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Redding Connecticut Vintage Retro Cotton Art Series Tee - Putnam Camp Gate Rear Logo

Redding Connecticut Vintage Retro Cotton Art Series Tee - Putnam Camp Gate Rear Logo

Regular price $36.00 USD
Regular price Sale price $36.00 USD
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The Putnam Camp gate across the back of a garment-dyed cotton tee, with Old Put riding on the chest. General Israel Putnam on horseback, sword raised, sits pocket-size on the front; the blockhouses, cannons and obelisk fill the back, drawn like an 1880s wood engraving.

The Original Art Series tee is the one with the picture on it: a small mark on the front, the full artwork across the back, on a heavyweight garment-dyed cotton that only gets softer. It is the tee people stop you about.

In the winter of 1778 to 1779 Major General Israel Putnam's division of the Continental Army went into winter quarters in Redding, placed to guard the Danbury supply depot and back up West Point. The main camp filled the valley with 116 log huts in a double row nearly a quarter mile long, twelve men to a hut. Short of bread, blankets and shoes, one private summed up the season as starving and freezing. Connecticut still calls it its Valley Forge.

The chimneys fell, the woods came back, and for a century the camp was nearly forgotten. In 1887 the state made the ground its first state park and raised the granite monument the next summer. In the years that followed it built this entrance: two log blockhouses, a pair of surplus Civil War cannons and a plain wooden gate, arranged so that you look up the lane to the obelisk.

Heavyweight garment-dyed 6.1 oz ring-spun cotton with a relaxed, straight fit, a tubular knit body, double-needle hems and a tag-free neckline. See the table for sizes. Wash cold, tumble dry low.


  S M L XL 2XL
Width, in 18.25 20.25 22.00 24.00 26.00
Length, in 26.62 28.00 29.37 30.75 31.62
Sleeve length from center back, in 16.25 17.75 19.00 20.50 21.75
Size tolerance, in 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.50

QUICK FACTS — REDDING ART SERIES COTTON TEE — PUTNAM CAMP GATE

Series: Redding Collection

Design: Putnam Camp Gate — the Putnam Camp gateway with its two log blockhouses, cannons and the granite obelisk beyond, drawn in the manner of an 1880s wood engraving; original Merlin Classics art, printed

Blank: Original Art Series tee, relaxed straight fit, tubular knit body

Fabric: heavyweight garment-dyed 6.1 oz ring-spun cotton

Print: Old Put pocket-size on the front chest, Putnam Camp Gate across the back

Sizes: S, M, L, XL, 2XL

Made to order in the USA



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Product FAQs

How does your sizing work?

Every item is made to order, so please check the size chart on this page before you buy. Women's fitted tees run small; size up for a looser fit. Caps are one size with an adjustable strap.

How are items made and when will they arrive?

We make each item to order using premium blanks, embroidery and soft-hand prints. Production takes 2-5 business days (weekends and holidays excluded), then 4-10 days in transit via USPS, UPS or FedEx to U.S. addresses; most orders arrive within 6-15 business days. You'll get a tracking link the moment it ships. Any current shipping offer is shown in the bar at the top of every page and applies automatically at checkout, no code needed.

How do I send a gift?

Enter the recipient's address as the shipping address and your own as the billing address at checkout. Nothing ships with a price; the package includes a plain packing slip. Tracking goes to your email, not theirs. For birthdays and holidays, order two weeks ahead to be safe.

What's the return policy?

Made-to-order items can't be returned or exchanged for size or color, so please use the size chart and photos before ordering. If anything arrives defective, misprinted or damaged, send a photo and your order number within 30 days and we'll replace it or refund you.

How do I care for my item?

Apparel: wash cold, inside out, with like colors; no bleach; tumble dry low or hang dry. Embroidered pieces: iron inside out to protect the stitching. Caps: spot clean. Printed glasses and water bottles: hand wash only, no dishwasher, so the artwork lasts. Mugs and engraved glasses are dishwasher safe. Any item-specific care notes are in the description above.

Who makes this?

Merlin Classics is a small Connecticut brand making original retro designs for the towns people love. Every piece is printed, embroidered or engraved to order in the USA, and the business supports hunger relief in the communities our collections celebrate.

He was the first of a line. Charles Ives built a house on Umpawaug Road in 1913 and put the old camp into music as Putnam's Camp, Redding, Connecticut. Edward Steichen bought worn-out farmland at Topstone in 1929, bred delphiniums on it and photographed it for forty years; most of it is now a town park. And after Luttgen died in 1922 and Villa Linta burned, his ponds and carriage drives passed to Archer Huntington and his wife, the sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington, who left the land to the state. It opened as Collis P. Huntington State Park in 1973, with her bears and wolves at the gate. Joel Barlow, poet of the Revolution and later a diplomat, had been born here long before any of them, in 1754.

Why is Redding called Connecticut's Valley Forge? Because in the winter of 1778–79 Major General Israel Putnam quartered a division of the Continental Army here — about three thousand men in three camps of log huts — short of bread, blankets and shoes. Joseph Plumb Martin, a Connecticut private who wintered in Redding, remembered the season as one of starving and freezing. The main camp is now Putnam Memorial State Park.

Why People Visit Redding

People come to Redding for what is not here: no highway, no strip, no crowd. They come for a Revolutionary War camp you can walk alone on a winter morning, for sixty miles of trails, and for the hills that drew Mark Twain, Charles Ives and Edward Steichen out of New York.

Redding Connecticut Merlin Classics Retro Vintage Logo Featuring an Old Oak and Connecticut Est. 1636