The Ditty Bag

My great panacea for all emergencies is the ditty-bag. It is the first thing taken off and hung on a twig when a camp site is decided upon and the last thing put on when camp is broken. It has everything in it for repairs, accidents, emergencies of all kinds. Canoe leaking? In the ditty-bag is a small stick of canoe glue, a heavy needle, and strong thread. Moccasin stitch out? You'll find a leather needle with a thread of moccasin twine in the d.b. Suspender button off? In that repository of repairdom is another button, a needle, and shoe thread. Sick? There is a medicine-kit in the emollient of emergencies which will cure anything you have, from fever to delirium tremors. Hurt? Right this way, we have it right here, surgical bandages, tape, stitch needle, antiseptics - can give you a whole new rubber neck on demand. Gun needs cleaning? The whole works are in the ditty-bag. Hungry? There are a dozen square meals lurking inside the covers of that—grab it from me—justly famous ditty-bag. Tackle frayed or lost? There are bass and trout fly-hooks, a dozen leaders, spoons, plugs, sinkers, swivels, hooks, spinners, guides, tips, and safety-pins floating at large in the confines of that capacious receptacle. Lost in the woods or in a fog on a lake? In the —well, you know— you will find a compass that will help some. Grommet pulled out of tent or tarp? We have it, a spare one or two; also nails, tacks, copper wire, and four pothook chains. Lost your fish-line? Never mind, in this tucket of trinkets we have 50 yards of No. 5 casting-line and 30 yards of E trout-line. Possum up a hollow tree? We have the exact specific for him, for here comes the crowning glory of the ditty-bag a steel 'possum hook made from a bent file, sharp as the devil, will hold a ton, good for any use to which a stout hook may be put, from gaffing a fish to lassoing a runaway canoe! -- Warren H. Miller, Camp Craft (1915)


“And don't neglect to take what sailors call a "ditty-bag." This may be a little sack of chamois leather about 4 inches wide by 6 inches in length. Mine is before me as I write. Emptying the contents, I find it inventories as follows: A dozen hooks, running in size from small minnow hooks to large Limericks; four lines of six yards each, varying from the finest to a size sufficient for a ten-pound fish; three darning needles and a few common sewing needles; a dozen buttons; sewing silk; thread, and a small ball of strong yarn for darning socks; sticking salve; a bit of shoemaker's wax; beeswax; sinkers, and a very fine file for sharpening hooks. The ditty-bag weighs, with contents, 2½ ounces; and it goes in a small buckskin bullet pouch, which I wear almost as constantly as my hat. The pouch has a sheath strongly sewed on the back side of it, where the light hunting knife is always at hand, and it also carries a two-ounce vial of fly medicine, a vial of "pain killer," and two or three gangs of hooks on brass wire snells—of which, more in another place. I can always go down into that pouch for a water-proof match safe, strings, compass, bits of linen and scarlet flannel (for frogging), copper tacks, and other light duffle. It is about as handy a piece of woods-kit as I carry.” -- Nessmuk, Woodcraft (1900)


Daniel C. Beard wrote in his 1920 book The Book of Camp-Lore and Woodcraft a chapter he called “A Buckskin Man's Pocket”. In this section of his book, he recommended the things that a well-prepared Boy Scout should always carry with him. Among the things that Beard recommend carrying were safety pins, a good jack-knife and a pocket compass, whang strings (leather laces), and a small whetstone. He recommended further items, writing: "Inside the sweat band of your hat, or around the crown on the outside of your hat, carry a gut leader with medium sized artificial flies attached, and around your neck knot a big gaudy bandanna handkerchief; it is a most useful article; it can be used in which to carry your game, food or duffel, or for warmth, or worn over the head for protection from insects... No camper, be he hunter, fisherman, scout, naturalist, explorer, prospector, soldier or lumberman, should go into the woods without a notebook and hard lead pencil. Remember that notes made with a hard pencil will last longer than those made with ink, and be readable as long as the paper lasts... A piece of candle is not only a most convenient thing with which to light a fire on a rainy day, but it has oft-times proved a life saver to Northern explorers benumbed with the cold..."


Horace Kephart, in his 1916 book Camping and Woodcraft wrote: “Get a quite small double whetstone, course and fine on opposite sides. This may be carried in a light leather wallet, along with the following articles: small coil of copper snare wire. Needle and thread. Safety pins. One or two short fishing lines, rigged. Spare hooks. Minnow hooks (with half the barb filed off) for catching bait. These things with your gun, a dozen rounds of ammunition, hatchet, knives, matches, compass, map, money, pipe and tobacco should always be with you, or where they can be snatched up at a grab in case of emergency.”