A LIVING HISTORY BLOG.

18TH CENTURY LIVING HISTORY IN AUSTRALIA.

Sunday 18 November 2018

The Gunpowder Bag.


Two of the author's five leather gunpowder bags.

A gunpowder bag is used for carrying extra gunpowder on extended journeys into wilderness area, or when one plans to be living in the wilderness long term. A leather bag of gunpowder is far lighter to carry than multiple powder horns.

The Gunpowder Bag.
   takes fire readily from the spark of a steel: but it is much improved by being kept dry in a bag that has contained gunpowder.”
Samuel Hearne, Northern Canada, 1772.
A hundred miles upstream from Jamestown, on an exploring journey by canoe, Smith was badly burned and injured by the explosion of a gunpowder bag.

Supplies for 24 Abenakis and Iroquois who have joined our party:
24 pounds of gunpowder in one bag of half an ell
Supplies for the six militia men: 6 pounds of gunpowder in bags of one eighth of an ell.
1756-1760 journal of Louis Antoine de Bougainville
France, Archives de Colonies series C11A, volume 117, folios 191v to 194, National Archives of Canada, microfilm f-118.

  15           Leather Powder Bags 
From American Fur Co. Papers. Vol. Y, Z. Missouri Historical Society
Invoice of Sundry Merchandise furnished Rocky Mountain Outfit 1837 under charge of Fontenelle, Fitzpatrick & Co.

"He thinks every man should have a wallet of Oznabrigs to carry his provisions in when they leave their horses at the passes of the mountains, and two pair of mockasheens, that blankets would be wanted and clasp knives, thread for the linen and woolen bags for transporting the powder when taken from the waggons...................
Letter of Judge Henderson to Propietors remaining in North Carolina
Boonsborough June 12, 1775.

"Wednesday Morning a sorrowful Accident happen'd at the House of Cap. Thomas Homans in the westerly Part of this Town near Hooper's Meeting House: A small Quantity of Powder (suppos'd to be about a Quart) in a Leathern Bag, having been some time since put up on the Jam of a Chimney in a Chamber wherein they had been us'd to make a Fire, and the Family being about moving into the Country, did not suppose they should every have Occasion for a Fire there: But a young Child being out of Order two or three Days ago, they made a Fire in the same Chimney, and unhappily forgot the Powder…….
The Pennsylvania Gazette
April 12, 1739
BOSTON, February 26. 





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