THURMONT, Md. (AP) — A piece of calico here, a piece of a collar there. Volunteers from Catoctin Furnace Historical Society recently discovered a trove of old worker clothing stuffed into the eaves of the Forgeman's House, which is being renovated into a bed and breakfast.

The clothing helps tell the story of Catoctin Furnace, which was inhabited in the 19th century by workers who kept the iron furnaces going, and their supervisors. Workers in the rural village made most of their own clothing or wore hand-me-downs from the supervisors. Most of the clothing comes from the 1890s to 1908, making the clothing more than a century old.

Finding articles of 19th century clothing worn by blue-collar workers is a rarity, said archeologist Elizabeth Comer, who grew up in Catoctin Furnace and who is one of the Historical Society's volunteers keeping the village's history alive in the 21st century. "Worker clothing doesn't survive," she said. It was almost never stylish, either, she added. "You wore whatever you could get your hands on until there was nothing left."

This was a time of frugality, far from the fast fashion that has come to dominate 21st century tastes.

These clothes tell stories about lives that were hard, about people who had almost no luxury. The clothes were patched and re-patched as long as they could be worn, Comer said. Trouser legs got shorter and shorter, as did sleeves. Shirts became more and more worn, more tattered, until there was almost nothing left of the fabric.

If possible, the clothes were made of thick ticking fabric, to help them last longer. The clothing needed to hold up to hard work, as well.

An old sock was patched, badly, rather than darned, which means the worker, a male, couldn't darn his own socks, and had no one at home to darn his socks.

In all, there were about 40 pieces of clothing, some of which Catoctin Furnace volunteers took to a free conservation clinic at Winterthur Museum in Delaware to get it assessed. There, the volunteers confirmed their assessment that the clothing was likely worn by industrial workers.

The clothing will eventually be displayed at the Catoctin Furnace Historical Society's Museum of the Iron Worker.

The clothing was also examined by Sarah Nucci, clothing historian and preservationist in Prince William County, Virginia. Nucci determined what each piece was. The styles of clothing, the stitching and the styles of the buttons and pockets helped date the clothing.

This was an era when zippers didn't exist, when buttons and drawstrings were used to hold up pants. For those who lived in a rural area such as Catoctin Furnace, clothes were what you made, not what you bought off the rack. Clothing had a purpose, to protect from the cold, the heat and the intense workload that many of the ironworkers had.

There are examples of machine-stitching, which began in the 1850s, but these are generally of poor quality, suggesting most of the clothes were made or altered at home.

Some of the clothes found include:

A child's bonnet, late 1850s/early 1860s, for a 6 or 7-year-old. It's made of cotton with machine stitching on ruffles and cartridge plaits by hand.

Man's shirt, 1860s-1870s. Made of striped cotton, hand-hemmed with neckpiece and cuff machine-top stitched. It's patched across the front and in the under arm area, with the wear probably caused by moving the arm while working. An apron was probably worn over the shirt, because of the way the stripes are faded.

Child's bodice, of coarse cotton or linen. Buttons held the petticoats to the bodice. Both sexes wore skirts until they were potty trained.

Boy's tunic, also for a 6 to 7-year old. Waistband is reinforced, with panel in back. There are spots for buttons to attach breeches, and the buttons were re-used. It shows sign of lots of wear. The tunic is partly machine sewn, partly hand-sewn. One cuff is missing.

Many of the items found are mere pieces of clothing, a shirt placket, a right jacket sleeve, the bottom of an apron, the bottom of a petticoat, a cuff with holes for cuff links.

Catoctin Furnace workers, who lived in what was then a remote area and had very little money, had a very hard life. They shopped at the company-owned store. They had to make most of their possessions.

Workers from Hartman Roofing, the company doing the roof renovation of the Forgeman's House, found the clothing in an attic, and said it's the first instance they recall of intact clothing being found in roof eaves.

Frances Sanders, a historical clothier from Florida, was working at the Market Fair at Fort Frederick State Park in Clear Spring with her husband, LeRoy, when Catoctin Furnace volunteers met the couple.

Sanders agreed to take on the project of clothing recreation. She spent four days measuring and studying the clothing construction and techniques and will recreate some of the clothing to show visitors what the pieces looked like before being stuffed into attic eaves.

"It's kind of unusual to have found the clothing they did," Sanders said. "The clothes were worn completely out. Instead of tossing them, they used them to help keep cold out of the house. This showed how frugal they were."

The recreated clothing will show visitors to Catoctin Furnace what the clothing looked like when it was being worn. "What we intend to do is reproduce some of the items for docents to wear," Sanders said. She is working with another historical clothing expert in Bedford, Pennsylvania, to reproduce fabric used in the original clothing. "I could make the clothing in an original fabric," she said. "That would be phenomenal."

The goal is to have at least some clothing pieces ready for docents to wear by the first weekend of May next year, during the village's Spring in the Furnace celebration.