Early Virginia Style?

[gizamo]

Can we kinda define what this means.....

Pretty soon a TC contender is going to be called one....

[rich pierce]

An early Virginia style is a new school gun based on kits offered since around 2000 AD so far as I know.  Generally sporting 1770s Lancaster rifle architecture, with an English lock, and often iron furniture cast from same patterns normally used to cast brass furniture. 

On the other hand there are some kit guns such as Chambers' offering based on a Mark Silver contemporary piece, that incorporate specific features found on some early rifles attributed to Virginia. 

And of course there are original rifles, the Haymaker, Old Holston gun, F Klette rifle, Woodsrunner rifle, Feather rifle, possibly the Brass-Barreled rifle and others which would serve nobly as the basis for a contemporary built rifle based on a great Colonial period Virginia original.

I defer to fellow moderators if I'm stirring the pot,

[Eric Kettenburg]

I think Wallace has made a pretty good case for the brass barrel gun (and the companion piece from RCA2 that nobody ever seems to mention!) as being early Honaker family rifles.  As much as I dearly love to argue with him, I think he's nailed that one down pretty effectively.  I see a very obvious lineal progression from there right through to the later rifles.

[Tim Crosby]

 From Gary Brumfield's site, may be of some help:

 http://www.flintriflesmith.com/WritingandResearch/WebArticles/VirginiaRifle.htm

 Here is a link to the site, good reading all-around:

 http://www.flintriflesmith.com/


   Tim C.

[Mark Elliott]

An early VA gun is any gun made before 1776 in VA.    That can cover a lot of territory.   My favorite is the Augusta/Rockbridge rifle documented by Wallace Gusler in JHAT 2.    In general,  an early VA rifle looks a lot like a Lancaster or York of the same period as that is where a lot of those gunsmiths were trained.    It is much more useful to talk about rifles made "in the style of" a particular original rifle or maker.

[jrb]

Mark, I was just now watching Wallace Gusler' s rifle carving dvd and the 3 original Augusta County rifles he showed a little of. Awsome stuff!

[wallace gusler]

Regarding early Virginia rifles:
I would like to add a note on the details of the second rifle 1775-80 pictured in the back of George Shumway's ALR2. I don't have it at hand, but George found it late in his study and had to add it to the back, interleafed with some of the New England pieces.  In the past 6 or 7 years I have had the opportunity to examine the piece more carefully and found- the hook breach was probably added at the same time the barrel pinning was changed to draw loops. The original pinning of the barrel is out just ahead of the tailpiece (rear thimble) very closely related to the position on the brass barrel, Johanes Farber, Alex Walker, and a number of others. This placement of the pin thirteen or fourteen inches from the breech, is found on dozens of rifles in the lower Shenandoah Valley, Tennessee and Georgia up to the second half of the 19th-century.  I suspect that the change to draw loops and hook breech was done in 1789 the date at which the side plate was replaced. I have found three Andrew Moodeys in Augusta County, Virginia that moved west to Botetourt and one to Kentucky. It is quite likley one of these three men (father, sun and uncle) was the owner of this rifle. Their timing is right to have been a customer of the Honaker shop.  Since last publishing on this group, I have found two composite rifles made in the first half of the 19th-century that were found in Hampshire County, Virginia, now West Virginia that have iron trigger guards following the two brass examples on these early rifles.  While the iron guards are thinner, they have the proportions of the brass barrel and its companion guards, with the bow longer than the grip rail. Additionally the rear spur is wide and somewhat penny shaped and the base of the spur has perpendicular molding that terminates the grip rail. Clearly the Honaker shop was producing iron mounted rifles. This is the most northern production of iron mounted rifles to my knowledge. His shop was located near the Shenadoah river at a small community called Waterlick today. His original 1764 deed was in Frederick Co. Va at the time. The part that became Dunmore County in the early 1770s changed to Shenandoah in the Revolution and later changed to Warren County. Waterlick can be found on recent maps between the larger towns of Strausburg and Front Royal.
Wallace Gusler

[Eric Kettenburg]

Wallace thanks for posting that information.  I've wondered what became of the 'other' rifle as the BBR gets all the attention and often the second piece (obviously by the same guy) that George published is overlooked despite appearing to be one heck of a fine rifle.

When you mention the 1764 deed, are you speaking of Hans Jacob Honaker (hope I'm remembering the name correctly)?  If so, you you have background information on him?  Wondering if he was trained in Europe or elsewhere?

[wallace gusler]

Eric,
I don't have my documentation in hand, and will have to respond from memory. Hans Jacob"Honegger" came from Switzerland in the late 1740s, lost a child and wife on board the ship and was listed as a carpenter twice, in Switzerland and on his arrival in Philadelphia. He served four years indenture as a carpenter to pay his passage and may have served four more years for his dead wifes passage. If she lived half way across the ocean, he would have had to pay. He is missing from records during this second four years.  In 1758, he purchased a lot near Frederick, Maryland and removed to the Shenandoah Valley in 1764.  I suspect he was also a gun stocker in Switzerland from the extreme Baroque architecture of the rifle. It is fascinating that the second rifle, behind the cheek piece has a flower vase with flowers and twigs, a traditional Germanic folk design for dower chests. As as a carpenter he probably produced these in Switzerland and American.
One of his grandsons, John was a house builder and rifle maker in the town of Honaker named for him and his father Nicholas. It's interesting that the tool kit used to make the brass barrel rifle's carving shows a very simple tool kit using three major gouges and essentially design that is more folk art than academic. The stock contours are very sophisticated and perhaps he stocked rifles in Switzerland and trained in stocking, not carving.  Often the carving was assigned to a specialist, especially in cities and many rural areas.
I have to stop now and eat dinner and get back to carving a chimney back pattern of mahogany!
sincerely,
Wallace

ps the earliest spelling of the name of "Honaker" is Hans Jacobs son Frederick 1809-10 on a state contract for militia rifles.  James, Fredericks son, used that spelling consistently and the handwriting is so similar, a common tutor may be the circumstance. WBG