Carolina Trade Gun 19th Century??

[54ball]

 I've been studying the Carolina gun real heavy lately. All I can say is that it has to be one of the more fascinating guns in history.

 I know it could date very early possible the late 17th Century. I've read where relics have been found on the supposed Queen Anne's Revenge possibly dating the type to 1718.

 Most often it is considered a mid 18th Century gun. It's known that there were examples at the Williamsburg Armory in 1776, the famous blue guns; and that they were possibly made into the 1780s.

 On another forum Tom Patton had some interesting information about the Carolina Gun.

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In 1753 another group of 400 guns which first used the term"Northwest" to denote a type of barrel for Indian guns and is the first recorded instance of 2 distinct types of guns,"Chiefs" and "common" guns.

The Board of ordnance bought no more guns{ except for 8 "large fowling pieces" 1737-1738 with only one known surviving example}until a large group of Ordnance sponsored Indian guns were made by 18 Birmingham contractors who delivered Chief's and Common guns,"rifles" and pistols intended for gifts to the Canadian and other British-allied Indins in the Gulf Coast area of the Southern United States during the War of 1812.Each of these closely followed the commercial types being made at the time A total of 26,801 guns were made between 1813 and 1816 most of them arriving too late for the war.
In addition the Brirish Gun Barrel Control Act of 1855 still included "Carolina" guns in the small arms category.It is clear then that the guns sent over for sale or trade as well as Indian gifts were classified as Carolina Guns and that the archealogical remains of these guns used by Indians were classified as Type G.

.I do agree that the Carolina / Type G guns are somewhat earlier than the Northwest guns which seem to derive from English common muskets of the early 18th century.So far as I know the earliest dated Northwest gun is one found in a burial at Rock Island in Lake Michigan and which had a lock plate dated [17]62.




Tom,
I edited some of your quote due to length.

 Here is the Carolina excerpt from the 1855 British Gun Proof Law.

British Gun Barrel Proof Act of 1855

Third Class-Comprising every Description of single-barreled Birding and Fowling Pieces for firing small shot ; and also those known by the Names of Danish, Dutch, Carolina, and Spanish

 Did the Carolina pattern exist in the 1850s or was it slang in the gun industry of the time like "topper", long tom, or single barrel today for a single shot shot gun?

 In May 1814 Maj. Nicolls of the Royal Marines landed at Prospect Bluff on the Apalachicola River with 300 Marines and a large number of muskets. I have read as many as ten thousand. This was to arm and train the Indians who were fighting against the Americans during the War of 1812.  Fort Nicolls on the Apalachicola River  became known as the Negro Fort after the British abandoned the Fort in 1815.
  In 1816 the fort was attacked by American forces and a hot shot landed in the magazine, blowing up the fort. It is said there were as many as 2500 muskets in the magazine.  

 It would be interesting to see what the relic record reveals at the The Negro Fort Sight. I wonder if any of these "muskets" brought by the British in 1814 were military muskets or trade guns. I thought I had found some good information in a  recent dig report. Unfortunately the archeologists were more concerned with Indian pottery than what they refereed to as thousands of pieces of military paraphernalia.

 Do you think the Carolina Gun may have been produced as late as 1813-16?

[Levy]

54ball,  I just got logged back on by Dennis today after a hiatus of a couple of years.  I don't know if that makes you lucky or not.  I was fortunate to have worked on a number of Carolina Gun parts during my 40 years with the Florida Dept. of State cleaning and preserving artifacts recovered from land and sea.  I would agree that they(Carolina Guns) date from at least the early 1700's until the 1780's.  Before I retired we inventoried all the guns and gun parts in the State's collections (archaeological) and if I remember correctly, there were over 800 individual gun parts.  I do remember a couple of Type G sideplate loops that were recovered from the Spanish 1715 Plate Fleet wrecks off Ft. Pierce, FL.  It is possible that they were intrusive artifacts and not from the Fleet.  I'm familiar with the Type G sideplate that was found on the Queen Anne's Revenge (1718).  I consulted with them on a number of artifacts from that wreck.  In 2005 a river diver recovered a good portion of a Carolina Gun (Type G) from the Suwannee River.  The barrel was complete in length (46 1/2")and the lock was still attached, along with the stock from the wrist escutcheon to just beyond the first rr pipe.  The buttplate and the triggerguard were missing.  the wrist escutcheon, sideplate and (1) rr pipe were attached.  The brass rear sight and the brass front sight were found in the material washed off with a spray nozzle by the finder.  Too much metal had migrated into the wooden stock to allow identification by the U of F.  The piece was loaded and when the ball was removed, wadding of what looked like palm or palmetto fiber was removed an saved.  I measured the bore at 24 gauge.  The rear/breech portion of the barrel appeared to be made of a denser grade of wrought iron, while the remaining portion to the muzzle was loose and stringy.  There was a weld seam between the two.  Gary Brumfield was very interested in that fact.  The lock was signed WILLIAMS in front of the cock.  I think Williams contracted for trade guns beginning in 1714 or 15.  He died around 1738 and his son and then their widows continued on with contracts until 1745.  I'm writing this from memory, so don't beat me up too bad if some of it is off.  Carolina Guns have been discussed on the forum before and a search might turn up something.  I thought the barrel dimensions on this one were unusual.  I think the breech diameter was slightly bigger than 1 1/8".  It tapered rapidly down to a small diameter (Ed Rayl made me a copy of it).  Fred Miller put it in a piece of wood for me.  The rr pipe was very thin brass and the ribbing was stamped or pressed in to add some stiffness.  The tab on the pip went all the way into the barrel channel and was splayed out (held in by the barrel).  This is a trait that I 've seen on other early marine type muskets.  The wrist escutcheon was pretty plain, with nails on the back of it that were cast as part of the escutcheon.  The brass sideplate/serpent had the extra teat on the loop at the rear.  The engraving was unfortunately eroded off by the current and sand.

I worked on a lot of artifacts from the Negro Fort on the Apalachicola River (8Fr 64).  The gun parts were British military musket parts mostly.  Lots of buttplates, sideplates, triggerguards and rr pipes (brass).  There was one piece of a sideplate that didn't look military and had GIRAD on the backside (possibly French?).  When the magazine blew up, people and guns went to pieces.  When the military landed, folks were walking around stunned and in a daze.  Seems I remember that a barrel was found wrapped around a tree.  it was a State Park for many years and was turned over to the US Forestry Service while I was still working.  I don't remember any Type G parts from there, but surely there were some trade guns there of a later type.  I apologize for the length of the post.  James Levy     

[jrb]

James Hanson's Encyclopedia of Trade Goods-Firearms of the Fur Trade 2011, has a lot of info and photos.

Speaking of about 1720 , he say's, "So many guns for the Old South were passing through the London Proof House that the British Rules of Proof were amended to include the term "Carolina Gun" as describing a light fowler intended for shipment to Carolina".
 
"In 1753 in response to the growing French presence-and threat-in the Ohio Country, the Board of Ordinance was again tasked with procuring four hundred fusils for the Iroquois. As Bailey notes, this contract is especially significant, because it used the term "northwest" for the first time to describe a new type of trade gun...".

"While this is the earliest mention of the N W gun, the Board of Ordinance was surely ordering a pattern already in regular commerce to the Indians of the Great Lakes region, and probably elsewhere....."

Apparently, He believes the type g Carolina style ended being produced around 1750.
"Around 1690-1720 the serpent sideplate was modified so that there is a graceful, open coil between the middle and rear lock screws.This pattern, called the "Type G" by Hamilton, survived until about 1750".

He says the serpent sideplates with cast scales on the northwest gun likely date to 1748 at the latest. He shows photos of a Northwest gun for for the Hudson's Bay Company stamped Wilson 51 on the lock and it has the cast serpent with scales.

[Levy]

Today I logged on to the Internet and on the front page that comes up was an article about treasure being found on the Whydah by Barry Clifford (the salvager).  the wreck of the Whydah (a pirate ship) dates to 1717.  Accompanying the article was an x-ray of a conglomerate that obviously includes a flintlock pistol (I clicked on the picture and it got bigger).  The x-ray shows the eared buttcap, wrist escutcheon, triggerguard and what appears to be a serpent sideplate.  It is hard to tell, but it looks like it might have a round loop toward the rear of the sideplate like a Carolina Gun (Type G).  James Levy

[James Rogers]

Those stylings were quite popular on earlier pieces and continued further in time on cheaper guns.