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THB[CIVIL WAR] Marked Rubber Shoe, Excavated at Ft. Pembina, North Dakota
![[CIVIL WAR] Marked Rubber Shoe, Excavated at Ft. Pembina, North Dakota](https://s1.img.bidsquare.com/item/xl/3294/32943631.jpeg?t=1V3fWc)
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About Auction
LiveNov 22, 2025
This exclusive catalog presents a select offering from the personal collection of Alejandro "Alex" de Quesada Jr., renowned historian, author, and collector. The catalog features exceptionally rare swords, historically significant belt buckles and military insignia, original Civil War flags, and a wide range of ephemera representing pivotal moments in military history. Fleischer's Auctions info@fleischersauctions.com
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- Lot Description
A MARKED MEYER RUBBER CO. OVERSHOE (“GUM SHOE”) EXCAVATED AT FORT PEMBINA
Meyer Rubber Company, New Brunswick, New Jersey, circa 1860–1872. Vulcanized rubber with canvas-faced upper, molded toe and heel caps, integral rubber sole bearing the maker’s oval stamp “MEYER RUBBER CO. / NEW BRUNSWICK N.J.”; textile lining. 9 3/8 x 3 3/4 x 2 3/4 in.
A low, slip-on rubber overshoe of the early vulcanized period, intended to be worn over leather brogans for wet or snowy conditions on the northern plains. The canvas-faced upper is edge-bound in rubber and joined to a heavy molded sole; reinforced rubber foxing runs along the quarters with pronounced toe and heel guards. The underside shows a fine diamond grip ahead of the heel and, at mid-foot, a crisp recessed oval factory mark of the Meyer Rubber Co., New Brunswick, N.J.—a desirable, fully legible imprint seldom encountered on excavated examples.Made during the crucial decade after the adoption of vulcanized rubber footwear, this overshoe represents an early generation of industrial rainwear reaching the far U.S. frontier by commercial supply channels. Fort Pembina’s extreme northern climate, long freezes and comparatively anaerobic soils has yielded artifacts of exceptional preservation, and early rubber goods are particularly rare to survive.
Fort Pembina (1870–1895) was set in the Red River Valley of what is now Pembina County, North Dakota, only a few miles from the Canadian border, Fort Pembina was established in March 1870 and occupied until 1895. Earlier activity at the site centered on the fur trade; the first U.S. military presence was a temporary post garrisoned by Minnesota troops in 1863–64 following the Dakota (Sioux) Uprising of 1862. The permanent post was built south of the Pembina River and roughly 200 yards west of the Red River; completed in July 1870, it was initially named for Gen. George H. Thomas and redesignated Fort Pembina in September. The first garrison, two companies of the 20th U.S. Infantry, wore and carried the typical mix of the early Indian Wars: Civil War surplus, private‑purchase items, and later regulation patterns as they became available.
The fort’s stated purpose was to protect settlers concerned about Sioux parties returning from Canada, but its soldiers chiefly escorted international boundary surveys along the 49th parallel and helped deter Fenian raiding attempts into Canada. The reservation contained enlisted men’s barracks and officers’ quarters, a guardhouse, ordnance storehouse, company kitchens, a root house, laundresses’ quarters, housing for civilian employees, a hospital with a servants’ house and a barn for the “hospital cow,” as well as quartermaster and commissary offices and storehouses, stables, and a wagon shed. Strength peaked at about 200 troops in 1878, with an average of roughly 125 enlisted men and 8 officers. An October 1885 return lists 97 men, 2 field pieces, 1 mountain howitzer, 100 rifles, 19 pistols, 23 mules, and 9 wagons. By 1890 only 23 soldiers remained, and after a fire in 1895 destroyed nineteen buildings the Army elected to close rather than rebuild; the last detachment departed in September. The reservation passed to the Department of the Interior and was sold in 1902. Recent, owner‑authorized excavations on private land at the site have yielded artifacts of exceptional preservation, owing to the region’s cold, protective soils.
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