Advice for period appropriate build

[Capt. Jas.]

IIRC there are at least 8 or so rifled guns listed in inventories of deceased persons of Albemale Co VA for just the years 1748-52.
Most of those I looked at were people located in what is present Buckingham and Appomattox counties.
Ino that area, the settlement progression mainly came up the Fluvanna (James) River from the coast. Store goods and trade the same.

 

[Pmringer]

This information is outstanding! I really appreciate everyone's input so far. It has given me man jump off points for further research before I take the plunge. My plan is to build a kit for the first one in order to make sure I am comfortable applying what I have read regarding building. After this one I intend to do a region specific piece.

I am leaning toward the Virginia rifle due to the German influence. My ancestors were all German and I find their rifle characteristics appealing.

 

[Zonie]

While rifles were popular on the mainland in Europe, all of the writings I have maintain interest in and the making of rifles in England before the Revolutionary War was very limited.

The British who hunted in the early 18th century were primarily interested in shooting shotguns and rifles in England were rare.

While I don't doubt that an English gunsmith in America may have made a "short rifle" in the early or mid 1700's I doubt that it could be described as a "English short rifle", a gun that appearently did not exist at that time.

 

[Artificer]

Thank you for the additional information on Boone’s early rifle. I really appreciate it.

This to everyone in general. I wonder if we are once again mixing period and modern terms when discussing the rifle owned by Boone as a Lad, though?

This sort of begs the question on what was the common length of a typical American rifle barrel in the 1740’s? I admit I do not know for sure. I seem to recall that a barrel length of 44 to 48 inches and perhaps as long as 50 inches was common in the FIW and Pre AWI years, but I may be mistaken about that?

I am unsure how tall Daniel Boone was when full grown, as different sources state he was between 5’8” and 5’10”? But it really doesn’t matter because he was likely not full grown when he got the rifle at age 12 or 13. A rifle with a barrel shorter than “common” for a full grown man seems to make sense for a 12 to 13 year old Lad. So it may well have just meant a rifle with a shorter barrel sized for a juvenile and not a particular style of rifle that may have been or was built in the English tradition/style.

Zonie is correct that English Rifles were rather rare in England during the 1740’s, but that does not mean they didn’t exist at all. The average common person in England did not hunt at all with a firearm at that time because one had to own land or at least be employed by a land owner. However, there were some rifles made for the affluent with shorter barrels that today we call “English Sporting Rifles” and they may have just called “Gentlemen’s Sporting Rifles.” Such a rifle was purchased by the Virginian Lt.Col. Phillip Ludwell Lee from the Birmingham Gunsmith William Turvey during the late 1740’s or in the first few years of the 1750’s and Phillip brought that rifle back to Virginia. Now there were also some less expensive short rifles made during those years for Game Keepers on large English County estates. These would not have had a lot of carving and certainly not expensive brass or silver mountings that their employers had on their rifles, though they probably had very good locks and barrels.

Here is an example of one of the less expensive English Short Rifles also probably made in Birmignham, that was probably used by a Games Keeper employed on an English Estate. White it is later thanks to the lock bolts not having a side plate, such a rifle with a different side plate could easily go back to the 1740’s. http://flintriflesmith.com/Antiques/English Rifle.htm

Gus

 

[rich pierce]

Thank you for the additional information on Boone’s early rifle. I really appreciate it.
This sort of begs the question on what was the common length of a typical American rifle barrel in the 1740’s? I admit I do not know for sure. I seem to recall that a barrel length of 44 to 48 inches and perhaps as long as 50 inches was common in the FIW and Pre AWI years, but I may be mistaken about that?

Gus

Gus, I think there were few enough rifles in the Colonies in the 1740s, perhaps in the hundreds at most, that it would be hard to generalize. There are a few existing rifles that could have been made here in the 1740s to 1750s, and a few imports that could have been from the period, that seem to have been here a long time. I have a hard time thinking there was enough demand in the colonies for rifles in that timeframe that a general style or type developed. The trade to Native Americans could have driven some styles I suppose. Its been proposed but obviously next to no specimens remain from the. earliest period.

 

[Artificer]

Rich,

I always enjoy reading your thoughts. Thank you.

Maybe there is another way to go about this? Caspar Wistar was importing complete rifles and rifle barrels into Philadelphia in the 1730's and 40's. There is documentation that he imported longer barrels than normal for German Rifles, because they were preferred for the American market. So, is there any way to determine what might have been a common length for German Rifle Barrels in that period? (Yeah, I understand I am grasping at straws here.)

Gus

 

[rich pierce]

The 2 earliest (likely) American stocked rifles I know about had 38" barrels. Both were Germanic in styling and were subjects of articles by George Shumway in Muzzle Blasts after his Rifles of Colonial America volumes came out. The barrels were massive, 1.25" at the breech, whereas a D weight swamped barrel in 1.125" at the breech. We had a couple barrels made to our specs and I have a couple builds planned. One in .62 is of manageable weight. The .54 is plain heavy in that massive a barrel. Both guns had round-faced Germanic locks and were stocked in curly maple and surfaced here. That does not of course prove they were stocked here. Notably the Marshall rifle has a 38" barrel if I recall. I also have read of 4' barrels but no colonial stocked rifles with barrels of such a length remain that could be pre 1770 as far as I know. So it would be hard to know what they looked like.

 

[Artificer]

Rich,

Thank you for that further information.

THE shortest flintlock rifle I have ever personally viewed was close in the same area as the George Rogers Clark exhibition at the Indiana State Museum back in the late 70's. It was behind glass at the exhibition. The Lock was a rounded Germanic one, the barrel had front and rear sights and was noticeably tapered and flared, but not hugely so, since you could see partially into the bore - the rifling and fairly large caliber could be seen, though it was not marked on the exhibition card. The buttstock and trigger guard was full sized and definitely in the Germanic tradition. The styling was definitely Pre AWI, but probably from the 1760's though it might have been a bit earlier. However, the barrel was only 19 inches long. It looked like a cross between a blunderbuss and a pistol carbine. The barrel did not appear to be cut down as the 2 ramrod pipes were in correct positions for a barrel that length and spaced out evenly beyond the entry pipe. If this was a "cut down" rifle, someone did a remarkable job cutting it off so the first rammer pipe looked correct.

Unfortunately, there was no other information on that piece. I wondered if it might have been used as a coach gun or possibly a gun that was used as a back up for another hunter. The card did not mention it, but the overall length could have allowed it to have been brought home full length in a WWII GI's duffle bag.

Gus

 

[rich pierce]

I've always wondered who knew about and needed a rifle in the 1740s and 1750s in the colonies. To possess a rifle one needs to know about them and decide one would fit your needs, and have the means to afford and procure one.

It's easy to understand that Germanic immigrants would know about rifles and that those living on the frontier could decide that a rifle would be the ticket for defense or hunting. However that was not the case for all German immigrants. The Palatines in the Mohawk Valley of NY state were practically unarmed and easy prey during the Revolutionary War. They were not as established and prosperous as Germanic immigrants in Pennsylvania.

I keep in mind that rifles were basically non existent in New England until after the Revolutionary War. Yes there are occasional and highly quoted sources of rifle barrels etc but no New England rifles of the colonial period are known, whereas hundreds of fowling pieces are known. Same for New York State. The only documented Iroquois rifle I know of was made by George Schroyer.

How the Native Americans learned of and obtained rifles in the pre-Revolutionary War period is a mystery, and that is no surprise. Traders hoping to give their contacts the advantage probably introduced rifles to them quite early, and if the rifles followed what was common for almost all trade goods, they were imported. Probably no traders advertised that they were arming Native Americans with superior weapons.

There is the hypothesis that Native American demands drove the evolution of the longrifle and it's a reasonable hypothesis.

Given that many colonial settlers all along the frontier had no rifles in this period, say from Maine to Maryland excluding Pennsylvania, it seems likely that the deer hide hunters or long hunters were the main market for rifles among colonists in the very early years. The Boones and others would be good examples. However pretty quickly a demand for rifles arose, enough to establish Bethlehem, Reading, Lancaster and York as gunsmithing centers specializing in longrifles. That seems to have started really taking off in the late 1760s.

I've saved Muzzle Blasts articles since the 1970s so have quite a collection of articles on very early rifles. If you have a hankering to see some, PM me, Gus.

 

[Artificer]

Rich,

Excellent post as usual.

During a lot of trips to the Colonial Williamsburg gun shop and other sites, they often mentioned how the tidewater and piedmont sections of Virginia were not really part of the "rifle culture" of the further Western Counties in Virginia.

So needless to say, I was very surprised to read that Phillip Ludwell Lee of Stratford Hall in the Tidewater Region of Virginia had a sporting rifle made for him in the late 1740's or very early 1750's to bring back home with him. Sources also seem to document that he knew a quality gun and or rifle and hunted with them. Now, he certainly was affluent enough for the rifle and his lands were plenty large enough to hunt on and take advantage of a rifle, but it sort of begs the question how well rifles were indeed known much further East than normally considered and especially that early?

Perhaps while shopping for a quality made Fowler to bring back, it was the gunsmith William Turvey himself who brought up the point that a rifle may also be a fine firearm to own "in the colonies." I don't know if the mention that his Turvey Rifle being far better than local rifles was a quote from Phillip himself, but if it was, that means rifles were known and used that early in Tidewater Virginia, though not to a large degree most likely.

Another real Head Scratcher are the Virginians who volunteered to be Virginia State Marines very early in the Revolutionary War and serve aboard the Sloop of War Dragon out of Fredericksburg, VA, which is also still in the Tidewater Region. We don't have an accurate account of how many of them had rifles, but there are two accounts of theft of a Lock for one of their rifles and another account of the theft of the whole rifle. Now, unlike Riflemen who had come from the western part of the Commonwealth and helped drive off Ships attempting to land troops and take over Hampton, the men who served as Marines at Fredericksburg seem to have come from the surrounding local area. Fredericksburg and surrounding area was and is WAY too far East to have been involved in hunting deer hides for a business.

Gus

 

[rich pierce]

Gus, I think a good many men of means wanted a rifle. I recall reading in his notes that Sir William Johnson in New York had one, likely an English game rifle, but decided he needed a Pennsylvania longrifle supposedly for greater accuracy. He had knowledge of all good things and being wealthy and prominent, and perhaps because as Agent of Indian Affairs he emulated many Native American ways, a longrifle probably made a statement for him.

Certainly however it started, the rifle culture grew rapidly to become dominant within the span of a couple decades.

 

[Elnathan]

Rich,

There is the hypothesis that Native American demands drove the evolution of the longrifle and it's a reasonable hypothesis.

Given that many colonial settlers all along the frontier had no rifles in this period, say from Maine to Maryland excluding Pennsylvania, it seems likely that the deer hide hunters or long hunters were the main market for rifles among colonists in the very early years. The Boones and others would be good examples. However pretty quickly a demand for rifles arose, enough to establish Bethlehem, Reading, Lancaster and York as gunsmithing centers specializing in longrifles. That seems to have started really taking off in the late 1760s.

Gus

Shumway in RCA II points out that there is a mention of a rifle from a Virginia estate dating to 1683, and informs us, without providing examples, that there are many accounts of rifles in the hands of white settlers in the Shenandoah Valley from the 1750s on. Likewise, rifles were part of Carolina culture from the 1750s on - he cites Biven's book, which I do not yet have, unfortunately. Both Shumway and DeWitt Bailey point out that there were significant numbers of rifles in the hands of provincial troops under Forbe's command in the late 1750s - Bailey has the documents quoted and Shumway points out that PA troops seem to have been issued muskets exclusively, so the rifles were likely in the hands of VA and Maryland troops.

The hypothesis that the longrifle developed as part of the Indian trade seems reasonable at first glance, but it is based on the assumption that whites did not start using rifles until the 1760s at earliest and that white rifle-culture spread out from PA at that time. Neither of these are correct. Even if they were, it still ignores the question of why a distinctive American weapon only emerged at the same time whites started taking to the woods in numbers if the Indians, who had been using rifles for decades in this theory, were the primary impetus to develop this new form.

And now the rant:

I'm honestly astonished that that theory gets as much traction as it does - the only actual argument I've run across in its favor is in Pete Alexander's book and while it has been awhile I remember it as being a textbook example of how not to write history, being thinly sourced (and ignoring evidence from the very books he cites - Shumway - that doesn't suite the thesis), geographically narrow, a masterpiece of circular reasoning, and refutable using only the evidence he himself advances (see the timing issue noted above). I tend to believe that there is some truth to it, but, golly, what a shoddy argument...

rant over...

 

[Elnathan]

Another real Head Scratcher are the Virginians who volunteered to be Virginia State Marines very early in the Revolutionary War and serve aboard the Sloop of War Dragon out of Fredericksburg, VA, which is also still in the Tidewater Region. We don't have an accurate account of how many of them had rifles, but there are two accounts of theft of a Lock for one of their rifles and another account of the theft of the whole rifle. Now, unlike Riflemen who had come from the western part of the Commonwealth and helped drive off Ships attempting to land troops and take over Hampton, the men who served as Marines at Fredericksburg seem to have come from the surrounding local area. Fredericksburg and surrounding area was and is WAY too far East to have been involved in hunting deer hides for a business.

Gus

I'm pretty sure that rifles are mentioned in the hands of Francis Marion's men in William James' account. Marion was operating in and recruiting from the Tidewater region of South Carolina. Furthermore, reading the wikipedia article on the battle of Moore's Creek Bridge (I know, I know, but it does seem to be well supported with proper sources) the Patriots collected 300 rifles in addition to 1500 smoothbores in the aftermath of the battle. Whether these were originally in the hands of the Scots, the former Regulators who were also present in small numbers at the, or from Tories in the area close to the battle, is unclear. None of these groups were frontier hunters, though.

I think that the solution to your "headscratcher" is to drop the theory that rifles were a weapon indigenous to the frontier in favor of the theory that they were known throughout the southern colonies, though probably much more popular along the frontier and in the backcountry than in the Tidewater areas.

 

[rich pierce]

Indeed there were "some" rifles in the colonies in the 1750s. And "more" in the 1760s. And "lots of them" in the 1770s. I would think they were an oddity in the 1740s anywhere in the colonies. There are perhaps a dozen existing rifles likely from Virginia that are pre-1770. There are several dozen from Pennsylvania or unattributable.

The numbers of colonial gunsmiths working in various gun building centers in Pennsylvania based on tax and census rolls are known and published in several books, though not complete. I've seen less about colonial Southern gunsmiths. My main interest in this line of discussion is trying to discern what proportion of early rifles were colonial versus imports across the decades preceding the Revolutionary War.

 

[Elnathan]

There is a reference to rifles among the Creek Indians in the 1730s, I believe. That book is in storage so I can't check on it (or even remember the title!) Also records of rifles being imported into the colonies from that decade - Pete Alexander provides those. He has more sources than I remembered, though my other criticisms still stand.

Two observations: It is useful to make a distinction between rifle use and rifle manufacturing. Virginia used rifles, but that doesn't mean that they manufactured them. Conversely, just because we have a lot more surviving PA-manufactured rifles than we do VA-manufactured ones doesn't mean that rifles were used more in PA than in VA.

Second, I believe that pre-1865 records of any kind are a lot thinner south of the Mason-Dixon Line than in the north. I'm not a specialist in American history, but if so that might be worth taking into account.

 

[Artificer]

The earliest documentation on any large quantities of Rifles in the colonies I have ever heard of was from a letter Governor Dongan of New York wrote to the Governor of Pennsylvania. Thomas Dongan was Provincial Governor from 1683”“1688 and as I recall the letter to the PA Governor was dated in the spring of 1687 or ’88, talking about how 10 percent of the Militia combined force at I think Albany the Spring/Summer before, had been armed with Rifles. A few years ago I was actually able to find a copy of that letter from the PA archives, though I lost that information and other information I found out on that militia force when my old computer crashed. It seems that Militia Force numbered right at 5,500 men from other period accounts, so roughly that meant around 550 RIFLES in the hands of the assembled Militia. If Governor Dongan was correct about the percentage of Rifle armed Militia, that is just plain astonishing for both the number of Riflemen and the fact the Militia was formed in New York from there and surrounding states. Of course those almost certainly would have been Early English Flintlocks and not very similar to the American Rifles of the Mid to Late 18th century.

Gus

 

[Artificer]

My main interest in this line of discussion is trying to discern what proportion of early rifles were colonial versus imports across the decades preceding the Revolutionary War.

I bet you would love to have more information on how many complete Rifles and Rifle Barrels that Caspar Wistar imported from the Germanic States and sold in his Philadelphia shop in the 1730's and 40's. (As I would as well.)

Gus

 

[Artificer]

Your mention of Francis Marion reminded me of something I was thinking earlier in this discussion.

Mucho Mea Culpae and please don't put me in the stocks for mentioning the movie "The Patriot" starring Mel Gibson. Yeah, I know Mel Gibson's character was completely fictitious, though drawn in part from historic figures, one of who was Francis Marion. Horrible History to be sure, but fairly good fictional drama.

The scene where Gibson's youngest son was shot while attempting to free his older brother, and Gibson later going into the house to get more guns was interesting, though.

Gibson's Character was a man of means and that was reflected in his silver mounted rifle and pistol. However, the two extra rifles he brought out were interesting to me. They were both much plainer rifles and most likely ones he had purchased for his sons to use. Maybe one was supposed to be a rifle Gibson's character owned when younger, but the style of those two extra rifles don't quite seem right for that. I thought someone must have given a little thought to those two extra rifles in a somewhat historic context.

Gus

 

[rich pierce]

So many interesting builds to consider!

 

[Pmringer]

Definitely! This is a lot of great information and a lot to think about. It is interesting digging into the evolution of thought that drove higher production of rifles and which groups drove demand in the colonies.