza »

Excellent; I will get the owner to take some pictures of the bottom of the shoe so I can post them for you here, hopefully in a few days. Thanks so much.
I assume such well-made footware for an 18-24-month-old was more luxury than necessity, so hints at some affluence of the parents or grandparents who gave them? Also wondering local US-made as opposed to foreign import? BTW, the home is in Lynn, Mass, which already had a strong shoemaking reputation (although for cordwaining soft leather ladies’ shoes and cheap caks for southern slaves, not infant ware).
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#336 Post by das »

I'll keep an anxious eye peeled for the additional photos. Be cautious though, our infants and toddlers have much bigger feet than in that period (better nutrition). I've examined 17th-18th shoes barely 2"-3" long that had severe wear from abrasion (walking). Though your shoe is not as crude as some from that era, it's not "fine" work either, plus there was a huge trade in second-hand shoes, many exported from Britain. Kid's also outgrow shoes faster than they wore them out, so that's another thing to bear in mind. As far as I have read, the term "cacks" meant strictly cheap children's (v. infants') shoes, "Cackmen" the shoemakers who made them; and yes, traditionally a baby's "first" shoes were a grandparent gift, but those were often homemade cloth "booties" worn before they started walking in shoes. Lynn, MA excelled in manufacturing women's ready-made shoes (textile uppers, covered wood heels), after the arrival of John Adams Dagyr in 1750, and his reorganization and expansion of the local division of labor for increasing shoe production. Your shoe might pre-date 1750--we'll know more after I've seen the bottoms.
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#337 Post by Andrew Rapoza »

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das -
Thanks for your previous posts (#s 334 & 336). I certainly agree with your concealed shoe observation; I wasn't sure how readers on this site would react if I had led with that, but it is, in fact, the way this shoe connects into my book's health narrative (preventing or stopping the victim's illness and pains from alleged bewitchment).
I really appreciate your insights on on nutrition and child size vs colonial children and also regarding wear to the shoe. You're absolutely right about Dagyr ~ 1750; I recently ran across a 1768 ad in the Boston Evening-Post for a shop in the city's south end listing women's callimanco shoes "Lynn-made, as much stronger than any imported from England." I was thinking about hos the town was already attaining a reputation for its shoes by then, but that's not truly mid-century and you are right, Lynn's shoe industry was just waking up in 1750. I'll have to recheck my research on cacks; I thought they were for slaves, but you're probably right - you have been on everything else!
Here's the photo the homeowner has sent me of the bottom of the shoe. It looks to me to be clearly hand-sewn, especially the heal (probably more difficult to stitch evenly because of the thickness?); I hope it's exactly what you needed. I would appreciate your best date range estimate because I have done some research on the inhabitants of the subject house at mid century and learned some very interesting facts. In March 1749, the wife gave birth to their last child; in April she died. On June 18th two of their children died (boy, 18 yrs old & girl, 3 yrs old) and then on June 20th another died (boy, 5 years old); so some contagious illness probably hit the family and MAYBE the apotropaic placement of the 5-yr old boy's shoe (even if last used a year or two earlier) was in hope of stopping his illness since whatever other medical efforts were used had failed with the other family members. Of course, if you determine the shoe dates many years earlier or later, then I'll work with those facts and theorize anew!
Obviously, I can't wait to get your final assessment! Thanks so much. (And if there are other experts out there, I'd love to hear your thoughts as well!)
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#338 Post by das »

Andrew,

Glad my reply I was so helpful. IIRC there's a thread on The Forum about concealed shoes--nothing's outta bounds here when it comes to footwear, LOL. Lynn "Just waking up in 1750" is a great way to put it! LMK what you find/have on "cacks"/"cackmen" regarding shoes for "The Southern Trade" (slave shoes) as they were euphemistically called. BTW, there's a nice collection of undyed "russet" slave shoes, unworn style samples (c.1820s-50s) manufactured by T. & E. Batcheller in the North Brookfield, MA Historical Society. If you've encountered the early-mid 20thc books by Alice Morse Earl on "colonial" dress, use caution. She loves to bandy old shoe/dress terms about, like "cacks", but sadly never met a footnote she liked.

When I approach any shoe concealment, and I've been called in on many, the first question is, "when was the house built?" Second, "what are the dates of any major renovations or alterations?", because most shoe concealments tend to be placed by builders or later workmen doing extensive work on the building--IOW it's a builder's thing by the mid-18thc and post, like "topping out", putting an evergreen tree on the new roof. The earlier shoe concealments, say 17thc, are usually smaller and far more "ritualistic" in contents, and more elaborate in their arrangement. You're close enough, go visit the John Quincy Adams birthplace National Historic Site in Quincy, MA and ask to see their concealed shoe collection , +/-40 c.1810-20s shoes hidden behind a curtain wall built around that date. Until a year or two ago Quincy was the largest shoe concealment ever found in the USA, then a private house in Charleston, SC yielded "several hundred" c.1880s boots and shoes, concealed during extensive repairs following a devastating hurricane. If you're really interested, Google and read the numerous articles and MA thesis of M. Chris Manning. She's done some mind-blowing research on this practice in the US, some is linked/posted to The Forum I recall, give her a search here too.

Style-dating your shoe is hard. Kid's shoes are elusive. Sometimes they follow current adult fashions, other times they lag behind. Yours reminds me most of several very similar concealed boy's shoes found at Colonial Williamsburg at Weatherburn's Tavern and other sites. My best guess is it's c.1740s-60s, all the telltale signs are there. It could be ten years earlier, but I doubt much later, so it fits well with your 1749 date.
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Re: Through the Mists of Time...

#339 Post by Andrew Rapoza »

das,

Thanks once again for all your insights. The house was built about 1690 then burned down (except the central fireplace) about 1720, and rebuilt right away, reusing the central fireplace. It still stands and is lived in today. The current homeowner (there for over three decades) is the one who did the substantive interior renovations and found the shoe. The shoe seemed to be placed behind the fireplace and forgotten for centuries, according to the homeowner. Certainly someone could have found the colonial shoe and put it there anytime, but it seems by every measure to be an original, concealed placement. Given the age of the shoe, it's placement does, indeed seem contemporary to the shoe.

One last question: could you expand on what you observe as the "telltale signs" for the age you assigned to it? That would be helpful to my book as well. I am going to contact this site's administrator to ask him/her to send you my email address so that I can get your name and basis of your expertise (an academic? independent scholar?) because I'd like to reference and credit you in my book.

Thanks very much --Andy
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