Notchy Bob
32 Cal.
The Muzzleloading Forum has been up and running for a number of years now, and it sees a lot of traffic. Sometimes it's fun to just dive into the "back pages" of old posts and see what comes up. I found this short but interesting thread in the section labeled "The Plains": 1832 Black Hawk War Weapons
I dug into this a little more and discovered there were actually two Black Hawk Wars; one involving the Sac & Fox people versus frontier militiamen in April-August, 1832, in Illinois and Wisconsin, and the other in 1865-1872 in the Four Corners area, between native people of various tribes and white residents of Utah. This thread deals with the first, and best known of these conflicts.
Anyway, here is a little collection of artifacts from the first Black Hawk War, with a quote from Elijah Herring, who was a member of one of the militias:
This was from McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI No.2 (January 1896). You can read the whole issue HERE
Elijah Herring lived to a ripe old age. Here is his obituary, from the Salem Republican, 28 January 1897:
I thought his comments about the flintlock firearms were interesting. The militiamen who had been recruited must have been pretty green, if they didn't have sense enough to protect their guns from the dampness, and it sounds as if the camp armorer had his hands full clearing guns that would not fire, due to damp powder. This would have been in 1832, and Mr. Herring seems proud of the fact that he had a better weapon. His must have been percussion, with a "Cramer" lock and double-set triggers. These innovations, according to him, "...had just been put on the market." I am pretty sure the gunsmith from whom he acquired his rifle, named "Cramer," would have been Phillip Creamer (1775-1845), who operated out of southern Illinois and St. Louis. Creamer was renowned for his skill, and there is a very elegant rifle in the collections of the Missouri Historical Society which Creamer made for William Clark. He also made plainer rifles for fur companies, government agencies, and the Indian trade. Here is an example:
... and a close-up of the same rifle, but from a different source:
Creamer also famously made a brace of pistols for Andrew Jackson, and he is known to have employed a teenaged apprentice named James Bridger, between 1817 and 1822.
Interesting stuff, to me.
Best regards,
Notchy Bob
I dug into this a little more and discovered there were actually two Black Hawk Wars; one involving the Sac & Fox people versus frontier militiamen in April-August, 1832, in Illinois and Wisconsin, and the other in 1865-1872 in the Four Corners area, between native people of various tribes and white residents of Utah. This thread deals with the first, and best known of these conflicts.
Anyway, here is a little collection of artifacts from the first Black Hawk War, with a quote from Elijah Herring, who was a member of one of the militias:
This was from McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI No.2 (January 1896). You can read the whole issue HERE
Elijah Herring lived to a ripe old age. Here is his obituary, from the Salem Republican, 28 January 1897:
I thought his comments about the flintlock firearms were interesting. The militiamen who had been recruited must have been pretty green, if they didn't have sense enough to protect their guns from the dampness, and it sounds as if the camp armorer had his hands full clearing guns that would not fire, due to damp powder. This would have been in 1832, and Mr. Herring seems proud of the fact that he had a better weapon. His must have been percussion, with a "Cramer" lock and double-set triggers. These innovations, according to him, "...had just been put on the market." I am pretty sure the gunsmith from whom he acquired his rifle, named "Cramer," would have been Phillip Creamer (1775-1845), who operated out of southern Illinois and St. Louis. Creamer was renowned for his skill, and there is a very elegant rifle in the collections of the Missouri Historical Society which Creamer made for William Clark. He also made plainer rifles for fur companies, government agencies, and the Indian trade. Here is an example:
... and a close-up of the same rifle, but from a different source:
Creamer also famously made a brace of pistols for Andrew Jackson, and he is known to have employed a teenaged apprentice named James Bridger, between 1817 and 1822.
Interesting stuff, to me.
Best regards,
Notchy Bob
