Bob and Marc,
I am glad you enjoyed yourself and hope you learned something. For those of you who did not attend, we had 66 people there and many great Salem and Davidson School rifles were present to study. We even had four Eagle patchbox rifles from the Jamestown School, two by William Lamb and 2 by Jabez Stephens.
We had one early (late 1780's) wooden patchbox rifle that Blake and I believe may have been made by Andreas or George Betz after they moved to Rowan County. I have photographed this rifle and it will be featured in the upcoming book. It might be the closest to a bridge rifle between Christian's Spring and Salem/Vogler style rifles as we are going to find.
John Bryan brought the outstanding Nathaniel Vogler rifle. There were three Christoph Vogler rifles present, one John Vogler rifle, three George Vogler rifles, and one Timothy Vogler rifle. There were four Butner rifles from Bethania. We had eight outstanding Eagle patchbox rifles from the Davidson School to study.
I expect to have several new rifles to study on March 24th at the Davidson County Museum in Lexington, N.C.
When Blake and I finish the book in 2019, we will have another large gathering of Salem rifles and a more detailed program.
Thank you to all who attended and contributed by bringing these outstanding rifles.
Michael
