While at Plimoth Plantation on a school field trip last week, we visited the 1627 English village, and were lucky enough to meet Master Holman, a rather chatty fellow who had arrived in Plimoth, not on the Mayflower, but on another ship several months later. (The village is populated by role players who take on the identity of one of the actual English settlers who arrived in Plymouth almost 400 years ago.) I was quite taken with his hat! It doesn't look like the typical Pilgrim hat (which was perhaps worn on ceremonial or dressy occasions?), but I am assuming that it is similar to something a man might have worn back then while puttering around in his garden (which is what Master Holman was doing when our school group interrupted him).
Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to ask him about its construction, but since the role players at Plimoth Plantation actually make many of the items they wear and use, using methods and materials that were available to the English settlers, it is certainly possible that sheep were sheared, wool was spun, perhaps dyed with vegetable dyes, and then knitted by hand to create this hat. I'm thinking I should come up with a pattern for a replica....
I highly recommend a visit to Plimoth Plantation; it includes a Native People/Wampanoag homesite and a replica of the Mayflower, as well as the 1627 village, and provides a fascinating glimpse into what life might have been like in the early days of the American colonies. I like this quote from the Plimoth Plantation website:
The past is like a foreign country.
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