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Writer's pictureDavid Sifuentes

Shirt Collars? Who Needs Em and Lapels are Cooler Anyways

Last night while scrolling the interwebs I got a bit excited. Frontier images are always fun to find, not as uncommon as most people would think… but each one is certainly unique in its own way. Anyways, this one piqued interest because the gentleman was wearing a hunting shirt, and not just any style too but one that’s really been neglected by living historians.




Besides getting distracted by his 50’s beard and embroidered buckskin vest, the viewer will note the beautifully simple hunting shirt this Texan is wearing, and what it is lacking, a collar. Most of us have seen the standard single or multi caped hunting shirts with a variety of standing or folding collars but this is different. The cape runs across the top of the shirt body and opens like a coat lapel. How common was this style and who were the predominant folks that wore them?



This is the Michael Crow shirt, made by his fiancée Nancy Agnes Johnson for their wedding 26 November 1799, in Greene, Pennsylvania. I won’t dwell on this shirt too long, Neal Hurst has written extensively about it in his renowned thesis https://www.academia.edu/3336557/_kind_of_armour_being_peculiar_to_America_The_American_Hunting_Shirt, Richard B. Lacrosse has dimensions and a diagram in his work Frontier Rifleman https://www.amazon.com/Frontier-Rifleman-Richard-Jr-Lacrosse/dp/0913150576, and Sam Napoleon has furnished the internet highly detailed photos of the original. https://www.facebook.com/share/ZZGvk9rE5eUFNE1x/?mibextid=WC7FNe

Of note however is the fact that this is the earliest confirmed example of this style, currently. Although I’m going to be edgy and suggest a newly discovered sketch dated to 1777 may also feature this style of lapel??? Possibly? Maybe? It’s not a hill I’ll die on but… it would be cool.




Moving on, James Smith is a major name in the world of longhunters, and eastern frontiersmen. When he’s not getting captured by Indians, leading rebellions, writing an awesome narrative, and otherwise living a pretty dramatic life he sits to have his portrait made. His shirt gets an honorable mention since it shows no transition from shirt body to the roll collar.




Hillis Hadjo in the 18teens was an influential Muskogee that fought against American encroachment. His hunting shirt like his other surviving items is a testament to the simple yet elegant utilitarian design. You can see that what would have been the lapels to his shirt are cut away only leaving room for a narrow cape and collar flapped in the back.



Daniel Boone needs no introduction, these late 18teens images of him late in life again show a shirt with lapels open wide across the chest. His example is unique showing some pretty rigid standing collars added to the design.




Jim Beckwourth is shown here in a collarless calico shirt likely of Indian manufacture and a different sketch of him that confirms that train of thought.



Okay now for the floodgates, from the 1820’s to the 60’s and even early 70’s the Southeastern tribes like the Cherokee, Muskogee, Seminole, and even some northern tribes like the Delaware have mutiple versions of this hunting shirt design.



Muskogee and Seminole



Cherokee



Snazzy right, and this is really the tip of the iceberg, as there are several more of this nature I remember seeing but do not remember where, let alone the shirts lost to history with no visual record.


Inspired by these I’ve made two examples and hope to persuade others to as well.



A shirt based directly off the Crow shirt, the neck slit was cut too wide but it was a first attempt after all.



You’ll have to forgive the obvious machine stitching on this, but otherwise I think I can proudly say Spring Frog’s shirt is represented again.


So, what dapper hunting shirt is next on your to sew list?


Till next time

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