Batavia Wreck boots ain't from Batavia Wreck!

[Daniel]

... there are fo'csle hands, waisters, afterguard, and officers too.

Those are in ascending rank order servants, NCOs, warrant officers and officers. They are emphatically not sailors.

Your various objections merit a thread of their own, which I am going to open when I have time. But I don't want to get this thread too far away from these boots. In the interests of keeping the thread on topic, Falconer's Marine Dictionary says that the word crew "comprehends the officers, sailors, seamen, marines, ordinary men, servants and boys." So if I amend my above statement to "these boots might have been meant for sale to landsmen, rather than being worn by a crewman," will we all be cool?

I will agree with Foxeand GoF that these boots do not by themselves prove that seamen wore boots pre-GAoP. And so far they are, indeed, by themselves. I have no brief to carry in favor of bucket boots on seamen or pirates.

[JoshuaRed]

The more I think about it, the more I think that the whole "pirates wore bucket boots" thing must have started with the popularity of pirate-themed plays in the 19th century. Because at that time, sailors WERE wearing boots of various types, and somehow it found it's way on stage and into pop culture forever. Howard Pyle probably saw some of these shows, which no doubt influenced his work later on, which got handed down to Schoonover and Wyeth, and has been passed on ever since.