Tweet
Re: Steamboat Arabia - Everything you want to know!
Chris,
As of now, there is one lonely saddle on display. It was necessarily sewn back together by hand with 100% cotton thread back in 1993-94. This is before I hired on, so I take great delight in the fact that the stirrups were sewn on backwards. People generally do not notice it, so there is a little Easter Egg for you if ever visit. Otherwise, they did a magnificent job.
The saddle is devoid of any maker’s marks, but this plainly is not an East Coast saddle. Featuring both a high horn and a high back, it looks like an English saddle gone wrong. Those in the know have suggested a possible Mexican origin, and it seems plausible given that the Sante Fe Trail is just down the road.
In any case, this is not a McClellan, though sadly most of our guests deem it so. Admittedly, these are the same folks who staunchly deny shaped footwear, even though we are holding evidence to the contrary two inches from their face. But I digress.
About two years ago, we pulled a box from the freezer we believed contained a single pulling harness. We were amazed to find instead, four harnesses and another full saddle. It took the better part of a year --and some tremendous guidance from an Amish saddle maker -- to organize and then re-stitch all the pieces properly.
Currently they are soaking in a preservative-- The PEG Matt mentioned earlier-- that will replace the missing oils in the leather and allow us to display them. In all likelihood, we are at least another year away from finishing them. Still, I had a lot of close up time sewing those bad boys together, and never found a makers mark of note on any of them.
Most of that information apparently is on the wooden boxes the items were shipped in. Logically, there is a greater priority put on preserving the items themselves, rather than the boxes they came in. So it may be a while before we have all the manufacture companies documented or can tell you exactly how many saddles –or tack-- were truly on board.
Here is a factoid we discovered that I really like, though I'm not sure how valuable it is to you. It looks more and more likely that all the harnesses were machine sewn. We kept finding areas where the original needle was unable to punch through the leather, suddenly jumped a section of about 2-3 inches and then finally punched back through again. There was no order or design to this, as we would find the mistakes in various locations and varying lengths. In all four cases, each harness showed obvious signs of being hastily made and mass-produced.
If you look at the collection as a whole, you see this great of mixture of hand made and mass produced items. Some things like our nails and screws are all obviously handmade quality items. But, here we see harness making the transition to a machined good, and a shoddy one at that. Or at the very least, this particular shipment on one boat in 1856 made the transition.
And to me, those missed stitches are akin to time travel. Observing the nuances of a few inanimate objects, you can see the actions and decisions of people long since gone. How would the harness have faired, being so poorly made, and what was the end result for the poor guy who bought it?
I think that aspect of the collection is generally missed by a lot of the folks who come to the museum. They mostly want to see the pretty dishes and buttons. If you really look at even the most mundane artifact on our boat, it’s going to tell an amazing story. You just have to let it. The 150 year old lard for example, is quite the conversationalist.
Again, I digress.
I'm going to be at the museum on Monday, so I'll peek at the artifact records while I'm there. If I find anything pertinent, I’ll send you a pm. I'll see what I can do about getting pictures as well, since I'm sure we have some archived in the office computer. My apologies for the dissertation here, I’m one of those passionate history geeks.
Best Regards,
Originally posted by moarkcav
View Post
As of now, there is one lonely saddle on display. It was necessarily sewn back together by hand with 100% cotton thread back in 1993-94. This is before I hired on, so I take great delight in the fact that the stirrups were sewn on backwards. People generally do not notice it, so there is a little Easter Egg for you if ever visit. Otherwise, they did a magnificent job.
The saddle is devoid of any maker’s marks, but this plainly is not an East Coast saddle. Featuring both a high horn and a high back, it looks like an English saddle gone wrong. Those in the know have suggested a possible Mexican origin, and it seems plausible given that the Sante Fe Trail is just down the road.
In any case, this is not a McClellan, though sadly most of our guests deem it so. Admittedly, these are the same folks who staunchly deny shaped footwear, even though we are holding evidence to the contrary two inches from their face. But I digress.
About two years ago, we pulled a box from the freezer we believed contained a single pulling harness. We were amazed to find instead, four harnesses and another full saddle. It took the better part of a year --and some tremendous guidance from an Amish saddle maker -- to organize and then re-stitch all the pieces properly.
Currently they are soaking in a preservative-- The PEG Matt mentioned earlier-- that will replace the missing oils in the leather and allow us to display them. In all likelihood, we are at least another year away from finishing them. Still, I had a lot of close up time sewing those bad boys together, and never found a makers mark of note on any of them.
Most of that information apparently is on the wooden boxes the items were shipped in. Logically, there is a greater priority put on preserving the items themselves, rather than the boxes they came in. So it may be a while before we have all the manufacture companies documented or can tell you exactly how many saddles –or tack-- were truly on board.
Here is a factoid we discovered that I really like, though I'm not sure how valuable it is to you. It looks more and more likely that all the harnesses were machine sewn. We kept finding areas where the original needle was unable to punch through the leather, suddenly jumped a section of about 2-3 inches and then finally punched back through again. There was no order or design to this, as we would find the mistakes in various locations and varying lengths. In all four cases, each harness showed obvious signs of being hastily made and mass-produced.
If you look at the collection as a whole, you see this great of mixture of hand made and mass produced items. Some things like our nails and screws are all obviously handmade quality items. But, here we see harness making the transition to a machined good, and a shoddy one at that. Or at the very least, this particular shipment on one boat in 1856 made the transition.
And to me, those missed stitches are akin to time travel. Observing the nuances of a few inanimate objects, you can see the actions and decisions of people long since gone. How would the harness have faired, being so poorly made, and what was the end result for the poor guy who bought it?
I think that aspect of the collection is generally missed by a lot of the folks who come to the museum. They mostly want to see the pretty dishes and buttons. If you really look at even the most mundane artifact on our boat, it’s going to tell an amazing story. You just have to let it. The 150 year old lard for example, is quite the conversationalist.
Again, I digress.
I'm going to be at the museum on Monday, so I'll peek at the artifact records while I'm there. If I find anything pertinent, I’ll send you a pm. I'll see what I can do about getting pictures as well, since I'm sure we have some archived in the office computer. My apologies for the dissertation here, I’m one of those passionate history geeks.
Best Regards,
Comment