Origins of styles and schools, blending of characteristics

[rich pierce]

It is a slow day so I will toss something out to chew on.  If the consensus is that it's drivel or baiting, we can toss it.

Sometimes when the topic of how schools of longrifles emerged comes up, or how styles blended and morphed, or how a rifle with a unique blend of features should be attributed, someone presents one of these scenarios: 

1). A rifle from somewhere else comes into the shop for repair and the gunsmith is impressed.  He likes the new-fangled patchbox, or the carving design, or the halfstock configuration or some other feature and decides to adopt that feature as if it was born of his own imagination, and thus a new amalgam of styles emerges.
Assumes: Some gunsmiths were looking for, or open to, a design that was better than theirs or the preferred local style.

2).  A customer from somewhere else comes into a local shop and says, "Build me one like so and so builds them back where I come from, or do without my business."  After all, the customer is always right, so the maker does as requested.
Assumes:  The customer could not get a gun from "back there", the gunsmith had no allegiance or pride in his own design, and needed work so would take on anything.

One of the problems I have with these scenarios is that they assume the gunsmith is not in the drivers seat.  From what I have seen, the rifles most American makers produced at any given time had limited variability.  It is not hard to recognize a Dickert, or a Beck, or a Bonewitz, or a Frederick Sell, or a Christian Oerter rifle. It does appear that versatile, European-trained makers such as Andreas Albrecht could make a step-wristed rifle in Bethelehem or Christians Spring, and a straight stocked Lancaster rifle in Lititz.  I am not talking about the creativity of a Schroyer over the years, or that the Hawken brothers may have been influenced by their Harpers Ferry armory experience, but more the notion that a gunsmith saw another's work and was profoundly influenced.  Can anyone point to a signed rifle where this may be the case?

[smart dog]

Hi Rich,
Another, perhaps more influential process of blending, was the journeyman gunsmith.  When the apprenticeship was over, it is very likely that the young gunsmith traveled and worked for several other makers with different styles.   I think many makers traveled quite a bit.  Just think of the documented traffic between the Moravian settlements in Pennsylvania and North Carolina.  Also, gunsmiths did repairs and in the process may have worked on guns made by others and exposed to their styles.  I've always wondered about how often gunsmiths made guns on spec, as custom orders, or a mix of both.  My guess is that makers near the frontiers were able to make more guns on spec with a good prospect of selling them in a seller's market.  Makers in the settled areas further east likely had more competition and may have offered more custom or semi-custom products.  They also may have needed a greater "WOW" factor added to their work to compete.

dave   

[RAT]

Here's an opinion... times don't change and history repeats itself.

How many makers today build guns in the Woodbury school? Same type of thing happened in the past. I predict within the next 10 years there will be an explosion of makers working in the Kibler school.

Also... When a popular movie comes out, how many copy-cats are made? Some very poor copies.

Sometimes copying is a form of flattery (like the Woodbury and Kibler examples), sometimes it's just to make money on something that's trending.

Now ask me about bores getting smaller and barrels getting longer and the effect of modern gun magazines on these trends... same thing. Remember when those extreme monte carlo stocks were popular? Same thing with the extreme roman nose stocks. Some "expert" said it was the best thing since sliced bread and everyone got on board.

Having said all of that...
I believe in the apprentice theory. In Rifles of Colonial America several rifles are pictured (no 20-?) that are very similar. Many attribute these to Wolfgang Haga. However, it's seems clear that the carving on the later guns is inferior. I believe these later guns were made by an apprentice who worked under Haga but didn't have his artistic/carving skills. The Albrecht (master) and Oerter (apprentice) is another example, but in this case, the apprentice deviated and applied his own artistry to develop his own distinct style. When is Europe, Albrecht was exposed to many different schools. In a way Oerter was more isolated. We can see a direct ancestry from Oerter to the later Lehigh/Allentown school. Sometimes one individual can be very influential.

[T*O*F]

A customer from somewhere else comes into a local shop and says, "Build me one like so.  After all, the customer is always right, so the maker does as requested.

Case in point to illustrate.  Customer came into my shop to discuss building him a Lancaster.  I was working on my Figthorn and he hefted it for size.  The extreme drop fit him perfectly and he fell in love with it and decided that's what he wanted, but with Lancaster hardware.  I used my stock as a pattern and built him Figthorn/Lancaster.

[Buck]

I agree with the theory, but others would tend to not agree.
Buck

[spgordon]

Is there any contemporary evidence that customers were aware of different styles (schools) or had preferences for one or the other?

In the 1773 Christian Oerter letter that Bob Lienemann and I wrote about in the KRA Bulletin back in 2011, Oerter describes the rifle that he is supplying to a Mennonite in Lancaster County only as a "good rifle" (and then elaborates on its features: "silver wire," "double trigger," etc.).

Are rifles in eighteenth-century sources ever described by means of the geographical area in which they were produced?

Scott

[rich pierce]

I'm thinking mostly of the early gunsmiths. By supposition, it seems the brethren at Christians Spring would have been aware of the Lancaster and Reading gunsmiths and their work.  And vice versa, yet the blending of styles was not so apparent.   I do recall that others including Berlin at Easton and a Lancaster gunsmith used the heavy coffin lidded cast patchbox enveloped at Christians Spring.

That recognizable schools emerged suggests to me that there was something driving variations in styles at any given time, and I suppose it was the muse of one or more dominant gunsmiths in the area.  If "melting pot" dynamics were very powerful, how would we have recognizable Lehigh, Bucks County, Reading, and Lancaster rifles all made at the same time?

[Gaeckle]

  If "melting pot" dynamics were very powerful, how would we have recognizable Lehigh, Bucks County, Reading, and Lancaster rifles all made at the same time?

Regionalism? Strong adherance to ones roots?

My buddy and I drove from upper Ohio to travel to the CLA show this year and the trip took just over 6 hours. In less than half a day we arrived in another state. I know people traveled far and wide in the past, yet I have to think that it took a long time depending upon the method of travel. River travel was the highway of it's day and many towns sprang up all along major and smaller rivers that could be navigated. I think the melting pot idea we have today is not what may have occured yesterday.I'll guess that religions did not intermingle much and I would bet niether did nationalities. The thought of "We make things this way here and do things this way here" is one such idea of regionalism. Think it like this: a man goes to the known gunmaker and says: " I want a rifle gun like the kind Schmidt makes two counties over. I was visiting folks there last year and I want one like Schmidt's"  To which Bremmer the gun maker says "Ya, den go over to that county and have Schmidt make you one...I make dees kind here!" That trip may take a week or more, who knows, so the customer may be stuck with what Bremmer makes or he talked out of the Schmidt idea by Bremmer who describes Schmidts work as less that acceptable.

I would venture that aprenticeship was a strong influence on school types, but I also think that once the pupil is free from the confines of the master the pupil then tweaks what the master taught. The one that was taught would personalize their work. I also think that many of those that practiced a certain school may have been strong in one or two or three areas of building (stock shaping, or general smith work on mounts or carving for example) and may have been weak in other areas and so the work they put out changed a little bit from what the master had taught before....one man's skillset and skill level may not be everybodies skill level.

I agree with the thought of those copying a Woodbury school and also of one wanting to copy what Kibbler makes, but we have this wonderful device that provides instant communcation, so we can view and see what others can do, and there is influence with regards to that. This sort of technology just didn't exist then.

It could be easily said that describing rifles via geographical area could be something done as a tendancy of how we think today. I found my father's schoolbook atlas (circa 1935) and there are many Ohio towns listed in the atlas that are no longer there today. Places like Western Star, Remsen, Forty Corners are all on that map, but today they don't exist and there aren't many old-timers left who can tell you where they used to be. If there was a practicing gunsmith who had an established style (school) what could it be called if there was no longer that area?

These are just my ideas.

I like this question....it really forces one to think in broad and differnt terms.

[Tom Currie]

Rich, You mentioned earlier the signed Abrecht presumably made at Lititz. Other than the dog and Lion carved early guns and the Shawanoe Chief  gun ( all attributed ), we have no other signed work of Albrecht for comparison, but the  Lititz gun surely would be attributed to Dickert if it wasn't signed. Clearly Dickerts style was a hot seller and his Moravian bretheren Albrecht borrowed the stock and carving pattern. Best example I could think of.

[spgordon]

the  Lititz gun surely would be attributed to Dickert if it wasn't signed. Clearly Dickerts style was a hot seller and his Moravian bretheren Albrecht borrowed the stock and carving pattern.

Great example. But how do we know that the borrowing didn't go the other way: Dickert borrowed the style from Albrecht?

[rich pierce]

the  Lititz gun surely would be attributed to Dickert if it wasn't signed. Clearly Dickerts style was a hot seller and his Moravian bretheren Albrecht borrowed the stock and carving pattern.

Great example. But how do we know that the borrowing didn't go the other way: Dickert borrowed the style from Albrecht?

Good question!  My reasoning is that Dickert was seemingly well into his career when Albrecht came to town, and examples by other Lancaster makers suggest there was a straight-wristed Lancaster style by then.

[nosrettap1958]

A good example would be the Gillespie family of rifle makers, As the style evolved from father to son and the characteristics of each apprentice turned master gunsmith. Can we see this evolving characteristics of the rifles that were assigned to the North Carolina Appalachian School that were built by John Gillespie Sr. as the rifle "moved' to son Mathew then to grandson John R or Harvey Gillespie??