Back in September there was a short discussion about Joseph Perkin (1737-1806), who had worked as a gunsmith in Philadelphia during the 1780s and ended up at the Harper's Ferry Armory:
http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=27935.0 I was reading through some Bristol (UK) materials today and came across a lot of information about his earlier years. Perkins was a member of the single brothers' choir of the Bristol Moravian congregation as early as 1766. In April 1766 a boy named John Waters (also a Moravian) was apprenticed to Perkin "for seven years to learn the Gun Lock Smith Trade." When the single brothers rebuilt their house in July 1766, they included a shop for Perkin; they were later going to establish a "Ironmonger's Shop," with Perkin as "workman," but they abandoned this idea in January 1767--though Perkin was allowed to continue his "traffic in the Gunlock way." Perkin's "Gunlock Trade" was doing well: the pastor reported that "their Orders increase very much" by November 1766 and by March of the next year the single brothers agreed to "enlarge the shop" because Perkin didn't have "Room enough in his shop for himself and John Waters to work."
The diary ends the following month--so where Perkin went next and when he emigrated to America (most say 1774, but I haven't been able to figure out where this information comes from) remain uncertain.
