The style of clothing worn by the refugees and disbanded soldiers was such as prevailed eighty years ago in England. A certain difference, no doubt, existed between the English and the Colonists, yet mainly the style was the same. Among the first settlers upon the bay were those who had fetched with them, and wore, at least occasionally, garments of fashionable cut and appointments. Tight knee-breeches and silver buckles would decorate the bodies of some, who had in other days mixed in the fashionable throng, perhaps luxuriated in the gay city of New York, where the presence of British soldiers always gave life and gaiety. Indeed some of the inhabitants had been commissioned officers in the regular army. Dr. Dougall, who had been in the navy, and who had settled in the sixth Township, is remembered as a wearer of “tights” and silver buckles. Also, Major VanAlstine wore this elegant attire, and the M’Leans, of Kingston. Those who left their homes hurriedly during the course of the war, and fled to Lower Canada and the several British Forts, brought only what was upon their backs. Those who came more leisurely might have a little more; but the distance to travel on foot would deter from undertaking to bring more than supplies of food. The disbanded soldiers had no more than what belongs to a soldier’s kit, and no doubt the close of the war left many of them with well worn garments. A few years of exposure to the wear and tear of pioneer life would quite destroy the best supplied wardrobe, however carefully husbanded, or ingeniously mended by the anxious wife. To replace the clothing was far from an easy matter to the settlers, many of whom had no money, certainly no time for a long journey to Montreal or Albany. After a few years, Kingston became a place of trade, but the supply of clothing was scant and dear, placing it beyond the reach of mostly all. The result was that the vast majority of the inhabitants had to look to the production of their lands wherewith to cover the nakedness of their families. Those living up the bay continued to want for clothing for a longer time, being unable to exchange with the merchants of Kingston, until peddlers began to visit the more remote settlers.
The faded garments, patched until the original material could no longer be distinguished, ultimately succumbed to the effects of time and labor.
The Indians, who as a general thing were friendly and kind, when they visited the settlement, gave to the settlers the idea of manufacturing garments out of deer skin. They, now and then exchanged skins for articles the settlers could part with, and taught them how to prepare the fresh pelt so as to make it pliable. The process consisted in removing the hair and then working the hide by hand with the brains of some animal, until it was soft and white. Trowsers made of this material were not only comfortable for winter, but very durable. A gentleman who recently died in Sophiasburgh at an advanced age, remembered to have worn a pair for twelve years, being repaired occasionally, and at the end they were sold for two dollars and-a-half. Petticoats for women were often made of the same material. Roger Bates says “My grandmother made all sorts of useful dresses with these skins, which were most comfortable for a country life, and for going through the bush, could not be torn by the branches.” Also, moccasins were procured from the buckskin, and some had enough deer-skin to make covering for beds. But deer-skin was not sufficiently abundant to give covering to all, such as it was; and, certain clothing was required, for which it was unfit. Thus left to their own resources, the settlers commenced at an early period to cultivate flax, and as soon as possible to procure sheep. For many years almost every family made their various garments, for both sexes, of the coarse linen made from the flax, and cloth from wool raised at home and carded by hand. Preparing the flax for weaving, as well as spinning were done by hand, with inferior implements rudely made. But in later years, occasionally spinning wheels and looms were brought in by settlers. There were no fulling mills to complete the fabric. Even the mode adopted then, in Lower Canada, was not practised, which was as follows: A meeting of young folks, similar to a bee, was held from house to house, at which both sexes took part. The cloth to be fulled was placed in large tubs, and bare-legged youths would step in and with much amusement dance the fulling done. In Upper Canada, both high and low were glad to be able to don the home-made linen, and the linsey-woolsey petticoat.
“The growth of flax was much attended to as soon as lands were cleared and put in order.” “Then spinning-wheels were all the go, and home-made linen, the pride of all families, manufactured substantial articles that would last a lifetime.” The young men of industry would look for the spinning-wheel and loom before selecting a wife. “A young farmer would often be astonished to find on his marriage that his fair partner had got a good supply of linen for her marriage portion. I have known as much as sixty yards spun and manufactured at one bee or gathering.”—Clark.
When the skins of sheep, and of calves and beef become available, every farmer became his own tanner, and dressed his leather; and then his own shoemaker. Fashions did not change, except as the continued practice of making for an increasing family, gave the maker ability to make something more like a boot than a moccasin. Rainy days, and the nights, were spent in doing such kind of work, not by candle light, but by the hearth fire. It was at the same time that an axe-helve, a wooden plow, a reaping cradle, a wooden fork, &c., were made. But many a child, whose grand-children are now occupying positions of wealth and influence, stayed in the log cabin the winter through, because he had nothing with which to protect his feet from the snow. The writer’s father was not a shoemaker by trade; but he remembers when a boy to have worn shoes made by him. They were not conspicuous for their beauty, but it was thought by the wearer they would last forever; within his recollection there was not a shoemaker in Thurlow.
Much ingenuity was displayed in making clothes and blankets. What was called the “Kearsy” blanket was made at an early date; the writer has seen the first one said to have been manufactured in Upper Canada, certainly the first on the Bay Quinté. It is yet in use and belongs to one, nearly one hundred years of age, who is the daughter of the maker, whom we remember to have seen when a boy, who, although then in the sear and yellow leaf, was as tall and erect as if untold hardships had not crowned her life. Within fifteen miles of Belleville, across the Bay, was a log cabin, the occupants of which had for their first blanket, one made out of hair, picked out of the tanner’s vat, and a hemp-like weed growing in the yard. The hair was first cleaned by whipping it; then it was carded and worked up with the hemp, and then spun. It was afterward doubled and twisted, and finally woven into a blanket. The individual whose wife did this, and whose descendants are among the most wealthy farmers, bought his farm for a horse. For many a day, they had no furniture, not even a chair, and the bedstead was made out of two poles, driven between the logs of the shanty; and basswood bark was twisted so as to bind them substantially together. Clean straw upon this, was really the only thing they had in the house. And so it was with very many, the exceptions being, some half pay officers, who had brought a table, or a chest of drawers. In 1790, the brother of an individual, holding an important post in Kingston, was near the head of the bay, staying at a house in a state of nakedness; in which condition his brother writes, “he must remain until I am able to go up.” “I have agreed to put him to trial with a carpenter to learn the trade,” he must therefore have been a large boy.
It was not until the close of the last century, that wearing articles, other than those made out of flax and wool, were to be obtained. A calico dress was a decided luxury. The petticoat, and short gown of linen, was more common. A long chintz dress to go to meeting, was the height of many a damsel’s ambition, or a grogran dress and short petticoat. As years passed away, and a grown up daughter was about to be married, efforts would be made to array the bride in fitting costume. Often a dress, worn by the mother in other days, amid other scenes, which had been laid carefully away, was brought forth to light, and made by suitable alterations to do renewed service, although the white had assumed a yellow cast, and had lost its lustre.
As late as 1816, a farmer owning land in Sidney, and who died rich, made in winter a journey to Kingston with flour, wearing nothing on his feet, but a pair of shoes, and who had his trowsers strapped down to keep his ankles warm. Leg boots took too much leather. It was many years before a bridle and saddle were known, and then, but a few possessed such a convenience. Bare-back, or on a deer skin was the primitive mode.