Samuel A. Hicks. Hicks is a previously unknown
gunsmith, who is listed in Monroe County, Tennessee, in the 1850 census;
and in Meigs County, Tennessee, in the 1860 & 1870 census. He is always
list as a blacksmith. He was born in Tennessee, in 1825 or 1826.
This rifle has a 47 inch barrel.
Comments:
These late Tennessee rifles are fascinating due to their architecture and mountings that often make them look earlier their date. This gun retains an attractive, tall butt with strong comb line, a nicely molded cheekpiece, and good iron work with a guard that looks earlier than the "1886" barrel date. It's a good looking Tennessee rifle with a great barrel mark...no better way to learn of a previously unknown gunmaker than through a signed, dated, relatively attractive rifle displaying characteristics of the area from which it supposedly came. It's an interesting rifle that makes a valuable contribution to the virtual museum...I love southern guns, and I'd still have a difficult time dating this one as late as its barrel date if I didn't know the year of manufacture...probably would have dated it in the late 1850s. Nice rifle, interesting details.
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It is good to see a rifle from a previously-unidentified maker. And these late Southern rifles can be very interesting. Store-bought ammunition and breach-loading rifles were hard to come by in the cash-poor South of the Reconstruction years. Folks made do with the old ways out of necessity.
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A great, late iron gun from the south which pretty well typifies, (in my mind at least), what a 'Walter Cline' gun from the southern hills should look like in the latter part of the 1800s. Wonderful to see such a gun that has actual markings on it as to who made it, and this one even has a date. Hard to beat that! You can imagine the maker building this in the smokehouse or in an old, out building without any difficulty.
