Melton Mowbray is home to Melton cloth (first mentioned in 1823), a tightly woven woollen fabric, heavily milled with a nap raised to form a short, dense, non-lustrous pile. Sailors' pea coats are traditionally made of Melton cloth, as are the commonly worn workmen's donkey jackets of Britain and Ireland, and loggers' "cruising jackets" and Mackinaws in North America.
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In the period before the Bolshevik victory, trade goods included "foodstuffs, canned milk, canned fruit, clothing of every kind (including frilly things for women), hardware of all kinds, toys for children, a great many luxuries which many of them had never known before." Trade goods mentioned at other locations in Swenson's narrative include flour, wieners (in barrels), oranges, sugar, tea, tobacco, pilot bread, eggs, calico, dishes, needles, thread, knives, pots, pans, chamber pots, firearms and ammunition, motor launches, gasoline, kerosene, Mackinaws and other waterproof clothing, boots, caps, heavy woolen clothing, and corduroy breeches with lacings on the legs. Customers included Russians as well as natives.Swenson pp 162-163 and various locations Alcohol is not mentioned in his lists of trade goods.
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By the time of the dominance of the American Fur Company in 1815-1836, the Mackinaw boat was almost the commodity vessel in this region. The bateau was another common freight vessel design of the era, similar to the Mackinaw. The fur company's men so liked the Mackinaw boat that when asked to build, paddle, and pole light cargo boats up the Missouri River to the company's new trading region in Dakota Territory and Montana Territory, they called the boats mackinaws, even though it was comparatively difficult to move a boat up the Missouri River by sail power. The Missouri River mackinaw may have borne some similarities to the river pirogue developed by French colonists in Louisiana Territory and adapted by the Americans as early as the time of Lewis and Clark.
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