Bakers Tent

Bakers tent?I've heard that the Bakers Tent style was found in back the 1700's in some sketch book? :hmm: A lean-to style could have been around quite awhile?

What is your question...?
The 1700's date is questionable.

For whatever it's worth: http://tentsmiths.com/period-tents-baker-tents.html http://www.cdaml.org/baker_tent.htm https://www.trackofthewolf.com/Categories/TentKit.aspx/1124/1/LEAN-TO-08-F

Just trying to get a date on that style tent.

About mid 1800's...

Yeah basically the earliest a "tent" where the walls are sewn in giving what we today call the "baker" tent, is only documented to about the middle of the 19th century. AND folks have been looking hard for earlier documentation.

They are very good tents. They mimic what folks often call an "open faced camp" which are documented much earlier than the mid 1800's, and they hold heat and generally leak less than several pieces of canvas made into a lean-to. :wink:

The basic problem is first, we are restricted in most cases to having to use some sort of tent. For back-in-the-day, it appears that carrying a tent was very rare until the 1800's for folks other than the military. Yes, it was a bit more common for folks to maybe carry a piece of linen canvas to form a temporary shelter, OR they built a shelter when they got to where they were going or used natural shelters...aka the "rock castles" used by hunters and referenced in so many journals of the period. So the second problem is that events are often held where we can't construct "natural shelters" and away from where we might find "rock castles". The documentation for tarps too is mostly found with folks in wagons or canoes, not on horseback or afoot.

Now, that does not mean that the available information can't change as more records and journals are found. Just because somebody didn't write down they had a baker-tent (or describe what we'd call a baker-tent) on one of their pack horses, doesn't mean they didn't, but until we find a record of such, most events restrict what we can use..., and the Baker is often considered "too modern".

Oh Well. :idunno:

LD

The 1830-36 diary of William Paul Linton, who emigrated to south Texas from northern Alabama (to practice law & buy a farm) in early 1830 mentions a tent being used as a "temporary store" in Goliad that SOUNDS LIKE a Baker tent. - Unfortunately, Linton didn't include a sketch of the "store", or for that matter any "illustrations" in his diary.
(His diary is in the collection of the Witte Museum here in San Antonio.)

Note: Mr. Linton married a Tejano woman in 1831, converted to Roman Catholic, bought a farm southwest of Goliad, sired 3 children by 1835 & became ill/passed away of an unidentified disease in May 1836.

yours, satx

SOUNDS LIKE a Baker tent.

Click to expand...

Would you care to share that description?????......................

Without going to the Museum I cannot give you an exact description beyond Mr. Linton said that he bought "some traps" from a temporary general store on the Plaza (in Goliad) that resembled a cloth box, with one propped-open side.
(Unfortunately, he doesn't further describe his purchase(s).)

My MAIN interest in Linton's diary is his account of his travel by horseback from Captain Shreve's Port (Now Shreveport, LA) to San Antonio & to Goliad, as he describes in detail what Northeast Texas (where I was born & raised) was like in 1830-31.

yours, satx

Should you come to The Alamo City in the future, Linton's diary (OR perhaps journals is a better description of his writings), I'll "introduce you" to one of the better/more literate commentaries on Texas in that period.
(PITY, that he died so early at age 42 & didn't write more about the Revolution, the Texas Republic & perhaps early Statehood.)

As best as I can tell (NONE of the counties that he passed through were "named" by 1836.), Linton departed Captain Shreve's Port on horseback with two pack mules, loaded down with several firearms/powder/bullets/shot, law books, food, camping supplies & other "necessaries", went west to Karnack, then south (LIKELY) through (in each case, what is NOW called the counties of) Panola, Nacogdoches (Linton spent a few days in Nacogdoches), Angelina, Polk, San Jacinto, Montgomery, Harris (He spent several days in Schmidt's Dock, now Houston), then turned west & traveled (LIKELY) through Walker, Austin, Fayette, Caldwell, Seguin & finally into Bexar County(San Antonio), where Linton says that he spent "some several pleasant weeks".
Linton then traveled to Goliad, married Miss Dolores Angelina Madrid de Vega, established a stock farm, sired 3 children & died of disease in May 1836.

In case you are curious, in 1974 I was a graduate student & working on a MSEd in Southwestern History/Geography at The Federation of North Texas Universities (ETSU, TWU, NTSU & ETBU)- My Army assignment was as Advisor to the 144th Infantry Bde(M),TXARNG.
My "Summer Master's Project" was to write a "mini-thesis" (It ended up being 73, double-spaced, 8.5x11" pages long, plus notes & bibliography.) on traveler's commentaries in pre-Republican Northeastern Texas.

yours, satx