MVAC Home

Logging Camps – Personal Items The logging camps of the late 1800s might call to mind large saws and heavy iron stoves, but personal items like these suspender parts and buttons from a north-central Wisconsin camp dated to the late 1880s also illuminate logger life. The suspender clamp or buckle (left) is embossed with the word “PATENT” and bears similarity to suspender buckles found elsewhere in Wisconsin and mentioned in lists of personal items loggers brought to camp. The suspender adjuster (right) still retains a prong once used to hold suspenders to their desired length. The two four-hole sew-through buttons (bottom) would have been sewed onto clothing. The right one is made of iron, and the left one could be brass. Due to corrosion, it is not possible to tell if the buttons ever bore the name of a manufacturer. The ruler included for scale is in centimeters.