Half decorated rifles?

[Loudy]

A friend of mine recently acquired a very nice Snyder County, PA smoothbore longrifle made by gunsmith Samuel H. St. Clair.  The rifle is in it's original flintlock configuration.  This rifle is tastefully decorated in a style typical of rifles from that region.  The gun has several coin silver inlays.  The inlays include four cresent moon inlays set into the forestock of the rifle.  The interesting thing is that these forestock inlays are located only on the right side, or lock side, of the gun.  The only inlay on the left side of the gun is a cresent moon inlay on the cheekrest.  My friend says that he has seen at least three other Upper Susquehanna school rifles decorated (or half decorated) like this.  I have a theory about why the inlays are only located on one side of the gun.  I speculate that the fella that had the gun made liked the idea of having a nicely decorated gun to impress his budies at the local meat shoots, but he was also an experienced woodsman & hunter that knew how difficult it could be to get within effective striking range of skiddish buck, squirrel, or wild turkey.  Shiney inlays on a the forestock of a rifle can easily catch the eye of a game animal in the woods.  A rifle held across the arms with the plain side facing away from the hunter would be much less conspicuous.  Is anyone else familiar with rifles decorated only on one side?  Is this a feature limited to rifles from the Upper Susquehanna school?  Does anyone else have any theories about why a longrifle would be left relatively plain on one side?  I look forward to your replies.   

Mark Loudenslager             

[Majorjoel]

Hi Mark, this is of coarse pure speculation on my part, but there are several reasons a rifle would only have inlays on one side of the forestock. First, it could have left the builders shop unfinished with the buyer in a hurry. The builder could have died and had projects left in his estate only partly done. There could have been damage repairs made with wood replaced on the left side of the forestock leaving out the original inlays. Or the inlays fell off the rifle during it's period of use and the wood sanded and worn smooth covering up the tell tale signs of the inlets. I have never seen or heard of a one sided decorated longrifle. But with all of the various possibilities, one would surely come up sooner or later. 

[T.C.Albert]

Only that side would show in the gun rack?
  Seriously...frugality may have been an impetus.
Ive known farmers that would only pull weeds in the soy bean fields
as far as they could be seen from the road. I assume the basic idea or mind set isnt a new one.
TC

[Don Getz]

Loudy......I can remember my brother Dick had a St.Clair gun, did some restoration, and sold it to, I believe, a family descendent from eastern Pa.    I recently did some restoration on a Mose Specht rifle which had those "half" moon inlays
out along the barrel, on both sides.    I don't think I have ever seen a gun with those inlays on one side only...........Don

[Rich N.]

Until recently, I had never noticed a rifle that had inlays only on one side of the barrel.  Then I saw a George Smith rifle that had originally been flint and it too had inlays only on one side.  That rifle had all of the "bells and whistles" including nice incised carving on the cheek side and a beautiful brass comb piece.  Clearly there were never any inlays on the left side of this early (for the Upper Susquehanna) rifle.  I made a comment to a long time collector friend about this, and he told me this is a feature he has seen occasionally on flint rifles of the  area that were made in the first third of the 19th century.  Since Smith lived in New Berlin, Pa. and St. Clair also had some connection to Samuel Baum who was from New Berlin, I wonder if there might be a connection - although I never noticed this on a Baum rifle (until Dick pointed out the one in the library).  I did notice that the barrel keys went through the inlays.  As I said, this is a feature I never noticed before, but it is a feature I will look for whenever I see an Upper Susquehanna flint rifle in the future.

Rich

[mr. no gold]

The Samuel Baum rifle shown in the Library, (second gun of the three listed), is a fairly early  piece and if you look closely, you can see that the half moon inlays appear only on the right side of the forearm. The left side has only the heads of the barrel keys. It appears that the inlays back up, or form a stop, for the barrel keys. The third gun, on the other hand has inlays on both sides and the keys are located within the silver. I, too, wonder why?
Dick 

[Fullstock longrifle]

Good eye Dick!  I never noticed that feature on the Baum rifle until you pointed it out, it's the first time I've ever seen a rifle with inlays only on one side of the forearm, I guess I'll pay closer attention from now on.  By the way, I just spent the last ten minutes looking at the Baum Rifles in the library, old Baum made one heck of a nice gun didn't he.   

FK

[Lucky R A]

      A friend of mine has a Jos. Angstadt rifle that only has foreend inlays on the sideplate side of the rifle.  Since a lot of the Upper Susquehanna riflesmiths came from the Berks Co. area could there be a connection?  Has anyone seen other Berks Co. rifles so decorated? 

[Don Getz]

I doubt that you will ever see a Joe Long with inlays only on one side.   Since he preferred to use a "hook" type underlug,
he hid his barrel pins under inlays.............Don

[Glenn]

I doubt that you will ever see a Joe Long with inlays only on one side.   Since he preferred to use a "hook" type underlug,
he hid his barrel pins under inlays.............Don

Don ... Are we talking about Jospeh Long of Snyder County here?

I'm wanting to do one of his rifles but don't have much information, history, and/or photos on him.

[Loudy]

Thanks for the great replies.  I've looked at the photos of that Sam Baum "Luna" rifle a dozen times and never took notice of the inlays (or escutions) on the forestock.  Thank you Rich for your bringing this rifle to our attention.  What a great resource the "Library" has become!  This rifle certainly supports Rich's theory regarding a connection to Sam Baum's shop.  I also have no doubt that the Snyder County (Upper Susquehanna) gunsmiths were greatly influenced by the gunsmiths of Berks County.   Many of the gunsmiths in and around New Berlin, PA had family roots back in Berks County.  I like T.C.'s suggestion that these gunsmiths may have put these inlays on just one side of the gun to be frugal with limited resources.  Function winning out over fashion.  Perhaps it was just decorative restrain by a conservative artist?

Mark Loudenslager 

[Buck]

Loudy,
There is a rifle in the library by H Clements, this only has escutcheons on the lock side of the rifle also.

[Rich N.]

I had an epiphany this morning.  While looking at a S. Miller rifle that was for sale at our local antique co-op, I noticed that the barrel keys that were used by Miller were very much like the keys George Smith used on the rifle I talked about in an earlier post.  While the Miller rifle is a nice gun, it has no inlays on either side of the forearm, only the ends of the barrel keys are visable.  Where the heads of the keys went into the forearm wood there was obvious wear from removing and reinserting the keys over the years.  Is it possible that considering inlays on only one side of the forearm, the inlays acted as both stops and wear plates for the barrel keys?  Since all the keys were inserted from the same side, there was no need to put an inlay on the other side as it would have had no purpose beyond decoration. 

As a side note, the owner of the rifle told me that he was sure that Miller spent some of his working life in the Upper Susquehanna region.  I only have information on him as a Lebanon County gunsmith, but his guns sure do fit into the profile of the Upper Susquehanna.

Rich

[Shreckmeister]

Rich,  I think your epiphany is spot on.   I also believe the escutcheons
were placed on the rifles to prevent wear from the insertion and removal of
the keys.

[Don Getz]

Rich.........I too would like to know more about "S. Miller".   Almost everyone refers to him as living in Berks County, and I
guess there are records showing that he did live and work there.   However, when you look at a Miller rifle, they normally
have a that double "horn" side plate and a trigger guard similar to a Baum.   I would like to find out who brought the
architecture from Berks County to the Upper Susquehanna region?   At least it appears that is what happened.   The guns
from both of these regions are very similar architecturally, roman nose stocks, etc......similar, but different.   Who were the
earliest builders in the Snyder, Union, Northumberland county area?   There are a lot of gunbuilders from this area, am
curious as to started the architecture so commonly found in this area?....Don

[Shreckmeister]

What is the earliest known rifle from this region?