As soon as I bought the original shoes in the summer of 2007 I knew I had to reproduce them.

This is a beautiful American made lady's walking boot from the early 1860's.
The original boot is straight (no left / right), with 11 small brass eyelets. Made from dark brown kid leather with a cotton lining. The heel is approx. 1" high and made from stacked layers of leather. The soles are sewn on using the Mac Kay style of insole sewing machine patented in Aug of 1860.

Discription of our reproduction.Please read the above paragraph. It's that real! Well, only one thing is different. For your comfort my shoe is a left / right. But, from the outside it is impossible to tell.

Our photos above show the original shoe right beside our reproduction.

If you are worried about the fit please email me at rlandfootwear@rogers.com and I will send you one of our measuring charts. With using these I have had almost a 100% fitting on the first pair.

More details of our shoe beside the original

The soles of our shoe next to the original. The soles are cut horizontally at the edges, a flap of leather is lifted up, the shoe is sewn, and the leather flap is glued back down. Totally invisible stitching. Looking at these it's hard to believe my shoe is a left/right, not straight.

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Detail of the original shoe showing that 2 cents royalties have been paid to the Mc Kay sewing machine company for the use of their machine. By 1863 more than a million pairs of shoes had their soles sewn on using this machine, and Mr. Blake who patented it got 2 cents for every pair!