Recovered SE English Trade Gun

[rich pierce]

I am posting for James Levy.  His text:

In 2006 an early English Type G trade gun was turned in to the State of Florida (Bureau of Archaeological Research).  It was recovered from the Suwannee River in north Florida.  The barrel is 46 ¼” in length and 24 ga. (.58 cal.).  The breech of the barrel is 1.2” in diameter and tapers rapidly down in size.  It had 3 under lugs for pinning the barrel to the stock.  The wedding band (transition to round) is 11 ¼” from the breech.  It has a very open V-shaped brass back sight previously only thought to occur on French Type C trade guns (ref. Colonial Frontier Guns, by T. M. Hamilton).  It has a small dovetailed front sight of brass.  The flintlock mechanism is engraved WILLIAMS in upper case letters, below the powder pan and in front of the cock (Williams and family – 1715-1744, ref. Indian Trade Guns).  The gunstock still exists from the wrist to the first ramrod pipe.  It has a brass wrist escutcheon and a serpent side plate.  The ramrod pipe is very thin metal with ridges pressed in to give it some strength.  The pipe is let into the barrel channel and splayed out.  Pressure form the barrel holds the ramrod pipe in place with no pins used.  The butt plate and the trigger guard are missing.  The barrel was found to be held in the stock with wooden pins/pegs (probably replacements?).  The rear/breech end of the barrel skelp appears to have been a better grade of metal that was scarf welded on (the weld seam is very apparent).  The breech portion seems a lot denser and compact compared to the very stringy nature of the metal towards the muzzle.  The barrel had a charge in it which consisted of wadding and a ball.  The wadding appears to be something like palmetto fibers and the ball appears to have flats on it indicating it may have been cut down from a larger size ball.

James B. Levy
Historic Conservator
Fla. Dept. of State

His photos:











Top of gun at breech




ramrod pipe


scarf weld


Lock in stock


Back of Williams lock


Whole Williams lock


Williams stamp or engraving


Sideplate


wrist escutcheon


front site has a dovetail


rear sight is wide V shape


Big thanks to James Levy for sharing this find with us.

[TPH]

Thank you James for providing the photos and thanks as well to Rich for posting them!

[Michael]

James/Rich,

Thank you very much for posting the pictures they are very helpful!  Is the rear sight in the picture from the same gun that you show? If so is it dovetailed on and where was it located?

Michael

[Michael]

Rich/James,

I reread the origionl post, and saw the information on the rear sight in the description of the gun so my question is answered. Just celebrated my 60th birthday Wednesday, I wonder if there is any truth that the mind is the first to go?

Michael

[Levy]

Thanks to Rich for posting the pictures.  The rear sight in the pictures is from the same trade gun.  I don't have a picture of it in place because it was missing when the young man, who found it, turned it in.  I asked him if he cleaned it at all  and he said that he sprayed it with fairly high pressure from a garden hose.  I asked him to go home and look through the material that he knocked off.   He found both the rear and front sights in the debris.  I also asked him to look for the butt plate and the trigger guard if he ever got back that way again.  The dovetail for the backsight is right at the scarf weld/seam (centered 4 1/4" from the breech).  After this trade gun was found another barrel was recovered in the Apalachicola River that had the same bore size and the same rear sight.  It had an iron front sight and was 49 15/16" in length.  The breech diameter on it was 1.05" and it had two well defined transition bands that were placed 3 1/4" apart.  The first transition band was 9  9/16" from the breech. 

James Levy 

[Bill of the 45th]

Michael, the mind is the second thing to go, but I can't remember what the first is.  I'll bet that there are three of four members on this site that can have that rifle gun in shooting condition in no time, with an appropriate load profile for it.

Bill

[jim m]

now if we just knew the story how that gun ended up in the river. 

[Acer Saccharum]

That lock plate must have been casehardened. The letters stood up pretty well, except where the oxidation undermined the case. Thanks for posting the pics, Rich. What a nice barrel configuration. Love that wide flare to the breech. Neat info.

[Brian]

Thanks to both you gentlemen for making those pictures available.  What a delightful piece.  Imagine the story it could tell!

[Mike Brooks]

There has been a rear sight like that found at Fort Frederica too that is associated with Carolina guns. There is alot of small variation on these which you would expect from a gun that was made and traded for over 50 years.

[jrb]