With the recent discussion about chaps in modern trapping, let's talk about leggings in the Mountains.
Many trappers wore pants (pantaloons) of cloth or buckskin. Some trappers still wore knee breeches.
Over either pants or breeches, some trappers chose to wear leather leggings, adopted from the Indians, as protection for their legs.
References to leggings are a little scarce, most of the time it is descriptions of Natives wearing the, but there are enough to support trappers wearing them also.
Being able to strip off wet leggings, and have dry breeches, sounds a lot better than having wet buckskin pants all day (there are plenty of descriptions of that however).

From Russell:
a pair of leather breeches with Blanket or smoked Buffaloe skin, leggings

From Ruxton:
By this time it was pitchy dark, and the cold had become intense; my moccasins and deerskin leggings
were frozen hard and stiff, and my feet and legs in a fair way of becoming in the same state.

From Townsend:
The Indians stopped our caravan almost by force, and evinced so much anxiety to trade with
us, that we could not well avoid gratifying them. We remained with them about two hours, and
bought corn, moccasins and leggings in abundance.

From Irving:
for the wild dress of the free
trappers, their leggings, blankets, and cloth caps garnished with fur and topped off with feathers,
even their very elf-locks and weather-bronzed complexions, gave them the look of Indians rather
than white men,

Well I guess that’s a good reason for not making your own outta hides! You’d have to break em over and over when it’s cold!

In Ruxton's passage, the trapper had gotten wet, and his clothes were freezing on him in the evening air.

But there are references to moccasins made from poorly dressed hides, that shrunk on their wearer's feet if they didn't keep them wet once they got wet.

They were simple tubes made from brain tanned buckskin, reaching from the upper thigh to the ankle. Not hard, heavy leather, but tough enough to protect from thorns and brush for sure. Not waterproof at all, whatsoever, well, until hey got covered in dirt, grime and grease. Then they just got wet slower, and took longer to dry out.

I can imagine much as a beaver grooms it's fur with the split claw and sac oil, the trapper accomplished some degree of water repellency wiping their greasy hands on those leggings.

As always, good stuff K. Keep 'em coming.

Lots of reenactors think that too. But, no where in the old writings do we see any mention of "waterproofing" clothes or mocs. And from my "field experience", the greasier and oilier leather gets, the longer, much longer, it takes to dry. And it will get wet, might take longer, but it will get wet. Its much easier to pack a spare pair of mocs to put on and let the others dry.

Yep, always good reading these. Thanks!

good read , thanks,