Trap sacks and saddle bags

[Chuck Burrows]

A question about trap sacks came up elsewhere and I figured I'd post my info here as well.......
"This equipment consists usually of two or three horses or mules - one for saddle, the others for packs - and six traps, which are carried in a bag of leather called a trap-sack."
G. F. Ruxton circa 1846

"my old saddle bags, made of a yard of brown muslin, sewed at both ends with a slit in the middle"
C. Larpenteur, "Forty years a fur trader on the upper Missouri"

Here's a market wallet style set of leather saddle bags made similar to the cloth ones described by Charles Larpenteur - no need for straps whether on horseback or not since the center section gets hung over the shoulder or horse and the "goods" go into either side:

Some are made with the seam along the edge and a slit made in the middle, but some such as this were made with the seam up the center and left unsewn for a section to make the opening.

The type leather sack mentioned by Ruxton is not further described, but there are many extant examples of NDN made saddle bags that are basically a simple leather sack with small flap that could be used - these would need a set of straps for carrying since they have whangs for tieing to the saddle:

This is an early Gros Ventre set

For more examples of NDN made saddlebags see here:
anthro.amnh.org/anthropology/databases/north_public/north_public.htm

Use saddle bag for searching........while most examples are dated later and are fancied up, the style is old and can be seen in some of Miller's prints circa 1837. A plain pair would work nicely for carrying traps.

[Rod]

Here's plans on building the market wallet type, at the bottom of this page:

www.manuellisaparty.com/articles.htm


Rod

[sean]

Chuck,

The top one is a common saddle bag. The lower is a pannier for carrying gear attached to a pack saddle. I believe those pictures came from the AMNH. Anyone who wants to see more of these can go to:

anthro.amnh.org/anthropology/databases/north_public/north_public.htm

Search for 'saddle' or 'saddle bag'. Several even have measurements associated with them. In general, the saddle bags were 8-14" wide and about 40-48" long not including fringe. They were tied on behind the cantle with saddle strings. The panniers were about 2-2.5' long and 1-1.5' top to bottom. Hanson referred to these as 'tipi bags', but they never carried a tipi, just the belongings from inside when the camp was on the move. The lodge cover would have been rolled up and packed separately on a pack horse or travois. I would guess the latter were actually used as a trap sack. Stuffing 6 traps in a pair of saddle bags would be pushing it and would likely be hell on a horse's kidneys. These traps weight anywhere from about 3# for single spring English beaver gins up to 5#+ for a double long spring such as were made by Standish.

Sean

[Chuck Burrows]

Sept 22, 2010 17:59:57 GMT -7 @sean said:

Chuck,
The top one is a common saddle bag. The lower is a pannier for carrying gear attached to a pack saddle. I believe those pictures came from the AMNH.
Sean

Yep I know that's why I named the thread trap sacks and saddle bags. As to the pannier - it's a form of saddle bag after all albeit one used on a pack saddle, where one's traps would normally be carried as documented in most period journals.
There is the conception that when running one's lines back when, the trap sack would most likely be carried on the saddle horse, but I'm not so sure that they didn't take a pack horse with them to pack the extra weight. There are notes in some of the journals at least intimating where the trappers returned to camp and had the handlers do the skinning, etc. Packing 3-6 dead beaver along with yourself and your other gear on your saddle horse would make a pretty big load, especially on the smaller western horses of the period, far out doing the 30 or so pounds of even 6 large traps.

Ruxton mentioned a leather sack with no further description -he did not call the trap sack a saddle bag, thus the pic of the pannier type. I was showing what a common period NDN made leather sack would be like in shape and while I agree the term tipi bag is mis-leading to a point, I've seen such bags used as storage bags in lodges (including old photos) as well as being used as saddle bags.

Personally I reckon the trappers used what they had to carry traps whether it be the market wallet style saddle bag, but I agree that a couple of simple cloth or leather pouches that would hold 2-3 traps each just might make more sense due to the weight issue - of course the market wallet double bag could have slung over the withers to better carry the weight?
While many of todays re-enactors use Larpenteur's description of a saddle bag for documentation as a trap sack, he never trapped so?.
All other descriptions I know of for RMFT trap sacks, are vague at best. Thus IMO the pannier style bags, which can also be documented to the RMFT period and vary in size, would be just as viable and documentable for using as a trap sack with 2-3 traps per bag and...........

And yes pics I posted did come from AMNH where both types are listed as saddle bag................

[Julius]

Market wallets are a handy thing

[sean]

Packing 3-6 dead beaver along with yourself and your other gear on your saddle horse would make a pretty big load, especially on the smaller western horses of the period, far out doing the 30 or so pounds of even 6 large traps.

Agreed. Back in the day, I used to live somewhere with water and trapped beaver dollars. There were times when I wished I had a packhorse to get the morning's catch back to the truck.

Sean

[Rod]

Agreed with that---I once caught one that weighed near 60 pounds. Carrying that thing home over my shoulder--dripping down my back---wasn't much fun. Luckily, it was the only one I got that day.

I've often wondered if many the mountaineers didn't skin them on the spot---especially if they didn't have any campkeepers around to skin for them? I expect that where they were skinned depended on the circumstance---whether they were in a hurry to get back to camp, safety of the group in a hostile area, whether leaving a skinned carcass in the trapping area would attract too much attention or not, etc.


Rod

[Lloyd]

When I saw the movie "The Missing" the first time, I fell in love with those Apache saddlebags that Tommy Lee Jones had.



Then I saw where Ottawa Bill over on the cowboy site had a set. And I looked up these:





From what I can see, they are just a leather market wallet with fringe and decoration...

Those that Tommy Lee had were pierced and underlined like Tom Tobins coat.

[Chuck Burrows]

Howdy Lloyd - check out that AMNH link Sean posted - there are several Apache bags like those in the missing.
While most don't denote the actual tribe, IMO most maybe Jicarilla or Mescalero i.e. the "plains" Apaches

Rod - the biggest beaver I ever caught was in western Washington back in the late 1970's. It was taken from a pond that was flooding a road on the tree farm I worked for at the time - sucker weighed 90 lbs soaking wet and I was glad the truck was close to hand!
Most I trapped were in the 30-40 lb range and two or three of them were quite a load.
As to skinning out on site - I just don't know for sure, but do know that beaver are one of the hardest critters to skin out so I do wonder about the time it would take? Also there is quite a bit of docs that mention eating the meat - including the area named the Malade in So Idaho where they got sic from eating beaver meat. I've eaten a fair amoun and most times it's pretty good. As for beaver tails? well I reckon if one is starved for fat.........

Julius - First off welcome! and yep market wallets are handy items, but I "question" whether they were used as trap sacks considering the weight? Probably by some, but there are no absolutes when it comes to the documentation that I'm aware of for trap sacks.

[sean]

Lloyd,

'The Missing' was a great movie. It was based around the time soon after Victorio was killed. The various band of Apache have always been an interest to me. I used to live about 10 miles as the crow flies from the Mescalero Reservation where the remnants of the Membranos (can't type an enya, so its Membrane-yo) and the Chiricauhua also live. That movie did a pretty good job with Apache culture. However, Tommy Lee Jones' saddle was the sort of charro with a fiberglass covered tree that you can still buy in Cuidad Juarez, if you are brave enough to go there with all the drug violence these days. I reckon that style is really circa 1890's so its not too far out of the realm.

Speaking of the drug violence in Juarez... I found it sort of interesting recently that I heard a radio interview on that topic which described the current wholesale exodus of the population of that town. I was amazed that the descriptions were so similar to the sort of exodus that occurred when the Chihuahuan scalp trade really got the Apache stirred up in the 1840's and 50's. Back then, Mesilla, NM was all but abandoned for a time and all of the outlying ranchos around El Paso del Norte and much of the periphery of the town was abandoned. Nowadays, I'm hearing something like 30% of the population of Cuidad Juarez has fled south to escape the wars between the cartels and the military (also in the business of running drugs and people). Figure that the population of Juarez is about 1.5 million people, where we're talking about a 1/2 million people on the move.

Sean

[Lloyd]

Had a friend who's job took him to southern Arizona a few years back and he brought a couple of those Charro saddles back. I helped him sell them.. I had rode one a bit back before I ever left Texas. To me they are very uncomfortable.

The Chihuahuan scalp trade was addressed a bit in the movie "Geronimo." However that was a lot later time period.

I love that period in the Southwest about as much as I do the Fur Tade era.

[sean]

Lloyd,

Sent you some stuff.

Sean

[Cody]

Yup Chuck ,sounds like you and Rod aint no stranger to beaver trapping .First time I took my wife out on the line I had a pond about 1/4 mile from where I could get my truck and it was the first run and we caught 3 big ones so we tied them to a pole and we together carried them out up a hill as luck would have it .We all must be nuts to love it so but Im adicted I reconed.
First time I saw Missing I was hooked on them bags ,made my shooting bag and mocs to favor the patern

[Rod]

90 lbs.!!! Chuck, that was a beaver and a half. Must have been like dragging an anvil out of the water.

Still, even when you think about it, 6 thirty or forty pound beavers would be a full load for the pack horse.


Rod

[Chuck Burrows]

Howdy Cody and welcome -
I trapped for about 25 years pretty regularly until I messed by back up real bad. Started as a kid in Penna, and have trapped lots of different areas of the west from Canada to New Mexico and Colorado west to Californai, since I moved west in 1965. Reckon I took after my great, great, Granpapa on my mom's side who trapped and hunted the Mississippi Delta south of Barateria all his life.

Yep 90 pounds was the biggest beaver I ever trapped and it was BIG surprise that I got him since it was a leg hold trap. MOst over the years were in the 30-40 pound range with a few going 50-60 but they were few and far between and all that big were trapped west of the Cascades in No Wash state where the winters are seldom severe and food is plentiful.