Just how bad are 18th Century shoes in Winter? Sub-Zero hike in 1700’s gear
I'm Ethan, I love muzzleloading, and we're getting past the Christmas winter blizzard here and I really wanted to get out and test some of my historic gear
What I'm doing here is trekking a little bit through the woods around my homestead here, it's a much younger woods than we would have seen in the 18th century, especially in this part of the country but I really wanted to get out and go through and really work with some of the equipment that I've been organizing and getting around for some of my personas. I'm wearing totally period-appropriate equipment for the 18th century for what they would have had I've done quite a bit of research here over this last summer and fall trying to find the right stuff and talking to some good friends and much like with any other equipment that you might have if you're into camping or woodworking or anything kind of hobby related you really need to get out and practice with that equipment and that's something I really wanted to try doing in this kind of bitter cold.
Now I don't recommend necessarily that you go out and do this, I do have my phone on me I am visible to my Homestead and my wife is going to come and check on me if I'm not back in an appropriate amount of time. Always be safe and be careful, I'm doing everything I can to do this safely don't want to take the nasty weather that we can go through for granted and not take it seriously.
THE GEAR
Starting with my feet recently purchased a pair of South Union Mills Colonial buckle shoes. I've been wearing them around the farm, breaking them in, and getting them comfortable. It's been a little bit getting used to but working through the woods here I've slipped a little bit here and there but not terribly horrible as you might think. If you're used to modern hiking shoes it is a big change but really if you are practiced in navigating the woods you can really get around just fine.
Post hike snapshot of my shoes. Note the limited snow around the opening.
Inside my shoes are obviously my feet, just my normal modern feet really I'm wearing a pair of knit wool stockings which is contemporary for the period we see a lot of documentation talking about carrying a pair of extra stockings, especially during a winter campaign where in preparation for the winter having some kind of heavy sock in a pack was necessary to survive.
From there my set of leather buckled garters holding my stockings up and I really need to say my legs are fine. My big concern about this little trip was the snow getting into my stockings. Now, this is not totally terribly deep snow we do have some wind pushing it around but as far as the snow goes here not really feeling at all in my feet which I'm rather impressed with.
I'm rather pleased to report coming up from my legs wearing my knickers these are my linen duck knicker, they're brown (I like brown), kind of appropriate I think for the mid-18th century as we get into the later 18th century, as well as into the early 19th century we see pants used a lot which would be period for what I'm wearing for the most part but I went with the knickers trying to get that full experience.
Coming up to my torso I have a linen shirt it's also from South Union Mills. I just got this shirt in the post very pleased with the quality. This shirt was recommended to me by Jake Book of The Shirt Tail Mess. It's a more period-appropriate shirt than I have been wearing really pleased with the quality of it. It was very affordable, I ordered a size large and it was a little bit big on me, but not so much that I want to exchange it. I have long arms for my size, and the lenght is just right for me.
On top of the linen shirt, I have a black silk cravat recently purchased from Townsend's as a more appropriate neckerchief. I have a wool weskit on top of that, buttoned with some pewter buttons. My weskit this purple one that I'm wearing is more of a 1750s style weskit that you might see kind of the F and I period and then going out of fashion then as we get into the 18th century. On top of the weskit, you can see here I have a French and Indian War or Seven Years War era provincial coat. This coat is linen on the inside and wool on the outside, making it a fairly warm coat, even in the wind.
I have my ears wrapped with a piece of linen and that's something that we see in some documentation where you might not have knit caps being accessible for some out there especially on campaigns if they've been lost. The linen around my ears is not super thermal, it doesn't have a lot of insulation like you might think about in the modern sense but it is keeping the wind off of my ears and really the only parts of me currently affected by the cold, believe me or not here, are my fingers and my face.
All in all for this trip I walked about one and a quarter miles through the woods here in this kind of chilly weather the wind chill was down around negative 12 and the air temperature was right around zero. Really back in the woods for this walk I didn't really notice the wind a whole lot it has a little bit of a review of the equipment that I took out I'm very impressed with how well it held up and how warm I was through the entire walk. If I was going to be out for an extended time I'd really want some wool mittens to cover up my fingertips, that would really decrease a lot of the minor discomfort that I felt. As far as the Footwear goes I know that there's a lot of hesitation about these kinds of shoes because I had that same hesitation myself but this pair really performed well for me going out on this walk. Now, I wasn't on a life-saving or life-threatening march or incursion you know through the Wilderness here, I could kind of do this casually and at my own pace. The only difficulty I had was either going up or down a hill. Navigating hills is kind of like cross-country skiing at least in my experience. I had to cut across the hillside diagonally to get up and then coming down that hill I pointed my toes inward so that any sliding I did would be kind of limited and I used the trees and the scrubby little growths here and there to hold on to, to navigate that terrain. Obviously not as nice as my insulated Muck Boots for going through a snowy terrain like this but apart from navigating the hills the shoes really did well for me.
Once I got back inside I removed my wool stockings and removed the shoes I really noticed how much my feet had gone through during this walk. Now it wasn't anything to be worried about, there was no evidence of frostbite or anything and there still was a limited amount of moisture and snow know in the shoes but I did notice that the shoes themselves were becoming very saturated and my stockings as well at least down on the soles of my feet. I'm not sure that it was necessarily sweat or a combination of snow and sweat but my stockings were noticeably a little damp. So I think in terms of longevity here we're seeing similar experiences in my little walk that we might see in some of the historical journals that we can reference about moving through the Wilderness or moving through the wooded terrain with this kind of equipment. You see a lot of times in these journals, multiple pairs of stockings being carried, like we talked about a little bit earlier, heavy and light so you can switch out and dry out the stockings from the day as well as at least one ancillary pair of moccasins regardless of if you're wearing the buckle shows or moccasins for daily travel.
would not be at all concerned to go on a days long hike in this equipment. I know it's going to be wet I know the shoes aren't waterproof, it's not Gore-Tex, I know my feet are going to be a little unhappy at the end of the day but I don't think it's out of the question in the modern era for us to do this for a little bit of fun.
All in all this was a lot of fun it was a lot of fun to get out and test some of the equipment and test some of the clothing and see kind of some practical application of it in these cold weather temperatures that we experienced here in the winter of 2022. I really encourage you if you have you know some cold weather clothing or if you have you know a little bit of this bug to get out and try it and go out and try it you know do it safely, do it appropriately for your capabilities in the area that you're in, but I really enjoyed it and even coming back I found myself thinking more and more about what I could do next time and how I could improve this.
I'm going to link to a couple blogs in the description of this video the Buffalo Trace 1765 and the shirttail mess a couple blogs I've been reading a lot of this year and this winter especially since I've been inside so much but they provide a lot of great documentation and source material for you to reference. I've been referencing it and I really encourage you at home to reference this as well if this is the kind of thing that you're interested in.