Seeing the interest in military “V” button I thought I would show two other quite interesting buttons I found from the same site a number of years ago. So far I have found 70 buttons on this site which is located on the Oregon Trail which crosses Nebraska. This was a very popular camping site due to being near a fine water source. Both immigrants and the military used it and from the number of military buttons found (39) it is obvious the military made numerous stops at this location, possibly camping there for several days at a time.
Both of these brass one-piece buttons with the log cabin design are the same but were not found on the same hunting trip. Sometime later after I found these my hunting partner also found one making a total of three. With three being found I am speculating that a garment may have been either lost or discarded. Although they are 1840 buttons it may have been a number of years later before these specimens actually found their way out into Nebraska.
When I found the first log cabin button I had no idea what the design was about but suspected it might have a story behind it. Having found many buttons on sites along the Oregon Trail I needed a good reference source for early button ID’s and had a book in my library titled Record of American Uniform and Historical Buttons by Alphaeus H. Albert. The book did have the ID which was fortunate as this was before this kind of info could be found on a computer.
The Log Cabin Campaign of 1840
(The William Henry Harrison – Martin Van Buren Campaign)
Whigs, eager to deliver what the public wanted, took advantage of this and declared that Harrison was "the log cabin and hard cider candidate," a man of the common people from the rough-and-tumble West. They depicted Harrison's opponent, President Martin Van Buren, as a wealthy snob who was out of touch with the people. In fact, it was Harrison who came from a wealthy, prominent family while Van Buren was from a poor, working family.
But the election was during the worst economic depression to date, and voters blamed Van Buren, seeing him as unsympathetic to struggling citizens. Harrison campaigned vigorously and won. After giving the longest inauguration speech (about 1 hour, 45 minutes) in U.S. history, Harrison served only one month as president before dying of pneumonia on April 4, 1841. Ref. http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/ha...arrison_3.html
Both of these brass one-piece buttons with the log cabin design are the same but were not found on the same hunting trip. Sometime later after I found these my hunting partner also found one making a total of three. With three being found I am speculating that a garment may have been either lost or discarded. Although they are 1840 buttons it may have been a number of years later before these specimens actually found their way out into Nebraska.
When I found the first log cabin button I had no idea what the design was about but suspected it might have a story behind it. Having found many buttons on sites along the Oregon Trail I needed a good reference source for early button ID’s and had a book in my library titled Record of American Uniform and Historical Buttons by Alphaeus H. Albert. The book did have the ID which was fortunate as this was before this kind of info could be found on a computer.
The Log Cabin Campaign of 1840
(The William Henry Harrison – Martin Van Buren Campaign)
Whigs, eager to deliver what the public wanted, took advantage of this and declared that Harrison was "the log cabin and hard cider candidate," a man of the common people from the rough-and-tumble West. They depicted Harrison's opponent, President Martin Van Buren, as a wealthy snob who was out of touch with the people. In fact, it was Harrison who came from a wealthy, prominent family while Van Buren was from a poor, working family.
But the election was during the worst economic depression to date, and voters blamed Van Buren, seeing him as unsympathetic to struggling citizens. Harrison campaigned vigorously and won. After giving the longest inauguration speech (about 1 hour, 45 minutes) in U.S. history, Harrison served only one month as president before dying of pneumonia on April 4, 1841. Ref. http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/ha...arrison_3.html
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