DURING the days of the muzzle-loading military pistol, a pair of these heavy pieces was carried in holsters hung over the pommel of a saddle. Private citizens carried smaller pistols in their coat pockets or hidden elsewhere on their person. However, with the invention of multi-shot revolvers, carry methods changed. When Sam Colt brought out his larger Paterson model in 1836, men did not wear trouser belts because suspenders (braces) were used – right up until around 1920 when the belt, as we know it today, became fashionable.
But that’s not to say men of earlier times did not carry possessions hung from their waists by various forms of belt. Otzi the Ice Man whose 5 300 year old frozen body was found in the Austrian Alps in 1991, wore a belt with a small pouch and loops to hang possessions. From ancient times, men wore belts to carry daggers and purses, as did soldiers to carry swords, but it would be a long time
