Henry family & perpetuating errors

[spgordon]

I've been very interested at how often researchers find (as Eric K. recently wrote) "errors consistently perpetuated from text to text," either because primary sources (that could correct the error) haven't been consulted or, often, because what the primary sources reveal is just confusion and contradiction and it's easier, and more satisfying, to tell a simple story. 

I've found the same in my ongoing research into the Henry family of Lancaster, Nazareth, etc. In this case, I think many errors of fact and of more general claims have arisen because we look back at WH of Lancaster through the subsequent four generations of Henry gunsmiths--and so assume he was a professional gunsmith in the fashion that they were. But I think a fair reading of the many, many sources that have survive would report that it's unclear as to even how long he practiced as a gunsmith. Eighteenth-century materials never refer to him as a gunsmith, to my knowledge, after 1761 (before which, they typically do). During the 1760s, I think, he was mostly involved in his hardware store (selling iron goods of all sorts) with Joseph Simon, which, for many, also functioned as a "bank" or a source of capital/loans. Many official requests for guns come through WH during the Revolutionary War, of course, but by this time and in these cases (I think) he is acting as an organizer and supplier--not just of arms but of leather, shoes, etc. The family itself began the tendency to see this unbroken chain of "five generations of gunsmiths": stationary that James and Granville Henry used in the late nineteenth century lists the five gunsmiths on its masthead with "1752" as the origin date for William Henry of Lancaster's gunshop. This date, in particular, is invented out of thin air.

Too much to write in this email, obviously. But a small bit of research--that focuses on William Henry, Jr., of Nazareth--can be found here, which tries to reassess many claims that have been "consistently perpetuated from text to text."

        http://www.jacobsburg.org/images/jacobsburg%20record%20summer%202010%20final.pdf

I would very much welcome any additional thoughts, corrections, or modifications. As Bob Smalser recently wrote, research can only be improved by more thorough peer review.

Best wishes to all for a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Scott

[Majorjoel]

An interesting topic Scott. It is a very difficult matter to find enough period source info that will piece together a man's life. Going back over 200 years, what records that were kept dealt mainly with deeds, wills, census, military service, and church events (births, baptisms, marriages, deaths). Some printed advertising on a few later makers is out there but a lot of these papers have been lost due to fire, floods, and poor record keepers. What we find left for us today is very fragmentary if anything at all.  Trying to put the pieces together about how a man lived back then has to be very full of conjecture even if you have found much of the paperwork noted above. You believe William Henry only worked as a gunsmith for a small portion of his life's career. I can honestly tell you that most gunsmiths that I have studied were jacks of many trades. Merchants, shop keepers, and farmers all! They worked doing everything it would take to get by and a very limited few were actually what we today would call successful.  

[Bob Pearl]

I agree with Captjoel. You may find many pieces of furniture signed by a maker who was obviously prolific but is listed in the census as a farmer. Also, family histories were more likely verbal in the early years. My best reality check is the "Grassy Knoll Theory". Caught on film, with sound, with the Warren Commission report, and people still disagree as to how history should be written.
On the other hand, there are people who would rather perpetuate an error rather than listen to a factual presentation.

[spgordon]

Yes, I agree with both comments. The piece I linked to in that first post tries to show this is just the case with William Henry II: for many years, at least according to the Nazareth diary, his primary occupation was joiner and he seemed to request (several times) to "begin again" his trade as stocker, which suggests that (for a time at least) he had abandoned it entirely or severely reduced his activity as a stocker.

His son John Joseph Henry becomes the first "full-time" Henry gunsmith, first in Philadelphia and then, after 1812, at Boulton. (His brother, William Henry III, helps build Boulton but abandons gunmaking relatively early and, generally unsuccessfully, tries to follow other trades/professions.) J. Joseph Henry's descendants (James, Granville) continue as professional gunmakers, and I think our tendency has been to see the earlier figures (WH I, WH II) as involved similarly in the gun trade (instead of recognizing, as Joel and Bob said, that they were involved in many activities and gunmaking may not have even been their "primary" activity or identity).

I would love to be able to know--with reference to William Henry of Lancaster--just how much he did continue to work as a gunsmith in the 1760s. If at all. His brother John (died 1777) was a gunsmith, owned a boring mill (I think), etc. The (still unpublished) minutes of the Lancaster County Committee of Observation (1774-77) frequently lists John Henry among gunsmiths they are communicating with, but never William. My sense, largely speculative, is that William Henry spent most of his time/energy on his iron importing business/hardware store, until the war brought him back to the gun business (in a different capacity: not as a producer but as a organizer/supplier).

There was, at some point, considerable effort expended to discover Henry's "gun factory" near Lancaster: L. D. Saterlee was on this hunt during the late 1930s. I suspect that any factory asssociated with him dates not from when he was an active gunmaker himself but from when he was organizing gun production during the Revolution.

Scott

[Eric Kettenburg]

Thanks for the link!  That is some excellent and scholarly writing.  I very much enjoyed reading your material.

It is blatantly obvious that some of the compendiums of "gunsmith lists" published over the past 30-40 years are lightly-modified rehashings of earlier publications.  You may find some added verification, some new material inserted here and there (and I certainly applaud anyone who publishes for executing at least some degree of research), but much of it seems to be cut-and-paste.  I think the burden is upon the modern researcher to constantly evaluate their sources and run them to ground in a dogged manner; jmho, but I think if you publish, you had better have a thick skin and be prepared to cultivate your work like a growing thing because you will never be able to file it away mentally as "complete!"