All of our shoes are functional copies of shoes of the American Colonial Period. They are designed to be worn with genuine shoe buckles, not the tie-on imitations seen at so many Scottish events.
Fugawee makes both straight last and left/right or “crooked” colonial shoes. The straight last is more correct for the ordinary persona of the Colonial period but the crooked last is more comfortable. After being worn a few times, a straight lasted shoe soon molds itself to your foot.
Never swap shoes. That is a myth with but a faint foundation in history.
Toe caps, the formed section at the front of the shoe, didn’t come into use until about 1870. When you buy a Colonial shoe, expect soft toes and expect to need your shoes a little longer if you have prominent big toes.
What’s the story on straight-lasted shoes?
During the Middle Ages shoes were soft, made something like hard-soled moccasins, and had little, if any, heel. They were easily made to fit each foot. Then came the. Italians. Some people even blame Leonardo Da Vinci.
High-heeled shoes are mentioned as early as 1533 but they reached ordinary fops in the 1590s when they swept into Venice and Florence. This brought out a whole new set of problems. The shank in the arch of the shoe had to be strong and stiff enough to keep the shoe from collapsing forward and the sides of the shoe had to be molded so that the foot would not slide down into the toe area. The complexities and cost of carving compound curves into the last (the form that the shoe is molded over) and then making a mirror image for the other foot limited such shoes to the very rich.
The fashionably foppish folk were faced with a dilemma: Style or Comfort?
You guessed it. Style won out, so from the 1590s until the 1830’s ordinary people wore straight last shoes. Then, in 1828 a foreman named Blanchard at the Springfield Armory in Massachusetts developed a duplicating lathe for the manufacture of gun stocks.
The original Blanchard lathe is on exhibit in the Springfield Armory Museum. Despite the Armory’s history of service since the birth of the Republic, it is gone. An industrial park and/or Junior College now occupies the buildings. A small but fascinating museum of American arms making since the birth of the republic is set up in one of the old buildings. The museum is closed Monday and Tuesday. When asking for directions from the local people, ask for the Junior College. Most of them don’t know how those old buildings won this nation’s wars.
A Philadelphia shoemaker thought that Blanchard’s new lathe was also ideal for making shoe lasts and soon discovered that, by reversing the cam which guided the cutter, a mirror image could be produced. Since a wooden last gets chewed up by tack holes in a few hundred uses, there was a constant demand for new lasts and the new lasts soon were all made in left and right. By 1841 the military was using left/right shoes. By 1851 left/rights were officially specified.
Some slippers and light women’s shoes continued to be made on straight lasts by the turn-shoe method until perhaps 1880. This probably is because the lasts were usable for a longer period since they did not suffer all the tack holes used in welt construction.
(By the way; Napoleon’s valet broke in his boss’s custom-made boots. It’s good to be the Emperor.)
So back to your choices in a man’s Colonial shoe.
The left/right Franklin is made of black calfskin. It has a normal heel and is leather lined. The toe is slightly squared but not square enough to limit the style to pre-1735. With a longish tongue, the Franklin is a good choice for the gentleman of means. To get a little snobbish, paint your heels red with paint. Originally, that meant that you had been received at Court but it was widely imitated by all kinds of fops and pretenders. See the film “Rob Roy”. The latchets will accept a 1¼ to 1½ inch buckle. Sizes 7 to 13 in E width only.

Heel height: the height, floor to the shank, is measured at the heel breast.

The measure of heel height is from the breast (front) of the heel not

 the neck (back) of the heel. Elevation and heel height sets the heel angle for the heel seat.

heels

Fugawee has received several inquiries about the authenticity of the Hi-Low also called Startup, upstart, buskin or half-boot.  They are all names for the same footwear, a boot not too different from the modern-day work boot.  I’m going to poke around and much of what I write will seem to be disjointed……but then all of historical research consists of putting together the bits and pieces left behind.  June Swann is considered by most people to be the ultimate authority of historical footwear.  She has a long and honorable career as author and museum curator.

June Swann says, in “Shoes” (ISBN 0 7134 0942 8) P.28:

“There were also half boots from the 1750s, cut a little higher than modern ankle boots, which descend from them and worn for shooting and by the military. St James Chronicle, 1763, comments on ‘tradesmen who ape their betters….breeches almost met by a pair of shoes that reached about three and a quarter inches above the ankles.’  They were typical wear for both sides during the American War of Independence  (see Peale’s portrait of Captain John Harleston of Chicago.”  Good luck)

I have tried to track down the Harleston portrait without luck.

Three and a quarter inches above the ankle makes an eight-inch boot.  Remember that the St. James Chronicle was a snob’s gazette and was ridiculing the ‘tradesmen who ape their betters.’ Was this the foundation for the term ‘upstart’?

A little before this, in 1745 an English painting shows a sportsman using such shoes for hunting on foot.  The term used by the English was ‘buskin’, called after the classical Greek-Roman footwear which was a high, laced sandal.

Similar high laced shoes appear as far back as the middle ages, about the time that people got tired of wearing wooden shoes full of manure.  The hi-lows were made with tongues and without tongues.  The pair pictured in the Collector’s Encyclopaedia of the American Revolution does not have tongues.  It is called an ‘overshoe’ and is said to have belonged to Thomas Jefferson.

In the Colonies, the hi-low was a farm boot meant for the barnyard and pig-stye in a day when there were no rubber boots.  Do you wonder that surviving specimens are hard to find?

It is just such a farmer’s boot that Don Troiani shows on his Lexington Minute Man.

Someone asked Nancy, ”Where did Troiani get his authentication?”

If there is one man I would never question on such matters, it is Don Troiani.

Then there is Mr. Al Saguto, long time resident cordwainer at Historical Williamsburg:   He says,

One detail from the surviving 18th c. boots: where the original lacing survives, it’s always “spiral” laced, that is the length of thong is knotted at one end

[the bottom], and it spirals round and round up the front opening, then is half-hitch looped, and the other end tucked inside the boot…….     DA Saguto

Al made the first pair of reproduction hi-lows for a customer several years ago and deserves credit for bringing back a safe and comfortable shoe for Colonial re-enactors. He does only bespoke work and has a waiting line but it is worth it.

by Art Ayotte

Fugawees straight last Hi-lo

By Art Ayotte

   Fugawee has received several inquiries about the authenticity of the Hi-Low also called Startup, upstart, buskin or half-boot.  They are all names for the same footwear, a boot not too different from the modern-day work boot.  I’m going to poke around and much of what I write will seem to be disjointed……but then all of historical research consists of putting together the bits and pieces left behind.  June Swann is considered by most people to be the ultimate authority of historical footwear.  She has a long and honorable career as author and museum curator.

 June Swann says, in “Shoes” (ISBN 0 7134 0942 8) P.28:

“There were also half boots from the 1750s, cut a little higher than modern ankle boots, which descend from them and worn for shooting and by the military. St James Chronicle, 1763, comments on ‘tradesmen who ape their betters….breeches almost met by a pair of shoes that reached about three and a quarter inches above the ankles.’  They were typical wear for both sides during the American War of Independence  (see Peale’s portrait of Captain John Harleston of Chicago.” 

 I have tried to track down the Harleston portrait without luck. 

Three and a quarter inches above the ankle makes an eight-inch boot.  Remember that the St. James Chronicle was a snob’s gazette and was ridiculing the ‘tradesmen who ape their betters.’ Was this the foundation for the term ‘upstart’?  

A little before this, in 1745 an English painting shows a sportsman using such shoes for hunting on foot.  The term used by the English was ‘buskin’, called after the classical Greek-Roman footwear which was a high, laced sandal.   

Similar high laced shoes appear as far back as the middle ages, about the time that people got tired of wearing wooden shoes full of manure.  The hi-lows were made with tongues and without tongues.  The pair pictured in the Collector’s Encyclopaedia of the American Revolution does not have tongues.  It is called an ‘overshoe’ and is said to have belonged to Thomas Jefferson.   

In the Colonies, the hi-low was a farm boot meant for the barnyard and pig-stye in a day when there were no rubber boots.  Do you wonder that surviving specimens are hard to find? 

It is just such a farmer’s boot that Don Troiani shows on his Lexington Minute Man. 

Someone asked Nancy, ”Where did Troiani get his authentication?”

 If there is one man I would never question on such matters, it is Don Troiani. 

Then there is Al Saguto, long time resident cordwainer at Historical Williamsburg:   He says,  

One detail from the surviving 18th c. boots: where the original lacing survives, it’s always “spiral” laced, that is the length of thong is knotted at one end

[the bottom], and it spirals round and round up the front opening, then is half-hitch looped, and the other end tucked inside the boot…….     DA Saguto

 Al made the first pair of reproduction hi-lows for a customer several years ago and deserves credit for bringing back a safe and comfortable shoe for Colonial re-enactors. He does only bespoke work and has a waiting line but it is worth it.

 See the Troiani painting 

One detail from the surviving 18th c. boots: where the original lacing survives, it’s always “spiral” laced, that is the length of thong is knotted at one end

[the bottom], and it spirals round and round up the front opening, then is half-hitch looped, and the other end tucked inside the boot…….     DA Saguto

 .  They are all names for the same footwear, a boot not too different from the modern-day work boot.  I’m going to poke around and much of what I write will seem to be disjointed……but then all of historical research consists of putting together the bits and pieces left behind.  June Swann is considered by most people to be the ultimate authority of historical footwear.  She has a long and honorable career as author and museum curator.

 June Swann says, in “Shoes” (ISBN 0 7134 0942 8) P.28:

“There were also half boots from the 1750s, cut a little higher than modern ankle boots, which descend from them and worn for shooting and by the military. St James Chronicle, 1763, comments on ‘tradesmen who ape their betters….breeches almost met by a pair of shoes that reached about three and a quarter inches above the ankles.’  They were typical wear for both sides during the American War of Independence  (see Peale’s portrait of Captain John Harleston of Chicago.” 

 I have tried to track down the Harleston portrait without luck.

 Three and a quarter inches above the ankle makes an eight-inch boot.  Remember that the St. James Chronicle was a snob’s gazette and was ridiculing the ‘tradesmen who ape their betters.’ Was this the foundation for the term ‘upstart’? 

 A little before this, in 1745 an English painting shows a sportsman using such shoes for hunting on foot.  The term used by the English was ‘buskin’, called after the classical Greek-Roman footwear which was a high, laced sandal. 

 Similar high laced shoes appear as far back as the middle ages, about the time that people got tired of wearing wooden shoes full of manure.  The hi-lows were made with tongues and without tongues.  The pair pictured in the Collector’s Encyclopaedia of the American Revolution does not have tongues.  It is called an ‘overshoe’ and is said to have belonged to Thomas Jefferson. 

 In the Colonies, the hi-low was a farm boot meant for the barnyard and pig-stye in a day when there were no rubber boots.  Do you wonder that surviving specimens are hard to find?

 It is just such a farmer’s boot that Don Troiani shows on his Lexington Minute Man.

 Someone asked Nancy, ”Where did Troiani get his authentication?”

 If there is one man I would never question on such matters, it is Don Troiani.

Then there is Al Saguto, long time resident cordwainer at Historical Williamsburg:   He says,

 One detail from the surviving 18th c. boots: where the original lacing survives, it’s always “spiral” laced, that is the length of thong is knotted at one end

[the bottom], and it spirals round and round up the front opening, then is half-hitch looped, and the other end tucked inside the boot…….     DA Saguto

 Al made the first pair of reproduction hi-lows for a customer several years ago and deserves credit for bringing back a safe and comfortable shoe for Colonial re-enactors. He does only bespoke work and has a waiting line but it is worth it.

 See the Troiani painting 

One detail from the surviving 18th c. boots: where the original lacing survives, it’s always “spiral” laced, that is the length of thong is knotted at one end

[the bottom], and it spirals round and round up the front opening, then is half-hitch looped, and the other end tucked inside the boot…….     DA Saguto

The toe of the Concord is slightly round, the dominate style shoes found at Ft. Ligonier. We took the pattern for the Franklin uppers and formed them over a last taken from an 1860’s military shoe. The Concord is available in rough or smooth finish.

Wonder about which to choose smooth or rough leather?  If you are in a group or unit, sometime it is decided along with the other clothing regulation what the unit will wear.  If it just for personal use, oft times it was a rough outside leaving the inside smooth as like a lining.  Then the rough leather would be filled with a mixture to fill the leather and after a lot of elbow grease you would get the not too shiny finish.  This also gave you added protection from moisture of the wet ground cover.  There has been many different concoctions for fillers over the years.

The smooth finish would give you the rough side for the inside and be more of a cushion and less elbow grease as the shine is already there.

Size: 5E through 15EEE for the Concords.  Buckles sold separately, but if shipped with shoes, included in shipping price. All shoes sold without buckles, please see our buckle selection.  Cost $126.12

The Natural rough would darken as it aged and get a nice dusty brown.  A filling or dressing would darken over time, and help keep the moisture out.

We named it the Concord in honor of  the heroes who left their homes and their wife-warm beds to gather at the Concord bridge and dare the British Empire to do its worst.

The toe of the Concord is slightly round, the dominate style shoes found at Ft. Ligonier. We took the pattern for the Franklin uppers and formed them over a last taken from an 1860’s military shoe. The Concord is available in rough or smooth finish.

For personal use, the rough outside leaves the inside smooth, like a lining.  Then the rough leather would be filled with a mixture to fill the leather and after a lot of elbow grease you would get the not too shiny finish.  This also gave you added protection from moisture of the wet ground cover.  There has been many different concoctions for fillers over the years.

Size: 5E through 15EEE for the Concords.  Buckles sold separately, but if shipped with shoes, included in shipping price. All shoes sold without buckles, please see our buckle selection.  Cost $126.12