great wagon road

[mlbrant]

I know that guns made in the southern colonies (nc, Virginia, s Carolina) had English characteristics. However, just wondering if their were also guns in these s colonies with germanic characteristics (locks, architecture) that were brought down the great wagon road from Pennsylvania by the settlers. It was a time when nothing was thrown away but used over and over until used up. So, am I wrong in thinking fowlers, rifles and pistols would have shown up in the south from Penn?

[Cory Joe Stewart]

The Moravians in Salem probably built strongly Germanic style guns.  I have never seen an image of an pre-Revolutionary gun from those shops.  They came out of the north as did most folks in the North Carolina backcountry.  Salem was one of the major "urban" centers in the backcountry. 

Wallace Gussler has suggested that RCA #42 may have been made in the Moravian shops in North Carolina.

Coryjoe

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

A brief Moravian History from the Moravian Church re the American Colonies.....

The Moravians first came to America during the colonial period. In 1735 they were part of General Oglethorpe’s philanthropic venture in Georgia. Their attempt to establish a community in Savannah did not succeed, but they did have a profound impact on the young John Wesley who had gone to Georgia during a personal spiritual crisis. Wesley was impressed that the Moravians remained calm during a storm that was panicking experienced sailors. He was amazed at people who did not fear death, and back in London he worshiped with Moravians in the Fetter Lane Chapel. There his “heart was strangely warmed.”

Bethlehem 1754 After the failure of the Georgia mission, the Moravians were able to establish a permanent presence in Pennsylvania in 1741, settling on the estate of George Whitefield. Moravian settlers purchased 500 acres to establish the settlement of Bethlehem in 1741. Soon they bought the 5,000 acres of the Barony of Nazareth from Whitefield's manager, and the two communities of Bethlehem and Nazareth became closely linked in their agricultural and industrial economy.

Other settlement congregations were established in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. They built the communities of Bethlehem, Nazareth, Lititz, and Hope. They also established congregations in Philadelphia and on Staten Island in New York.All were considered frontier centers for the spread of the gospel, particularly in mission to the Native Americans.Bethlehem was the center of Moravian activity in colonial America

Spangenberg Bishop Augustus Spangenberg led a party to survey a 100,000 acre tract of land in North Carolina, which came to be known as Wachau after an Austrian estate of Count Zinzendorf. The name, later anglicized to Wachovia, became the center of growth for the church in that region. Bethabara, Bethania and Salem (now Winston-Salem) were the first Moravian settlements in North Carolina.


I have read some first hand documents of Swiss / Moravians with blacksmith shops and gun-making in the 1760s in SC across the river from what became Augusta GA. It was in an article re the cane creek massacre of 1760...but now I can't find it!  

So there might have been a Moravian Southern rifle!      Hey, I can dream    lets argue about what  the lock looked like.... who's gonna prove you wrong?  

[rich pierce]

Over the years thinking about these things, it seems that early rifles before 1770, may often lack "school" characteristics and unless subsequent rifles carry signatures from them, are hard to pinpoint geographically. That sounded like blather.  We don't know where many of the very early unsigned rifles were made.  So nothing would surprise me.

[J. Talbert]

Rich,
I understood your blather.

Should I be concerned?   

Jeff

[Tom Currie]

I understood the blather also. So a couple of us should be concerned, I think it means we have contemplated these thoughts for a long time.

Personnaly, I want to see a signed a signed Valentine Beck so I know what was made in Bethabara NC.

I read a John Curry article in Muzzleblasts that indicated Bethabara NC rifles can be identified. I would like to know what he knows.