Longrifles made for Children

[mbriggs]

I started collecting North Carolina Longrifles in 1980.  Over the first five or so years, I found and purchased five Jamestown School Boys rifles.  None of these were in really good condition and since they seemed to be easy to find, I sold them and hoped to find a better example. It took me over 20 years to find what I was looking for.   In most cases a Jamestown School Boys rifle is 20% smaller than the average half-stock percussion Jamestown rifle.

In 2007, I found and purchased this wonderful Jamestown Boys Rifle at a local modern gun show.  I had just finished telling two KRA friends that live in North Carolina that I would like to find a Jamestown Boys rifle and a man walked up to my table carrying this.  The rifle was made by Anderson Lamb (1815 - 1878).  He was a very prolific maker of Longrifles in the Jamestown School.

This Boys rifle is all silver mounted, has a full silver side plate, silver cap box and silver christian fishes behind the cheek rest. The barrel is 31 1/2" Long and the rifle has a total length of 46 1/4".  The distance from the rear entry pipe to to the front of the lock mortise is 6 1/2". The caliber of this rifle is 36.  Since 2007 I have purchased a couple of additional Jamestown Boys rifles.  Each of them were about the same size.

Here are some photos of my Anderson Lamb Boys Rifle.



















Recently I found something that I had not seen before.  A Jamestown rifle made for a small child rather than a boys rifle.  The Childs rifle was made by Evan Johnson.  He was also a very prolific maker of Longrifles in the Jamestown School. He was born in 1823 and worked from 1844 to 1867.  His gun shop was located near the intersection of Wendover Avenue and Tarrant Road.  He moved to Indiana after the Civil War.

This Childs rifle is 25 caliber.  The barrel is 24" long and the total length of the rifle is 39 1/4"  The distance from the rear of the entry pipe to the front of the lock mortise is only 3".  Have any of you ever seen anything like this before?

Here are a few photos of the Evan Johnson Childs rifle.













For comparison, here is a photo of an average size Jamestown half-stock rifle by Ithamer Armfield, (barrel length 40", total length 55 1/2" and from rear entry pipe to the front of the lock mortise is 9 1/2".) the Jamestown Boys Rifle by Anderson Lamb and the Jamestown Childs rifle by Evan Johnson.



Please tell me what you think and if you have seen other Longrifles made for children?

Michael
   

[bdixon]

I’ll tell you what I think.  It makes me wish I were a young boy again!!!

[Dphariss]

What is the trigger pull on the various rifles.

Dan

[alyce-james]

Good afternoon Michael; Thanks for sharing these pictures and adding more to my enlightenment  of the American longrifle, for me.  I like the style of the Jamestown boys rifles. Thanks, Jim

[louieparker]

Michal
Go to the museum and look up the Illinois rifle by Henry Green ..It's  a little over 24 inches in overall length with about a 6 1/2 inch trigger pull.  Iron mounted, full stock  ..If the bbl wasn't signed with name and location I would never have guessed this rifle to be from Illinois.

I now  have a full stock, iron mounted rifle with a 26 inch bbl. 12 inch trigger pull,  41 inches over all length, walnut stock,chevron pewter nose cap and  silver inlays.  ....Louie

[Hurricane ( of Virginia)]

David Condon had a boys rifle for sale last year. It was raised carved and well "furnished" and very expensive! I am unable to find pictures,but I believe it was signed by Peter White. Others will rememeber as he had it at Baltimore in 2011.
Hurricane

[louieparker]

  Hurricane that was a Peter White and a great little rifle .. As I recall it had a commercial lock but great carving that was different to other PW rifles..That rifle sold at a Louisville show....LP

[mbriggs]

Thanks for all of the comments.  It is good to know that they were made in other schools also.  Dan, The trigger pull on the Ithamer Armfield is 13", on the Anderson Lamb Boy's rifle it is 12 17/32", on the Evan Johnson Childs Rifle it is 12 1/4".

Michael

[T*O*F]

Not a longrifle, but these guns seem to have been  very common Belgian import, hardware store guns.

It's a .410 smoothbore, 13" lop, 45" oal, and weighs only 2.75 lbs.  That's a quarter to give a perspective of size.

[mr. no gold]

There is a very good chance that almost every school had one, or more, makers who made 'small' guns.
In my years of looking and collecting, I have seen a Berks smooth rifle; a John Noll gun; a Shuler, Ohio; piece and a Stoudenour/Bedford gun, all 'small.' These are the ones that I remember; there were no doubt more, also well worth having, but money or timing stopped an acquistion. The killer was the John Noll since it was a mate to one of his best 'big' rifles. Would sure like to know where that one is today.
Dick

[heelerau]

Has anyone see old time photos of boys carrying these rifles, have any bags and horns turned up that may have been associated with this beaut little rifles? Some of these look like they may have been commissioned by well to do settlers ?
   The most I have seen here in Australia, are much later boys rifles eg Stevens Favourites and some Belgian .22 s. no muzzle loading stuff at this stage. I don't think we had any colonial era gun makers as such, just retailers and gunsmiths repairing broken fire arms.


Cheers

Gordon

[T*O*F]

Has anyone see old time photos of boys carrying these rifles, have any bags and horns turned up that may have been associated with this beaut little rifles? Some of these look like they may have been commissioned by well to do settlers ?

Depending on the time period, rural and wilderness settlers were subsistence farmers who had large families to help with the enormous daily workload.  The adult men were involved with the heavy work and burned up a tremendous amount of calories everyday.  Cornbread and porridge didn't provide these calories.  Think of how much food it took to feed a family of 6-10 people everyday.  It usually fell to the youngest male child to hunt for daily food for the pot.  It seem illogical that a youth aged 8-12 would carry and shoot the old man's longrifle when doing this.  By necessity, the child needed to have a gun that he could handle and shoot accurately.  I believe that guns such as the one I've shown were more common than we believe.

[Fullstock longrifle]

One of the coolest child's rifles I ever saw was a gun made by John Armstrong.  It was a full blown Armstrong with all of the bells and whistles, it even had the tiny silver hearts in the beaver tails, very nice gun.  I bet the John Noll was really something too, I wonder where they are now Dick?  Wouldn't that make a great display at the KRA!

Frank

[mbriggs]

Back in the 1980's I had an opportunity to interview Mr. Virtner Armfield.  He was the 91 year old grandson of Jamestown Gun Smith Ithamer Armfield.  I remember him saying the Ithamer made two types of rifles. A regular style rifle like I posted above and a smaller rifle that was made for hunting squirrels.  That has always made me wonder if what we call Boys rifles were actually made for adults to hunt smaller game?

My original question when I started this post was I know that we have all seen what we called Boys rifles, but have you seen any really small rifles that you believed were made for children?

Thanks for all of the comments.

Michael      

[mr. no gold]

Great topic Michael! The small rifle that you posted is a fine piece and getting to see it is a treat. Thank you for showing it. Frank, your observation that the Noll and the Armstrong small rifles would make a good display is right on the mark. It would be a jaw dropper. The Noll was the same as his rifle that has the lyre shaped side plates. It had his touch marks. carving, engraving, and architecture. It had been converted. I recall that it was not much more than 36 inches long. Oh well, sigh! That was 50 years ago, and I have long since lost track of it.
Dick

[Bob Roller]

No long rifles but I have seen Northeastern caplock rifles for children. One was an elaborate cased outfit by N.G.Whitmore and had a 32 caliber rifle barrel and a 28 gauge shotgun barrel and all the bells and horns expected with such an outfit. I made a fairly close copy of an English Whitworth boys rifle a few years ago in 40 caliber. I may have a picture of that one.

Bob Roller

[Hurricane ( of Virginia)]

Here is another.

http://www.aaawt.com/html/firearms/f53.html

Hurricane

[Fullstock longrifle]

Wow, $21,000.00, I would call that wishful thinking.

Frank

[mr. no gold]

That is a nice small rifle by Crissy and is only the second one I have heard of by him. The other one was also a small gun. He was a very late Bedford County maker and lived up into the 1900s, if not mistaken.
This gun might fetch that price. It wasn't too long ago that the Altfather rifle, from the same region, sold for some huge amount in an auction, though the details escape me at the moment.
By all means, Bob, show us your Whitworth rifle; would love to see it.
Dick

[JTR]

Here is another.

http://www.aaawt.com/html/firearms/f53.html

Hurricane

That's a nice little rifle, but I agree, wishful thinking on the price!
John

[TMerkley]

where can a person get a pattern of a youth or child's rifle like these.  I have been making and looking for parts for a youth model. 

[Dphariss]

Thanks for all of the comments.  It is good to know that they were made in other schools also.  Dan, The trigger pull on the Ithamer Armfield is 13", on the Anderson Lamb Boy's rifle it is 12 17/32", on the Evan Johnson Childs Rifle it is 12 1/4".

Michael

Thanks, the rifles are nicely proportioned.

Dan

[Dphariss]

Back in the 1980's I had an opportunity to interview Mr. Virtner Armfield.  He was the 91 year old grandson of Jamestown Gun Smith Ithamer Armfield.  I remember him saying the Ithamer made two types of rifles. A regular style rifle like I posted above and a smaller rifle that was made for hunting squirrels.  That has always made me wonder if what we call Boys rifles were actually made for adults to hunt smaller game?

My original question when I started this post was I know that we have all seen what we called Boys rifles, but have you seen any really small rifles that you believed were made for children?

Thanks for all of the comments.

Michael      

We have to remember that there are full size Dickert longrifles with pulls around 12". Some original Hawkens are in the 13" range.
There were also "Buggy rifles" as well. But in the Northeast these are often a long barreled pistol with a removable stock.
Train travel was common back in the day and many of the Winchester/Marlin etc take down rifles made in the late 19th and early 20th c. therefore they would fit into a shorter case/suitcase for ease of train travel. So there are possibilities for adult rifles with reduced barrel lengths. A short barreled half-stocked rifle would fill the same niche as the Winchester take-down rifles and shotguns.
 But there were a great many boys rifles made in the various 22/32 RF calibers in the late 19th century and even today so "boys rifles" in the ML era are certainly not outside the realm of possibility and obviously were made.
I once knew a man who was in the 80s in the late 1960s and he told me that when he was a kid they gave him a shotgun to hunt with that was too heavy to carry and he wore off some of the buttstock dragging it on the ground.
So not everyone got a boy sized gun to hunt with.

Dan