Zonie, I liked your post and must use it sometime. Now as to Southern mountain rifles and Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina guns in particular I consulted with my elderly friend in N.C also fondly known as the "old man of the mountains and we found ourselves in agreement, a situation equally scary to both of us.
First the terms,squirrel,hog,and bear as applied to these rifles are relatively modern terms probably dating from the very late 19th or early 20th century.A squirrel rifle is and was basically a gun with a small bore suitable for squirrel and was applied to cartridge as well as muzzle loading guns.The term "hog" rifle applied to guns used to kill hogs during hog killing time.Small bored .22 guns such as the Stevens didn't have the large bullets and slow velocity so old percussion rifles which were found in abundance became the gun of choice.As to bears any gun with a large enough bore was a bear gun. We seldom see these old rifles with more than .45-48 caliber bores and as soon as the larger bored more powerful Winchester,Marlin and others appeared they became the weapon of choice for bear killing.
I have looked at a considerale number of East Tennessee estate inventories and have never seen anything except "rifle guns" and occasionally "shot guns" which probably referred to old fowlers. Another gun which achieved some popularity was the .58 Cal.CW rifled or smooth bore musket.These were cut back to half stock and made dandy shotguns and I have seen a number and once owned a Bridesburg contract musket converted to a shotgun.They were also bored or shot out and continued in use because they were so cheap to shoot.
Some other items or terms which we question are canoe guns,blanket guns, cut back ranger, Indian{with a few western exceptions} or trade guns,hawks,and cleaning jags.The first three guns are purely fantasy.The last term, the cleaning jag,may date to the 19th century on fine weapons such as cased pistols and the like but common folk used worms and sometimes a separate cleaning rod called a "wiper or wiping rod"I saw an arly 19th century East Tennessee inventory including rifle gun and wiping stick. These are often shown in Pennsylvania as weipers.
Now last but certainly not least is the ubiquitous term "hawk"applied to tomahawks.I really don't know when this term entered the black powder vernacular,but suspect the 1940's or 50's.An early use I've seen is the term used as the nickname of one "Hawk Broughton".The early references from the 17th and 18th century that I've seen refer to the terms "hatchet" and "tomahawk" derived from the Algonquin word,"tomahaken meaning "to strike with or as if with a tomahawk"I've never seen the word "hawk" used as meaning tomahawk except in modern terminology.I would be very interested know if anyone can come up with an early use of the word "hawk"
Tom Patton
