From stroud to strouds: The hidden history of a British fur trade textile

Textile History

Volumn 36, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 196-234

  Willmott, Cory ^a  

^a SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY EDWARDSVILLE   (United States)

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EID: 28144464142     PISSN: 00404969     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1179/004049605x61564     Document Type: Review

References (219)

1. I would like to acknowledge the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada for its support of research for this article. An earlier and shorter version of it was included in: David Malaher ed., Selected Papers of Rupert's Land Colloquium 2002, Oxford, England (Winnipeg: The Centre for Rupert's Land Studies, 2002). I am grateful to Ann Morton and Maureen Dolyniuk for their generous assistance with the Hudson's Bay Company Archives, Snail Scott for drawing Figures 8 & 9, Weldon Hiebert for creating an electronic version of my map, and Beth Grant for sharing her research on Indiana fur trade inventories. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for suggestions that led to significant improvements to the article. All errors and omissions remain my own.
2. Dean Anderson, 'The Flow of Trade Goods into the Western Great Lakes Region, 1715-I760', in Jennifer Brown et al. eds, The Fur Trade Revisited: Selected Papers of the Sixth North American Fur Trade Conference, Mackinac Island, Michigan, 1991 (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 1994), pp. 93-115;
3. Kenneth Kidd, 'The Cloth Trade and the Indians of the Northeast During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries', Royal Ontario Museum, Division of Art and Archaeology Annual (Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum, 1961), pp. 48-56;
4. Bruce White,'Montreal Canoes and Their Cargoes', in B. Trigger, T. Morantz and L. Dechene eds, 'Le Castor Fait Tout': Selected Papers of the Fifth North American Fur Trade Conference, 1985 (Montreal: Lake St Louis Historical Society, 1987), pp. 164-192.
5. Florence Montgomery, Textiles in America, 1650-1870 (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1984), pp. 35-353;
6. Sheryl Hartman, Indian Clothing of the Great Lakes: 1740-1840 (Liberty UT: Eagle's View Publishing Co., 1988), p. 126.
7. Kenneth Ponting, The History of the West of England Cloth Industry (London: MacDonald, 1957) pp. 102;
8. Alexander Yewdall, 'The Records of Mill Practice: The Bean Ing Mill Notebook', in W. B. Crump ed., The Leeds Woollen Industry, 1780-1820 (Leeds: The Thoresby Society, 1931), p.283.
9. John Smail ed., Woollen Manufacturing in Yorkshire: The Memorandum Books of John Brearley Cloth Frizzer at Wakefield, 1758-1762 (Woodbridge: Yorkshire Archaeological Society and Boydell Press, 2001), p. 16.
10. I have studied articles of Ojibway, Odawa, Menominee and Potawatomi clothing and accessories in the collections of following museums: Canadian Museum of Civilization, Royal Ontario Museum, Manitoba Museum, Detroit Institute of the Arts, Michigan State University Museum, Field Museum of Natural History, National Museum of Natural History, Milwaukee Public Museum, Neville Museum, Wisconsin Historical Society, Minnesota Historical Society, Pitt Rivers Museum, and a wide variety of small local museums in the Great Lakes region.
11. Archives of Ontario, Documents relatifs à la Compagnie A Nord-Ouest et Sir Alexander MacKenzie, MS 312 (hereafter AO NWC Documents), '#4. Invoices of goods shipped from England to Montreal for the New North West Co., Forsyth Richardson and Co., and Sir Alexander MacKenzie and Co., 1798-1805'.
12. Bruce White similarly found that in twelve canoeloads sent from Montreal to posts in the Great Lakes between 178o and 1786, 'drap' (French term for both 'cloth' and 'strouds') composed 32.9 % while blankets accounted for only 7.1% of the total value of goods. White, 'Montreal Canoes and Their Cargoes', p. 170.
13. Outfits' were an assortment of trade goods assembled and packed for shipment to particular trading posts. The traders established inland posts near Native American encampments and hunting grounds in order to ensure that they recouped in furs the 'credit' they gave out in equipment and trade goods in the fall. These were called 'wintering posts' because the traders occupied them only during the winter hunting season, arriving in fall with trade goods and leaving in spring with furs.
14. AO NWC Documents, '#5. Invoices 1804'.
15. Capotes (or capots) were a style of outerwear made from a variety of woollen textiles or actual 'point' blankets (i.e. those whose size and weight were marked by a series of narrow bars woven into one side). They consisted of an unlined, loose fitting, knee-length coat that wrapped around to double in the front, with or without buttons. Capotes often had hoods and were typically worn with finger-woven sashes at the waist.
16. Pamela Blackstock, 'Nineteenth Century Fur Trade Costume', Canadian Folklore, 10, 1-2 (1988), pp. 190,206.
17. The US Office of Indian Trade was attempting to replicate British fur trade textiles before the War of 1812. Writing to Thomas Waterman, 21 November 1807, John Mason referred to samples of British strouds and blankets that had been left with the 'Steward of the Alms House' to 'imitate' (National Archives and Records Administration NARA, RG 75, M16-1, Letters Sent by the Superintendent of Indian Trade, 1807-1823).
18. It was common practice in Britain and the US to employ 'paupers' and orphans in the textile trades, but it is dubious whether they were able to produce the best quality goods. For a critique of American broadcloth manufacturing in the early 1820's, see William Partridge, A Practical Treatise on Dying of Woollen, Cotton, and Skein Silk with the Manufacture of Broadcloth and Cassimere Including the Most Improved Methods in the West of England (Edington: Pasold Research Fund, reprint, 1973, [1823]), pp. 3-4.
19. Molton (also Moulton, Molleton, Melton, etc.) was a thick blanket-like woollen with a heavy nap raised on both sides.
20. 58. Flannel was at that time exclusively made of wool. It was typically fulled with a 'spongy' consistency and light or medium weight with a lightly raised nap on both sides. In contrast to 'cloth', which was densely woven, flannel was loosely woven to produce air pockets aimed at warmth rather than smart appearance. Cassimeres were a fine twill woven light to medium weight textile with a worsted warp and a woollen weft. They were developed and patented in Gloucestershire in the 176os. Although the fineness of the threads caused difficulty in weaving, cassimeres did not require as specialized finishing techniques as did woollen broadcloth. Consequently, their production quickly spread to other parts of England and America.
21. Indiana State Library (ISL), Francis Godfroy Papers, S2242.
22. The rise of the American woollen industry and its gradual replacement of British textiles in the American fur trade is a subject worthy of further investigation. A separate article is required to adequately address it.
23. Bath coating was similar to molton, but it had a longer nap.
24. James Axtell, 'The First Consumer Revolution', in James Axtell ed., Beyond 1492: Encounters in Colonial North America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 13-134;
25. Ann M. Carlos and Frank D. Lewis, 'Marketing in the Land of Hudson Bay: Indian Consumers and the Hudson's Bay Company, 1670-1770', Enterprise and Society, 3 (June 2002), p. 287;
26. Kidd, 'The Cloth Trade', p. 55;
27. Arthur Ray, 'Indians as Consumers in the Eighteenth Century Trade', in Carol Judd and Arthur Ray eds, Old Trails and New Directions: Papers of the Third North American Fur Trade Conference (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), passim.
28. Cadwallader Colden, The History of the Five Indian Nations of Canada (London: T. Osborne, 1749), p. 32.
29. Ray, 'Indians as Consumers', pp. 267, 271.
30. Jacob Schieffelin, 'Memorandum [manuscript]; Philadelphia, to Colonel [Samuel] Hodgdon, 1799 Jan.22', Ayer MS 3165, Newberry Library.
31. For a detailed discussion of Great Lakes Indians' adaptation of European materials to their own world view, as well as style distribution and colour symbolism, see Cory [Willmott] Silverstein, 'Clothed Encounters: The Power of Dress in Relations Between Anishnaabe and British Peoples in the Great Lakes Region, 1760-2000' (PhD dissertation, McMaster University, 2OOO), pp. 187-251, 419-420.
32. James F. O'Neill II ed., 'Their Bearing is Noble and Proud': A Collection of Narratives Regarding the Appearance of Native Americans from 174o-1815 (Dayton OH: J. T. G. S. Pub., 1995), p. 45.
33. Ibid., p. 80.
34. Ibid., p. 77. Several skirts of this style are in the Chandler Pohrt Collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Two are made from grey list cloth and date from the early twentieth century (Sauk and Fox 81.812; unknown origin 81.552). A third dates from 1830 and may possibly be made from blue strouds (Chippewa 81-97).
35. Peter Grant, 'The Sauteux Indians', in L. R. Masson ed., Les Bourgeois de la Compagnie du Nord-Ouest: Recits de Voyages, Lettres et Rapports Inedits Relatifs au Nord-Ouest Canadien, Vol.II (New York: Antiquarian Press, 1960), pp. 318-319.
36. Thomas L. McKenney, Sketches of a Tour to the Lakes, of the Character and Customs of the Chippeway Indians, and of the Incidents Connected with the Treaty of Fond du Lac (Barre MS: Imprint Society, 1972 [1827]), pp. 218, 258, illustration opposite 284.
37. Sir George Thomas, The Treaty held with the Indians of the Six Nations at Philadelphia, in July 1742: to which is prefex'd an account of the first confederacy on the Six Nations, their present tributaries, dependents and allies (London: T. Sowle Raylton and Luke Hinde, 1743), pp. 36-37.
38. James Sullivan, The Papers of William Johnson, Vol. 2 (Albany NY: University of the State of New York, 1922), p. 581.
39. Ibid., 583; also see p. 604 for another reference to 'blanket strowds [sic].' Penniston (aka peniston; pennystone; penestown) was a type of coarse woollen cloth with a friezed or napped surface that was originally produced in a town of that name in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Archaeological finds currently held in the Manitoba Museum that once formed 'laced' chief's coats suggest that the fur trade term 'lace' refers to a trimming that today might more appropriately be called 'metalic braid'.
40. Silverstein, 'Clothed Encounters', pp. 229-232.
41. 5, 70.
42. An example of this style of skirt is in the collections of the Neville Public Museum in Green Bay Wisconsin (NPM #70/1948). The daughter of a Scottish trader and Menominee mother, Theresa Rankin, wore it in 1802 when she married the English fur trader, John Lawe.
43. O'Neil, Their Bearing is Noble and Proud, p. 33.
44. NAC Letterbooks of Phyn and Ellice, Merchants at Schenectady, New York, 1767-1776, MG19B5, Reel M-473, Vol.1-1.
45. Although in 1785 the HBC's London Committee ruled that the 'points' refer to the number of Made Beavers Native customers traded for these blankets, the correlation was of very brief duration (HBCA.1/46 London Minute Book, 1783-1785, pp. 117-118).
46. Consistently, however, the number of 'points' refer to the size and weight of the blankets. See Carolyn Gilman, Where Two Worlds Meet: The Great Lakes Fur Trade (St Paul MN: Minnesota Historical Society, 1982), p. 73;
47. Harold Tichenor, The Blanket: An Illustrated History of the Hudson's Bay Blanket (Toronto: Quantum Books, 2002), pp. 7, 32, 36, 38;
48. Robert Wheeler, A Toast to the Trade: A Picture Essay on Its Material Culture (St Paul MN: Wheeler Productions, 1985), p. 62;
49. Alfred Plummer and Richard Early, The Blanket Makers 1669-1969: A History of Charles Early and Marriott (Witney) Ltd. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), pp. 40-41.
50. O'Neil, Their Bearing is Noble and Proud, pp. 8-12, 25, 33, 46, 68, 78, 85, 88.
51. Sullivan, The Papers of William Johnson, Vol. II, pp. 581,583,605; Vol. III, pp. 334-336; Vol. IV, p. 893.
52. AO NWC Documents, '#6. Invoices of goods shipped from Montreal for the use of the various outfits by McTavish, McGillivrays and Co.'.
53. Silverstein, 'Clothed Encounters', pp. 191-193.
54. AO NWC Documents, '#6. Invoices of goods shipped from Montreal for the use of the various outfits by McTavish, McGillivrays and Co.'.
55. Ibid.
56. D. T. Jenkins and K. Pouting, The British Wool Textile Industry 1770-1914 (London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd, 1982), p. 68.
57. Colden, History of the Five Nations, p. 22.
58. Johnson in Sullivan, The Papers of William Johnson, Vol.4, p. 558.
59. Lord J. B. H. Sheffield, The Pamphleteer, Vol. III, On the Trade in Wool, etc. (London: A. J. Valpy, 1814),p. 318.
60. Ponting, A History of the West of England Cloth Industry, pp. 105-107;
61. Smail, Merchants, Markets and Manufacturers, p. 129;
62. B. S. Smith, R. A. Lewis and A. M. Wherry, The Cloth Industry in Gloucestershire (Stroud, UK: Gloucestershire Country Council, 1972), p. 17.
63. Rudder in Smith, Lewis and Wherry, Cloth Industry in Gloucestershire, p. 17.
64. Jennifer Tann quotes a Gloucester man commenting on the unemployment in 1775 as if it were representative of the whole decade. Jennifer Tann, Industrial Archaeology: Gloucester Woollen Mills (Newton Abbot: David and Charles Pub., 1967), pp. 40-41.
65. A chart of East India Company exports, however, shows that 1775 was a uniquely low year. Other factors also suggest that the depression of the 1770s was exaggerated. Huw V. Bowen, 'Sinews of Trade and Empire: The Supply of Commodity Exports to the East India Company During the Late Eighteenth Century', The Economic History Review, 55 (August 2002), p. 476;
66. also de Lacy Mann, The Cloth Industry of the West of England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), P. 152.
67. Smith, Lewis and Wherry, Cloth Industry in Gloucestershire, p. 91;
68. Smail, Merchants, Markets and Manufacturers, p. 87.
69. Adrienne D. Hood, 'The Material World of Cloth: Production and Use in Eighteenth Century Rural Pennsylvania', William and Mary Quarterly, 53 (January 1996), passim.
70. Jenkins and Ponting, The British Wool Textile Industry, p. 59.
71. de Lacy Mann, West of England, p. 64.
72. Ibid., p. 84;
73. Smail, Merchants, Markets and Manufacturers, pp. 56-57.
74. Bowen, 'Sinews of Trade and Empire', pp. 472-473, 478;
75. HBCA A.25/3 Merchandize Exported 1779-1799 Reel #370.
76. Ibid.
77. John McDonnell, 'Some Account of the Red River, 1797', in Masson, Les Bourgeois de la Compagnie du Nord-Ouest, Vol. 1, p. 277.
78. Erica Smith, 'Something More than Mere Ornament: Cloth and Indian-European Relations in the Eighteenth Century' (MA thesis, University of Winnipeg, 1991), pp. 66-67, 79, 84-87.
79. I surmise this probability from the fact that blankets cost HBC customers more MB ('made beaver') than did the equivalent amount in cloth: 1 blanket = 6 or 7 MB; 2 yds cloth = 4 or 6 MB. The HBC also placed a higher mark-up value on blankets than they did cloth: 492% vs. 414% at York Fort; 408% vs- z43% at Albany Fort in 1720. Elizabeth Mancke, A Company of Businessmen: The Hudson's Bay Company and Long-Distance Trade, 1670-1730 (Winnipeg MB: Rupert's Land Research Centre, 1988), pp. 74-75.
80. In the seventeenth century, the HBC stocked many more blankets than it did cloth. In 1684, for example, the HBC shipped 390 blankets and 375 yds of cloth (175 blanket-sized pieces at 2 yds each). E. E. Rich ed., The Minutes of the Hudson's Bay Company, 1679-1684, Second Part, 1682-84 (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1946), pp. 92-294.
81. Arthur J. Ray, Indians in the Fur Trade: Their Role as Hunters, Trappers and Middlemen in the Lands Southwest of Hudson's Bay, 1660-1870 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974), Table 6, pp. 149-153.
82. Mancke, A Company of Businessmen, pp. 45-46.
83. Ray, 'Indians as Consumers', pp. 265-267.
84. Herbert Heaton, 'Benjamin Gott and the Anglo-American Cloth Trade', in Journal of Economic and Business History, 2 (1930), pp. 150-153;
85. Smail, Merchants, Markets and Manufactures, pp. 77-84;
86. Herbert Heaton, Yorkshire Cloth Traders in the United States, 1770-1840 (Leeds: Thoresby Society, 1943), pp. 229, 232-240.
87. Heaton, Yorkshire Cloth Traders, pp. 243-245.
88. Heaton, 'Benjamin Gott', pp. 150-155.
89. NAC Phyn and Ellice Letterbook, Vol. 1, numerous entries;
90. for a very general description of this aspect of their business, see R. H. Fleming, Thyn, Ellice and Company of Schenectady', Contributions to Canadian Economics, 4 (1932), p. 16.
91. NAC Phyn and Ellice Letterbook, Vol. 1, Phyn and Ellice to Hayman Levy, 2 June 1768.
92. Smail, Merchants, Markets and Manufacture, pp. 55-60, 79-86;
93. Jacob M. Price, 'What Did Merchants Do? Reflections on British Overseas Trade, 1660-1790', in Journal of Economic History (June 1989), pp. 281-282.
94. NAC Phyn and Ellice Letterbook, Vol. 3, Phyn and Ellice to Mr. Blackburn, 30 October 1771;
95. Henry Kent, Kent's Directory: For the Year 1794. Containing an alphabetical list of the directors of companies ... in the cities of London and Westminster, and the borough of Southwark (London: R. & H. Causton, 1794), retrieved online: http://www.londonancestor.com/kent/ kents-b.htm (15 June 2005).
96. Edward Baines, History, Directory and Gazetteer, of the County of York; Select lists of the merchants traders of London, and the principal commercial and manufacturing Towns of England ... (London: Hurst and Robinson, 1822), pp. 118, 166;
97. Kent, Kent's Directory;
98. Pigot, Pigot and Co.'s Royal National Commercial Directory for 1828-9;
99. Comprising a directory and classification of the merchants, bankers, professional gentlemen, manufacturers and traders, . . . Yorkshire (London: Pigot and CO., 1829), pp. 946, 1047;
100. William White, White's 1853 Leeds and the Clothing Districts of Yorkshire: A Reprint of the 1853 issue of Directory and Gazetteer of Leeds, Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, Wakefield and the Whole of the Clothing Districts of Yorkshire (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, Pub., 1969), pp. 366, 484, 634.
101. W. B. Crump, The Leeds Woollen Industry, 1780-1820 (Leeds: Thoresby Society, 1931), pp. 28, 33-35;
102. Heaton, 'Benjamin Gott', pp. 150-151;
103. Smail, Merchants, Markets and Manufacture, pp. 66-67;
104. Smail, Woollen Manufacturing in Yorkshire, p. 61;
105. Wilson, 'The Supremacy of the Yorkshire Cloth Industry in the Eighteenth Century', in N. B. Harte and K. G. Pouting eds, Textile History and Economic History: Essays in Honour of Miss Julia de Lacy Mann (Manchester: Manchester University Press), pp. 237,245.
106. HBCA E.41/27 The Cameron Family - Outward General, 1818-1874;
107. Kent, Kent's Directory.
108. Baines, History, Directory and Gazetteer, p. 279;
109. Pigot, Pigot and Co.'s Royal National Commercial Directory for 1828-9,pp. 1060;
110. Pigot, Tann, 'Power in the West-of-England Wool Industry', pp. 221-222.
111. Kent, Kent's Directory.
112. HBCA A.5/6 London Correspondence Book Outwards - General Series, 1818-1822.
113. Baines, History, Directory and Gazetteer, p. 270;
114. Pigot, Pigot and Co.'s Royal National Commercial Directory for 1828-9, pp. 1059-1060;
115. White, White's 1853 Leeds and the Clothing Districts of Yorkshire, pp. 639, 714-715.
116. HBCA A.5/6 London Correspondence Book Outwards - General Series, 1818-1822;
117. Kent, Kent's Directory;
118. Nigel Watts trans., 'James Royds' account of the family (1826)' (http:// www.fitzwalter.com/afh/Royds/roydshist3.html).
119. Information about William Dolby found on a transcription of his gravestone at St. Nicholas' Church, Essex (http://historyhouse.co.uk/ monuments.html).
120. HBCA E.41/27 Cameron Family;
121. Baines, History, Directory and Gazetteer, p. 194;
122. Pigot, Pigot and Co.'s Royal National Commercial Directory, pp. 912, 935, 959, 1048;
123. White, White's 1853 Leeds and the Clothing Districts of Yorkshire, pp. 259, 287, 638.
124. 4.d' is possibly an error in transcription. The width of textiles was normally denoted by fractions that represent the number of 'quarters' of a yard (i.e. 9 in.). Broadcloths were either 6/4 (54 in.) or 7/4 (63 in.) wide.
125. Kidd, 'Cloth Trade and the Indians', p. 53.
126. Ibid., p. 54.
127. Smail, Merchants, Markets and Manufacture, p. 78.
128. For complaints, see NAC Phyn and Ellice Letterbook, Vol. 1, Phyn and Ellice to Hayman Levy, 28 April 1768; 9 May 1768; i June 1768; 21 June 1768; 28 June 1768; 18 August 1768; 7 January 1769;
129. for advice on White's strouds, see ibid., 2 June 1768.
130. Ibid., Phyn and Ellice to Benjamin Booth, 19 November 1768.
131. Ibid., Phyn and Ellice to Benjamin Booth, 14 October 1769.
132. Smail, Woollen Manufacturing in Yorksbire, p. 65.
133. Ibid., p. 33.
134. Ibid., p. 78.
135. Kidd, 'Cloth Trade and the Indians', p. 52.
136. James A. Jones, Traditions of the North American Indians: being a second and revised edition of Tales of an Indian camp (London: H. Colburn and R. Bentley, 1830), pp. 113-114.
137. Montgomery, Textiles in America, p. 159.
138. Kidd, 'Cloth Trade and the Indians',pp. 52, 54.
139. In 1747, Colden similarly writes, 'the principal of the Goods proper for the Indian Market are only of the Manufacturers of Great Britain ... viz. Stroud, or Stroudwaters, and other Woollens, and Rum' (Colden, History of the Five Indian Nations, p. 17).
140. For a detailed discussion of Ojibway colour symbolism that explains the preference for blue over red, see Silverstein, 'Clothed Encounters', pp. 196-216.
141. Sullivan, Papers of William Johnson, Vol. 1, p. 50; Vol. 2, pp. 570-640, 898; Vol. 3, pp. 23, 150, 153, 156,334, 530-531, 534; Vol. 4, pp. 559, 893.
142. Albert T. Volwiler, George Crogban and the Westward Movement, 1741-1782 (New York: AMS Press, 1971), p. 45.
143. Ida Amanda Johnson, The Michigan Fur Trade (Lansing MI: Michigan Historical Commission, 1919), p. 110;
144. Wilbur Cunningham, Letter Book of William Burnett: Early Fur Trader in the Land of Four Flags (St Joseph's MI: Fort Miami Heritage Society of Michigan Inc., 1967), p. v.
145. NAC AFC Records; 'American Fur Company Packing List of Goods for Joshua Palen's fur trade goods for Russel] Farnham's Outfit, Mississippi and Missouri Region, August 16th, 1822, St. Louis' (Ayer MS 18, Newberry Library).
146. Heather Devine, 'Roots in the Mohawk Valley: Sir William Johnson's Legacy in the North West Company', in Jennifer S. H. Brown, W. J. Eccles and Donald Heldman eds, The Fur Trade Revisited: Selected Papers of the Sixth North American Fur Trade Conference (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 1994), p. 226.
147. Stewart W. Wallace, Documents Relating to the North West Company (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1934), p. 485.
148. R. H. Fleming, 'Phyn, Ellice and Company of Schenectady', Contributions to Canadian Economics, 4 (1932), pp. 33-34;
149. NAC Phyn and Ellice Letterbook, James Ellice to James Phyn, 5 January 1775 and 25 January 1775.
150. Harry Duckworth, 'British Capitol in the Fur Trade: John Strettell and John Fraser', in Jennifer S. H. Brown, W. J. Eccles and Donald Heldman eds, The Fur Trade Revisited: Selected Papers of the Sixth North American Fur Trade Conference (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 1994), p. 48.
151. Stanley Brice Frost, James McGill of Montreal (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1995), p. 49;
152. NAC Phyn and Ellice Letterbooks, Vol. 3, Phyn and Ellice to Isaac Todd, 20 January 1773.
153. Fleming, 'Phyn, Ellice and Company', pp. 23, 33-36.
154. Ibid., pp. 24-25, 33, 38;
155. Frost, James McGill of Montreal, pp. 48-49, 54-55.
156. Devine, 'Roots in the Mohawk Valley', p. 240 n. 54;
157. Fleming, 'Phyn, Ellice and Company', p. 38;
158. Frost, James McGill of Montreal, p. 57.
159. AO NWC Documents, '#4- Invoices of Goods shipped from England to Montreal for the New North West Co., Forsyth Richardson and Co., and Sir Alex. McKenzie & Co., 1798-1805'.
160. Smail, Woollen Manufacturing in Yorkshire, p. 46.
161. NAC, Phyn, Ellice and Company Letterbook, Vol. 3, Phyn and Ellice to Hayman Levy, 14 September 1771.
162. William M. Reddy, 'The Structure of a Cultural Crisis: Thinking About Cloth in France Before and After the Revolution', in Arjun Appadurai ed., The Social Life of Things (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 267;
163. G. D. Ramsey, The Wiltshire Woollen Industry in the 16th and 17th Centuries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1943), p. 4;
164. Yewdall, 'The Records of Mill Practice', p. 285.
165. Partridge, A Practical Treatise on Dying, 123-24.
166. For another description of this process, see Smail, Woollen Manufacturing in Yorkshire, p. 44.
167. See instructions for making this cloth in Carolyn Corey, Tradecloth Handbook (St Ignatius, MT: Meti Mercantile Press, 2001), pp. 7-8.
168. Also see Carolyn Corey's description of how to dye cloth with a 'scalloped-tip edge'. Tradecloth Handbook (St Ignatius, MT: Meti Mercantile Press, 2001), pp. 7-8.
169. Smail, Woollen Manufacturing in Yorkshire, pp. 40, 63.
170. Yewdall, 'The Records of Mill Practice', p. 285.
171. James Isham, James Isham's Observations on Hudson's Bay, 1743, and Notes and Observations on a book entitled A Voyage to Hudson's Bay in the Dobbs Gallery, 1749 (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1949), p. 39.
172. HBCA London Minute Book, A.1/46, 18; A.1/40, 117.
173. Corey, The Tradecloth Handbook, p. 8.
174. AO, NWC Documents, '#4. Invoices of Goods Shipped from England to Montreal for the New North West Co., Forsyth Richardson & Co., and Sir Alex. McKenzie & Co.'.
175. NAC, AFC Records, 'Memorandum of Goods Required for Upper Missouri Outfit, 1817'.
176. MHS, P. Chouteau-Maffitt Collection, Chouteau Family Papers, 1752-1946, A0274, Reel 22, Letter from John Jacob Astor to Pierre Chouteau, 17 October 1832.
177. Chouteau probably meant'Highland Gartering', which was a common article on NWC and XYC inventories. Gillespie, Moffatt and Findlay Co. included 'Highland Gartering' in their shipment to him a few months later. Ibid., 'Invoice of Goods forwarded to Hagarty and Jordain for account of Gillespie Moffatt Findlay & Co.'.
178. Ibid., Letter from J. J. Astor to P. Chouteau, 27 October 1832.
179. Ibid., 'Account of American Fur Company with Benjamin Gott & Sons';
180. 'Invoice of goods forwarded to Hagarty & Jordain for account of Gillespie Moffatt Findlay & Co.'.
181. HBCA A.5/6 London Correspondence Book Outward, 1818-1822.
182. Yewdall, 'The Records of Mill Practice', p. 304.
183. MHS, Chouteau Family Papers, 'Invoice of Goods imported by AFC on board brig Elvira ...', NAC, AFC Records. I have seen many of these cloths on artefacts in American museum collections (e.g. Field Museum, Detroit Institute of the Arts, Milwaukee Public Museum, etc.). My recollection and the photographic evidence I have at hand suggest that they typically have the flat smooth surface characteristic of strouds, but I would have to re-examine them to be sure.
184. HBCA London Correspondence Outward, A.5/6, pp. 132,138-139.
185. HBCA NWC Account Book, 1818, F.4/13.
186. Crump, The Woollen Industry of Leeds, p. 52;
187. Ponting, History of the West of England, p. 94;
188. Smail, Woollen Manufacturing in Yorkshire, p. 55;
189. Yewdall, 'The Records of Mill Practice', p. 283.
190. Smail, Markets, Merchants and Manufacture, pp. 85, 92;
191. Wilson, 'Supremacy of the Yorkshire Cloth Industry', p. 241.
192. The majority of the black was in two exceptional cases: goods remaining in the storehouse at Grand Portage in 1799 and goods distributed as a treaty annuity in 1798. Neither of these represent customer preferences. Silverstein [Willmott], 'Clothed Encounters', Table 1: Percent of Woollens by Colour in Fur Trade Inventories, pp. 419-20.
193. MHS, Chouteau Papers, 'Account of the American Fur Company with Benjamin Gott & Sons, 10th Dec. 1832';
194. Partridge, A Practical Treatise, pp. 9-11;
195. Kenneth Ponting, A Dictionary of Dyes and Dyeing (London: Mills and Boon, 1980), pp. 105-106;
196. Pouting, History of The West of England Cloth Trade, p. 93.
197. HBCA A.1/39, London Minute Book, 1751-54;
198. HBCA A.5/6, London Correspondence Outward, General Series, 1818-22;
199. Partridge, A Practical Treatise, pp. 164, 251;
200. Kidd, 'The Cloth Trade', p. 54;
201. Smail, Woollen Manufacturing in Yorkshire, pp. 6, 66.
202. Partridge, A Practical Treatise, p. 165;
203. Ponting, History of The West of England Cloth Trade, p. 92.
204. Partridge, A Practical Treatise, p. 165;
205. Ponting, A Dictionary of Dyes and Dyeing, p. 44.
206. HBCA A.1/44 London Minute Books, 1771-1776.
207. AO NWC Documents, '#4. Invoices of Goods Shipped from England . . .'; NAC, AFC Records.
208. Crump, The Woollen Industry of Leeds, p. 52;
209. Smail, Merchants, Markets and Manufactures, p. 65;
210. Smail, Woollen Manufacturing in Yorkshire, p. 29.
211. Pouting, History of the West of England, pp. 101-102.
212. Yewdall, 'The Records of Mill Practice', pp. 274, 301.
213. Heaton, 'Benjamin Gott and the Anglo-American Cloth Trade', p. 151.
214. Smail, Woollen Manufacturing in Yorkshire, pp. 16, 48, 91, 105, 107, 120, 131.
215. Flocks are very short lengths of wool obtained as waste from the processes of fulling and cropping. Shoddy and mungo are materials obtained by converting cloth rags into a fibrous state. Shoddy is made from unmilled cloths, while mungo is made from milled cloths.
216. Smail, Woollen Manufacturing in Yorkshire, p. 113.
217. Partridge, A Practical Treatise, p. 23.
218. Jenkins and Ponting, British Wool Textile Industry, p. 64.
219. Heaton, 'Benjamin Gott and the Anglo-American Cloth Trade', pp. 152, 160.