Ghillie Shoes

[Grenadier1758]

Ok, can I cut to the chase here?
Those things you made for your feet shown in the OP,,
ain't gonna cut it at any rendezvous, judged or not.
Sorry,, European,, not American.
We're not re-enacting Europe here.
If ya ain't got shoes or moc's go bare foot.
Scotsmen be damned,, they got shot or run off,,
,,showed up every once in awhile to make a historical comment then;
They got shot or run off.
Bottom line, them leather things ain't gonna cut it without getting grief at any event you attend.

Once again, it all depends on the reenactment. My unit of lowland Scots has a lot of family members who wear the ghillies. The unit wears buckle shoes as issued to the soldiers.

By the way none of the ghillies worn by our family members have crepe soles. Unfortunately while the crepe soles wear well, they are inappropriate for reenacting the F&I War. For the same reason, my Flying Canoe buckle shoes with rubber soles are set aside for the times when I go to places with hardwood floors and my steel heel plates and hobnails would be very unwelcome.

 

[NeilMacleod]

I ware these as normal ware (Daily use)(except during rain, Boots then), thats why I put crepe rubber on them or they would have a hole in the leather in an hours time on the pavement. Crepe rubber also wares far better then any modern stuff

 

[Grenadier1758]

Yes, and really in most reenactments we are not looking at the soles of your moccasins or ghillies. Use a close to natural color. I don't mind.

 

[tenngun]

I understood Hamas was a representative character. My question is whether there is any actual documentation that the scenario you describe with the shoes took place, or if it is just a logical assumption.

One would think that Scots immigrants would wear their traditional bonnets when they first arrived. It is a reasonable, logical assumption, but I never knew if it were true until I found a reference of it actually happening in 1822, as described by a person who was there. Is there such a reference to the ghillie shoes?

Spence

As I stated I wasn't arguing that they were used or in any way common. I don't think we could find documentation of them. Although I would have to ask: thinking about a gentleman English traveler comming across a highlander living on the frontier. He records his 'crude savage clothing.would he see the difference between Mocs and ghillies? Would any writer. In fact 'moccasins' is used referring to any Indian shoes, and historic lu we don't see a lot of written discretion of tribal styles. I would wonder if even Taos shoes might be called Mocs in a journal ah ... maybe.

 

[Artificer]

I think there may be something some folks are missing.

The original documentation that both Spence and I found was from Captain Burt, an English engineering officer, who was sent to Inverness, Scotland in 1730 as a contractor. He was able to easily spot and describe the normal Highland footwear at the time. This most likely, if not certainly because he wore the normal English Shoes of the period.

The Highland Scots, who Oglethorpe's commission talked into coming to GA, all came from the town and region of Inverness and they landed in January 19, 1736. At first, they even called the region they were granted "New Inverness" before it became known as Darien, GA.

So Highlanders from the same location in Scotland, that Captain Burt wrote about in Scotland, landed in GA probably not even a full SIX YEARS after Capt. Burt wrote about them in Scotland.

How could anyone possibly believe they would have forgotten about their normal/traditional footwear in less than six years?

Many of the Highlander Immigrants from Inverness could not afford passage on their own and that means they came from the lower economic classes in Inverness. When they weren't normally running around barefoot in Scotland, they wore their home made brogan tionndaidh, the soft or primitive foot wear that could easily be mistaken for moccasins by those who did not know that much about moccasins and perhaps by some who did. Good point by Tenngun.

Those Highlander immigrants would certainly not have forgotten how to make those Bróg's in less than six years and when they needed them for themselves or their children for footwear (especially as the children grew), they not only could have made them in GA, but almost certainly did, as they wore their traditional Highland clothing for some time after they landed in GA.

Gus

 

[Twisted_1in66]

So that could be used to justify wearing those "Ghillie Shoes" if you are portraying someone from Darien, GA area in 1736 and there about. At least there's some record that shows the use even if it is in Europe and we have to extrapolate that they would have been arrived in GA along with the Highlanders in 1736. I don't think that's much of a stretch.

Now, if you are portraying a Rev War era persona, how likely would it be that 40-years later (1776) the next generation (or two?) would be using them? I think you could reasonably stretch it out to the F&I War but not much beyond that without some documentation of their use in the US.

Still that's a whole lot more than what I expected to be dug up about them. Way to go Spence and Gus!

Twisted_1in66 :thumbsup:
Dan

 

[Artificer]

Dan,

I've been doing more online research into the Highlanders of New Inverness and will post those results soon.

Personally and for the present, I would only be very comfortable with reenactors of them doing the period of 1736 through most of the 1740's and still wearing their traditional brogan tionndaidh. This in part because a fair number were still wearing the Great Kilt and Tartan Hose during this period whilst fighting/guarding against the soldiers of Spain in New Florida.

I can see how it would easily stretch for another generation who grew up wearing the traditional footwear, but I'm not nearly as confident those "Bróg's" were commonly worn two generations later in the AWI. (I figure a generation in this time period as every 20 years, especially amoung the poor, though some folks say it should be every 25 years.)

However, I have run across some tantalizing tidbits on the Darien Highlanders fighting in the AWI, but I think that information should go in the Rev War forum.

Gus

 

[Artificer]

Wow finding the original source documentation on this one about the footwear worn by the Darien Highlanders has proven much harder than on another question Spence asked for documentation about tracing down the origin of the story of the 25 American riflemen who all shot at a fat British Major as he crossed a “river” on horseback during the AWI (under the overall command of Light Horse Harry Lee) and the riflemen all missed at least once, if not twice. At least on that one I was able to track it down to a letter that was used in a Court Martial proceeding for one of the Officers held in VA, a few months after the battle.

You may remember I earlier linked information about the Ga Highlanders that I put numerous corrections in the quote and there was written; “they wore a soft leather footwear similar to a moccasin.” So I went looking for a source of that information and have now read at least a half dozen, if not more versions of that information. One such source was from the County Coordinators, though it did not mention the original source document. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gamcinto/

I think I have tracked down where that information came from, but not the original source, though. The problem is the sources in the linked site below are old and no longer work.

“The Scots enjoyed the best relationship with Native Americans, especially the Creeks. Most Scots did not wear boots like most other Europeans, but brogs; soft leather footwear similar to moccasins. They did not wear pants, but the feileadh mhor, or great kilt, and for the most part spoke Gaelic, not English. Their family structure was similar to the Native American's; tribal, or clan. The Scottish women had rights under the law and were allowed to own property. Women in the Darien community were trained in the "Manual of Arms" for muskets and were capable of serving the battery of cannon at Fort Darien when the men were on patrol or fighting the Spanish.” http://home.sprintmail.com/~ejb/Darien.htm

OK, so next I checked on the author of that article, Emmet Bondurant. He was the CEO of a Non Profit corporation in GA called, “The Highlanders of New Inverness” for a period of 17 years and a few months before the corporation was “Administratively Closed” in the early 2,000’s. I am not sure if he passed or if after such a long period, he/they just closed the corporation, but I could not find the source documents for that article.

I thought maybe the information on the Bróg’s might have come from the following source. I even found the original source book online and read it, but there is nothing in the book on the Highlanders that is not in the link and word for word from the book, I might add. http://genealogytrails.com/geo/state/1740earlysettlers.htm

Then I checked on “Scottish Highlanders in Colonial Georgia: The Recruitment, Emigration, and Settlement at Darien, 1735-1748.” However, since this book was published in 2010 and a few years after the article above, I don’t know if the information is in there or not. I did check on the free pages, but the information is not there. https://books.google.com/books/about/Scottish_Highlanders_in_Colonial_Georgia.html?id=-xNydb93XUMC

Then I ran across the following article and at first got a bit excited because similar information was cited as coming from both “Georgia Historical Coll. Volumes” and “Georgia Historical Society Volumes.” Even though I found one of the cited Volumes on line, most are not easily accessible, and the one Volume I found did not have that information on the shoes. However, it does give some information on the Highlanders’ Progeny in the AWI. http://www.electricscotland.com/History/highlands/chapter6.htm

So I have sort of hit a brick wall in attempting to find the source document on the footwear the Darien Highlanders wore, as I cannot access some of the sources where such information might be found.

So at least for now, it will have to be a logical conclusion the Highlanders wore their traditional “brogan tionndaidh” or “Bróg’s” until such time as I can find the source documentation.

Gus

 

[George]

Those brick walls are frustrating, aren't they? Still, I generally find I learn things in the search.

In the early part of this discussion I quoted Martin Martin, A Description of the Western Isles of Scotland (1703):

"THE shooes anciently wore, were a piece of the hide of a deer, cow, or horse, with the hair on, being tied behind and before with a point (lace) of leather."

He says "anciently wore", implying some time in the past, maybe quite a time. He continues his statement, saying:

"They generality now wear shooes, having one thin sole only, and shaped after the right and left foot; so that what is for one foot will not serve the other."

So, in 1703 the shoes are some kind of improvement over the fresh hair-on cow hide tied on with thongs. He could have been describing ghillie shoes, I would think.

Spence

NB That book by Martin Martin is a delightful read for anyone interested in early Scotland.
https://books.google.com/books/abo...f.html?id=jndbAAAAQAAJ&hl=en&output=html_text

 

[Artificer]

Spence,

Indeed, I learned quite a bit about 18th century traditional Scottish footwear, though I also learned there seems to be a lot of confusion on what that footwear was called back in the period.

From what I have learned, Scots didn't call their traditional footwear "Ghillie's" or "Ghillie Shoes" back then. Since that is the case, I have tried to use what seem to be the correct period terms of "“brógan tionndaidh” or “Bróg’s."

"Bróg" seems to have been the Scottish gaelic word for a single footwear that we might loosely describe as a moccasin or shoe. It also seems the word "Bróg's" was sometimes used to describe a pair of such foot coverings as a plural for the Scottish Gaelic word "Bróg", though "Brógan" seems to have been the correct Scottish gaelic word for a pair of such foot coverings - even though it does not mean a particular type of foot covering or shoe. I am not sure how to pronounce these words as I don't know what the small angled slash is over the O's in these words. (My keyboard does not have ability to put the small slash over the O's and that is the reason I have often left it out.)

"Brógan Tionndaidh" seems to have been the correct Scottish Gaelic name for a pair of the simple shoes, that the poor made and wore during the period we are examining and that's why I keep using that term. I don't believe these footwear were always raw or salted pieces of hide, from some of the descriptions, but rather had at least some kind of tanning done to the leather. (I don't have a clue how to pronounce the latter word. I had to learn the pronunciations of some Scottish Gaelic words for some of the traditional Scottish items we wore in "The Major's Coy" of the 42nd RHR for FIW and AWI, but this was not one of them.)

I have also found a large deal of confusion on the Scottish Gaelic word "Cuaran" as the Scottish gaelic word to describe those simple "shoes," though that word seems to have been correctly used for a sort of open top boot that was laced well up the leg in the period and not the simpler shoes.

Not sure if I will ever use a lot of this information, but it was interesting looking into it.

Gus

 

[BillinOregon]

Such an educational thread!

 

[NeilMacleod]

Better then any Documentary, greatly appreciate all the input and education