Glengarry Officer coat found!

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Glengarry Fencible
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Glengarry Officer coat found!

Post by Glengarry Fencible » Mon May 14, 2007 11:24 am

List

This past weekend the GLI had the opportunity once again to do a garrison weekend at Fort Erie. On the way down, I stopped at the Niagara Historical Museum in Niagara on the Lake. I have heard that they had in their possession a GLI officer's uniform. When I walked in, I asked, and sure enough, there it was. It is in poor condition, but you can see that at one point it would have been spectacular. It has suffered moth damage, and the lace appears to have been eaten off or removed. It is still obvious where the lacing was, and there remain small sections of it.

The shoulders have both padded wings and epaulets. The buttons (if they are the originals) appear to be covered in cloth rather than being silver or pewter. Also, the front goes down to a point, rather that being square.

Unfortunately I was unable to determine who the coat belonged to, but seeing it sure made my day!

Here are the photographs.

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Renda16
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Post by Renda16 » Mon May 14, 2007 7:44 pm

Cool!It's green wool looks alot like the green wool Dave found a few weeks ago.Of course its almost 200yrs old.

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manderson
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Post by manderson » Tue May 15, 2007 10:58 am

I'm wondering if we need to do more research on whether the privates and nco's had wings instead of wool tufts on their regimental coats.

Pud - what are your thoughts on this?

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pud
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tufts and or wings

Post by pud » Mon May 21, 2007 9:53 pm

Mike,

I already posted a bunch of stuff over the winter about the "first", possibility of a "second", and a "third" tunic style for the Glens.

My thoughts about the tunic that Bill witnessed in NOTL a week ago are that it looks like the sketch from a published book from 1967 (the quotes of which I have also already posted) claiming to be Glengarry jackets and yet the sketches look hauntingly like 95th jackets that have been stripped down and used as "cast-offs" by some of the Glens until they were all actually issued "their own" tunics. When I enquired and asked for help though Don Graves of Kanata, he went through Rene Chartrand of Ottawa, who has actually seen the two tunics that were displayed in that tiny museum outside of Montreal and that were sketched in 1967 and tagged by the author (and artist) as "Glengarry" Tunics. Rene says that they are Voltigeur officer tunic(s) and NOT Glengarry tunics.so.I think many different things right now. My hopes climbed about this issue for 23 years. They were dashed this past March by Rene's news.and now.my hopes are soaring again that what Bill has seen and photographed, and that was labelled as a GLENGARRY TUNIC is in fact a cast-off 95th that was used by a Glengarry. But, I also think that it's one of the two tunics that sat in that museum outside of Montreal for God-knows how long that is being borrowed for display or has perhaps been purchased by the NOTL museum or a private collector and now being displayed in NOTL.

Bottom line is: The tunic we are wearing is the final version of the Glengarry tunic. It's supposed to have tufts and not wings. Wings were 95th. Therefore,.it should all be academic but the mystery is very cool. Part of me never wants it solved,…because then what would I ponder,…. But it must be solved because I have been scolded by certain other apparent people(s) that apparently know all, or better, or whatever,….and hell I’m just a dumb cluck afterall………….lol………I’d absolutely LOVE to prove them wrong once and for all…………oooooooooooooooo, that’d be soooooooo good.

.I'm puzzled, stumped (not black-stumped) and excited all at once.and very curious.

Lets move on to the next chapter of this story quickly and investigate further.

Cheers,
Pud

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