Samuel Dexter Hinsdale was born in Greenfield, Massachusetts, June 3, 1816, to an old New England family that had arrived there in the 1600's. He was apprenticed to learn the gunsmith's trade in his native state (Perhaps from Martin Smith in Greenfield?). After completing his apprenticeship, he was urged in letters from his older brother, George C. Hinsdale, to go west as he had. George Hinsdale had settled in Bureau County, Illinois in 1831, before the Blackhawk War. He had walked here from his home in Massachusetts and filed a claim on land, soon after his arrival. Samuel D. Hinsdale, the gunsmith, arrived in Bureau County in 1838, and opened a gunsmith shop in Princeton within the first week after his arrival. His shop and residence were located on the northeast corner of Pleasant and Company Streets from at least as early as 1842 until his death, December 21, 1875. Rifles made by Hinsdale are usually walnut fullstocks, with New England architecture. Most have full patchboxes, made without side rails, as are typical of New England-made longrifles. An ad placed by Hinsdale in a local newspaper in 1849, advised: "Emigrants to California and Oregon will find it for their interest to call on the subscriber, and purchase one of his superior Oregon Rifles". This rifle certainly seems to fit that description, a no-frills working gun, made to go west.
Although Hinsdale continued the gunsmithing business for his entire life, he began to make and install farm pumps in about 1863, and it eventually became his primary business. A swedish-born gunsmith named Swen. J. Lindbärg, was employed by Hinsdale from his arrival in 1852, until he opened his own shop in 1857.
