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Finding two cases of original Trade Flintlocks

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Hi rod. it's important to emphasize that the recovery of the Arabia was NOT an arcaeological project. I believe that the state of Kansas mandated that the people doing the recovery employ an archaeologist for guidance. However, once the boat was uncovered and the artifacts were removed, they were under no further obligation to retain us or follow our recomendations. When it became obvious to them that we were slowing them down by insisting that precautions be taken to insure the integrity of the boat, cargo and the history of everything, they complained that we were costing them te and money because they had dozens of men on the payroll and the two dozen water pumps were burning fuel 24 / 7. Also, the team of salvagers were nothing but treasure hunters out to make a buck by selling what they could. The idea of retaining everything for a museum didn't occurs to them until much later. They thought that the boat and it's cargo of perishables was worthless and were looking for treasure in the form of gold, money, silver etc. The fact that the Arabia WAS the treasure never did and doesn't now occur to them. That is why they threw the deck planking back into the hole with the empty hull and buried it. They later thought of the museum and borroed money and built it to display the 10percent of the artifacts remaining and each of the four Holly's raked in 100,000 dollars each until Greg holly died recently in a car accident.
 
I meant to say
$100,000.00 each every year from the visitors and the gift shop. Quite a racket. Their talk of "digging up another boat" is most likely just talk as they have enough on their hands now.
 
All this information certainly puts things in a different light about the "museum"... :hmm:
It still is a place to view what they do have on display, pity they didn't save more. It is kind of a midwest version as to why shipwrecks offshore are under protection from treasure hunters now.
 
The destruction of those muskets and that entire site just makes my blood boil. :cursing:

That history and opportunity for learning gone, forever. :shake:
 
It happens all over the world and under water. It's happening as we speak. There's no way to know what was lost when bottle hunting was all the rage. Not so much the bottles, but was lying among and around them.

A friend and his wife once came home and saw two young, college age, couples digging at the edge of their treeline. They called the police and then went out and asked the kids what they were doing. They were informed that they were archaeology students from a nearby college and that they had permission from the landowners to dig on the property. Obviously this was a lie, but fortunately the police arrived about then and were given the same story. It turned out that they were bottle hunters and had dug over fifty holes in the wood lot looking for a bottle dump. And they'd done this for quite a while all over the county, pulling down ancient stone walls and even an old loose laid foundation from a building so old no one knew when it had been built or who built it. They readily told of their adventures and thought it all very amusing. They had done a huge amount of harm, but couldn't understand why everyone was so angry. When words like criminal trespass, court, fines, restitution and even jail were mentioned, the smiles left their faces, the phone calls to Daddy were made and the charges became trespassing, restitution by Daddy was made to the injured parties and it all went away. Except for loss of historical information and artifacts...
 
The thing that got my goat a few years ago, Was my father in law was cleaning his land off, with a large dozer. Well there was a stone fence 500 ft long and that was gone and pushed into a hole, and then there was this square pin on stones about 6 foot high and 50 ft by 50 ft, perfect square stone corral, for goats or sheep. With a small 4ft entrance at one end, This was close to a old homestead area and the house is gone. 1850's-80's, I was wanting to repair the stone fence corral and just cut the trees off the wall line and clean it up, But NOOOOOOO!, By By corral too, Deer slept in the corral, maybe it was a old hog corral it sure was a pretty thing. :shake: :shake:
 
The same thing will be said about our homes and businesses 100 years from now, by people who want to better know how we lived. Both Rome and Athens, and Baghdad, as well as Jerusalem, and other ancient cities have been built on layers and layers of old cities that were destroyed by earth quake, wars, fires, diseases, etc., and then rebuilt. The mountains wear down into sediments, deposited on plains, or in shallow water, become rock again under pressure, and are uplifted during Tectonic Plate activity to form new mountains. Nothing stays the same. You salvage what you can, and realize that not everyone is all that interested in the past, nor has the financial resources to preserve even a part of it.

Think I am wrong?? How many of you DID sleep through history classes in Grade School and High School??? If your HS history ( social studies) class was as boring as mine was- taught by a Phys. Ed. Jock, to give him a job in addition to his coaching career---- how could you stay AWAKE through those classes???
 
Russian Bullmoose Man said:
The thing that got my goat a few years ago, Was my father in law was cleaning his land off, with a large dozer. Well there was a stone fence 500 ft long and that was gone and pushed into a hole, and then there was this square pin on stones about 6 foot high and 50 ft by 50 ft, perfect square stone corral, for goats or sheep. With a small 4ft entrance at one end, This was close to a old homestead area and the house is gone. 1850's-80's, I was wanting to repair the stone fence corral and just cut the trees off the wall line and clean it up, But NOOOOOOO!, By By corral too, Deer slept in the corral, maybe it was a old hog corral it sure was a pretty thing. :shake: :shake:
As Eric Bogal said, progress is more about what we choose to keep than what we leave behind.
 
While speaking with the lady running The Museum Of The Fur Trade the other day, Ispoke of what happened to the two crates of trade muskets back in 1989, and how the old man who used to run the museum had told me, upon learning of their destruction, that he would've given $25,000.00 for just an empty shipping crate back in 1989. She said that both cases full of their 50 trade flintlocks would bring seven figures today. All that asside, their loss was a Priceless tragedy of the highest magnitude in my personal opinion.
 
Russ,

I'll give you a better one from last year. I own a Revolutionary War period cemetary on my property. How'd you like to find someone with a shovel and a metal detector in there? I did..

It didn't go very well, trust me...

giz
 
After looking at the dozens and dozens of Indian Trade muskets at the Museum or The Fur Trade, I believe that what I interpreted as pine stocks and ramrods might have been something else. None of the other trade muskets were made of pine. However, could maple have been the wood? It certainly seemed soft. Of course, the wood was water soaked and very spongy & plyable. However, it just didn"t seem like walnut. There's a way to find out for sure if I can the single specimen of that shipment that still exists in the hands of a friend examined. I know nothing about determining the type of wood that's undergone such changes in water, but somebody might be able to examine it and tell me. A;so, the other musket in the Museum with the lock marked Petry had the name at the rear tip of the lock plate and not in the middle as on the Arabia flintlocks. Could these have been counterfit Belgium muskets made by someone else trying to horn in on the profitable indian trade? The Petry marked belgium musket in the museum was dated 1856 while those on the boat were dated 1855. Could Pierre Chouteau, whose name was stenciled on the top of each crate, have been involved with such deceit? Were tjey really going to be delivered to him, or were they destined to be delivered to another individual? I remember that one crate had a stack of bull tanned bull hides covering it, but I cannot remember if the 2nd crate was also hidden. I saw Dave Holley kneeling beside it just after they had pulled the deck planks away and there weren't any bull hides lying around. I had to leave then to go to another job at the Kansas City Museum, and I told him to leave the crate alone and to not open it or disturb it in any way. Dave said "OK Fred" and I left. I learned that the box was torn open immediately after my departure and while the consulting archaeologist was away too.
 
The Belgian NW guns are the counterfeits--they were made to copy those produced in Great Britian, and were often marked with spurious British proofs and names. Pierre Chouteau Jr. & Co. were somewhat notorious on the Upper Missouri for carrying and pushing the sale of Belgian NW guns. John Palliser, in the 1840s at Ft. Union, refers to the "bad Belgian gun" sold there, as opposed to the better NW guns sold by the HBC. PCJ&Co. did also sell British NW guns, but they really pushed the Belgian guns--more of a profit margin, I'd imagine. Some of the Belgian guns even had 2-piece stocks, joined with glue (and passed off as one piece stocks, with the glued joint hidden). Not that a few of the British makers didn't try the same thing, too. NW guns were cheap, and where ever a few cents could be shaved, they would. I wouldn't exclude the use of some sort of softwood for the stocks, either.

Rod
 
Thankyou for that Very Interesting information Rod! Now things finaly add up. There is a complete set of parts along with the wood of the only trade musket that escaped the fate of the others that I can have photographed and sent to me. If anyone is interested, I'll post them here later so that they can be studied. For that matter, I can probably aquire the musket for myself just to insure it's survivability. That way, I can take measurements if anyone is interested. I used to think about having the parts duplicated to make into a modern shooter. However, there are so many out there now that it probably wouldn't hold any special significance for a person just wanting a trade musket to shoot.
 
To add to what Rod posted - many if not most of the Belgian guns were stocked in beech or birch, both light wolored woods. I'd be willing to bet that the one still extant is one or the other of these woods rather than pine...
 
Beech and birch are the best bet. I've never seen one with a two piece stock and I'm not sure where the seam would be hidden on one of these guns.
 
Good point! And given the preponderence of the customers and the level of care given these guns, most might be used up before the seam became a problem.
 
Being pin fastened to the barrel, they could be spliced anywhere. These however were one piece. They had THAT going for them anyway.
 
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