Reference book.

[Nate McKenzie]

What's the best book for references to Pa. gunsmiths of the 1700-1900 era?

[jdm]

I don't know if it's the best, but I use it a lot.  " Arms Makers Of Pennsylvania " By James Whisker. I got mine in the early ninety's and have found it helpful.  JIM

[spgordon]

If you are looking for lists of gunsmiths with information about each, most people would point you toward James Whisker's books, including the one mentioned just above. My own experience of these books is that most of the information is questionable. The author relied heavily, for instance, on earlier publications, such as Sam Dyke's list of gunsmiths, and these earlier publications were simply not accurate. Years ago a series of posts on this forum documented that in detail. I know my saying that will anger people on this site, but I can only report my own experience. Unfortunately, nobody has tackled what would be an immense project: re-checking the information in James Whisker's books against the original records. So we have them and no substitute for them.

In my opinion, the best study of the Pennsylvania longrifle is Wayne Heckert and Donald Vaughn's The Pennsylvania Kentucky Longrifle: A Lancaster Legend (1993). But this focuses on a specific place, Lancaster, rather than Pennsylvania riflemakers more generally--which it sounds like you're looking for.

[JCKelly]

McKenzie - Good suggestions. Personally I think you need a library.
One very well-researched source is Henry Kaufmann's The Pennsylvania-Kentucky Rifle.
Yeah, I'm an Old geezer so am inclined toward things like Henry K. as well as Joe Kindig's  Thoughts on the Kentucky Rifle in its Golden Age  Both of these guys did live in Pennsylvania, ya know. Kindig was thorough, in my Not-at-all-humble opinion, and Kaufmann a respected and honest researcher.

spgordon - You certainly do not offend me. I have my own observations. Learned it was not at all nice ask something about one of W's sources, not at all.

[Buck]

Jerry Noble has just released a publication as an appendage to Sellers book of Gunsmiths. Somewhere in the vicinity of 10,000 + more names? There was another Gentleman involved unfortunately I can't recall his name. I would agree, a library is necessary to keep up with the constant change / new information that is continually coming to light.

Buck.

[Eric Kettenburg]

A number of 'first round' of publications including Sellers, Kaufmann and Dyke, relied very heavily upon some of the old 19th century county history books that were somewhat in vogue during the mid to late 19th century.  Those history books are not entirely inaccurate in the information they present, but they are sure not entirely accurate in many instances either.  Many of them relied upon oral family histories and as we all know, peoples' memories through the generations can easily fade or twist.  Some subsequent authors and publishers introduced a smattering of new, more accurate research while including much of the incorrect or inaccurate information presented within the earlier books, so it compounds the problem as one can go through some of the newer books and find generally accurate information in one area and completely incorrect or outdated information in another.  It can be quite frustrating.

[Hurricane ( of Virginia)]

Here is the "Library" you might find helpful....alll the books in print andd out of print as well as "online resources. It however is OUT OF DATE as it has not been updated in about 8 years and several publications of significance  have been released. Try Kentucky Rifle Foundation and "AmericanKentuckyRifleArt.com" for some of the more recent publications.

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=2341.0

HUrricane

[Tom Moore]

For information on Jerry Noble & Tom Moore's book, "Gun Trade in America" try this link:

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=41084.0

or

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=41083.0