William Reid was born in Virginia in or about 1767, and moved to South Carolina with his parents and siblings sometime prior to the 1790 census. His father bought land in Spartanburg County in 1792. If William followed the practice of the time and served an apprenticeship at a young age, he would have begun his apprenticeship about 1783 while still living in Virginia. By the time he moved to South Carolina, Reid was about age 25 and would have been old enough to be working with another gunsmith or to open his own shop.
In any event, by the time William purchased his own land in Spartanburg County in 1794, at age 27, he was making guns in his own shop. He worked as a gunsmith in Spartanburg and lived a very productive and long life, serving as a magistrate, justice of the peace, member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, Commissioner of Schools, etc. He continued as an active gunsmith until a ripe old age. In the 1850 census of Spartanburg County, he is listed at age 82 as a gunsmith! In the 1860 census, at age 92, he is listed as a farmer. The date of his death appears to between November 1860 and June 1862.
The late Dr. Harley MacIntosh, the dean of South Carolina collectors, referred to William Reid as “probably the foremost gunsmith South Carolina ever produced during the “Golden Age” of the Kentucky rifle – 1790-1830.” We can only speculate that he must have influenced other gunsmiths, not only in South Carolina but in the surrounding states during his perhaps 60 year career as a gunsmith.
