The Short Jacket Posted March 27, 2020 Our new short jacket. Much of the work that we do in the winter is to prepare for the upcoming summer season, when Mackinac State Historic Parks’ museums and historic sites are open to the public. This winter we have been busy building a number of new garments for our interpretive staff at Colonial Michilimackinac. This allows our interpreters to not only talk about the history of the Great Lakes, but also to demonstrate what it looked like and how people worked within it. The newest addition (completed just last week!) to our interpretive clothing collection comes to us from the last quarter of the 18th century. It is double-breasted wool jacket, with a short body and narrow sleeves. Genre paintings from the later 18th century show people wearing jackets of this type while selling things on the street, working on a ship, farming, or toiling at any number of other trades. This style of practical, yet fashionable garment was common amongst all sorts of working people. Laborers, seamen and many others would have found a jacket to be infinitely more practical when there was work to be done, and long tails or large cuffs would have impeded movement or simply been in the way. (more…)
The Colonial Michilimackinac Soldiers’ Barracks Posted July 5, 2019 Join Curator of History Craig Wilson as he provides a tour of a brand new exhibit in the Soldiers’ Barracks at Colonial Michilimackinac. (more…)
The Wharf at Michilimackinac Posted June 14, 2019 The fort’s water gate, as seen from the lake. Although not yet reconstructed, the wharf would have occupied this space in the 1770s. Situated on the Straits of Mackinac, Michilimackinac was ideally located to serve as a major transshipment point and resupply hub for the Great Lakes fur trade. Every summer, dozens of canoes and a few small sailing vessels filled with tons of fur, trade goods, food, and other supplies called at the shoreline community. To facilitate movement between water and land, by at least the mid-1760s Michilimackinac’s residents relied upon a wooden wharf. (more…)
Patrick Sinclair Posted August 17, 2018 This silhouette is the only known image of Sinclair. The star on his coat may be the badge of the 15th Regiment, in which he served from 1761 to 1773. Today, if Patrick Sinclair is remembered at all, it is as the somewhat inept British officer who established the fort and permanent community on Mackinac Island. However, Sinclair enjoyed a long career before he arrived at the Straits of Mackinac. (more…)
