The Atchison Hawken also has some mother of pearl inlays in a nautical motif and is nicely engraved. The Hawken brothers were classically trained Maryland gunsmiths after all. The Museum has the name of the steamboat "Amaranth" misspelled as "Aramanthe". There were actually a number of Amaranths, one of which was mentioned by Samuel Clemens as being in a Mississippi River drag race with another boat that blew up with terrible loss of life in the effort. Such was the ego of a fledgling America that steamboat captains apparently routinely put the lives and limbs of their passengers, as well as their cargo, at risk in impromptu races. Those riveted iron boilers could only take so much pressure, which was sometimes less than what their captains thought they could. The amaranth is a flower and was also the name of Atchison's wife, a French beauty, whose grandfather may have been the engineer who built Fort de Chartres. I have a picture of Captain Atchison, but was never able to get family permission to publish it. Interestingly, there were three Hawken rifles all owned by St. Louis magnates who were associated by marriage. Moses White (also a steam boat captain) & Captain Atchison both married daughters of Ferdinand Kennett (lead mine owner and operator of the St. Louis Shot Tower at one point) and all three had Hawken rifles built. The Kennett rifle is in the Museum of the Ozarks, the White rifle is in private hands, and the Atchison rifle is in the Cody Museum as has been mentioned. To my knowledge none of the owners ever went West, so I assume the rifles were essentially status symbols. I did quite a bit of research on the Atchison rifle a few years back with the intent to write an article about it, but never did.
Roger B.
