William Antes

[spgordon]

On 1 May 1778 William Antes reported that he had repaired "about 500 stand of arms"--361 of which were sent to the "rear of the Army" and the remainder to "Militia camp." Here's that letter:

Antes delivered these 361 muskets, etc., on 6 March 1778:

Yesterday I came across an account of Antes's work as Sub-Lieutenant of Philadelphia County:

This account records the funds Antes paid out for various things--and, at the bottom, includes two payments to himself. The second one is dated 27 September 1777 in which he is paid £32 for "cleaning & repairing 428 stands of arms."

Do you think these are referring to the same batch of arms and repair work? He gets them in September 1777 and delivers them in March 1778? The thing that makes me wonder whether they are the same arms is that it would be odd for him to have been paid in September 1777 for repairs that he did not complete/deliver until March 1778. Could it be possible that he got one batch of 428 muskets (for which he was paid in September 1777) and then another batch, nearly 500 muskets, which he delivered in March 1778.

There's a lot more interesting about this letter--including his note near the end about arms sent to Frederick Antes and then taken by Philadelphia County Lieutenant William Henry (not William Henry of Lancaster) to the Allentown repair shop. He reports this because he has been asked to enumerate the "public arms that have come within my district."

A. Where is Frederick Antes at this time? I thought he was in Northumberland County or some place far from Philadelphia. I guess that's later, because the 161 muskets sent to Frederick Antes had to have been sent to him in Philadelphia County--or else there's no reason for William Antes to be reporting on them.

B. It is interesting that the Allentown arms factory is--to some degree--still thought of as part of the responsibility of Philadelphia County, since that is where it originated until the operation had to flee the city. I believe the Lieutenant of Philadelphia County visits there at some point, as if, even though the factory is now in Northampton County, it is still his responsibility....

[spgordon]

Actually, there is another possibility for the 27 September 1777 amount that I should have realized.

It's possible--quite possible, actually--that Antes is recording there funds he laid out to others (not himself) to clean & repair arms. There are lots of these accounts from the County Sub-Lieutenants and nearly all of them include a charge, at the bottom, for repairing arms. None of the other County Sub-Lieutenants were doing this themselves (they weren't gunsmiths). They were recording funds they laid out to others to have this done. Here's another example from Bucks County (there are dozens of similar ones); notice the last line, just as in the Antes account:

So ... it is quite possible that the September 1777 charge involves repair work that Antes recruited but did not do himself. The later work--the 361 arms he mentions in the letter--he sure seems to have done himself.

[DaveM]

Interesting Scott.  That time period seens to coincide with when Washington’s troops fled Phikadelphia and camped at Valley Forge.  Maybe the arms were collected to replenish these trooos in Spring 1778?

[spgordon]

Interesting Scott.  That time period seens to coincide with when Washington’s troops fled Phikadelphia and camped at Valley Forge.  Maybe the arms were collected to replenish these trooos in Spring 1778?

I've been poring through reel after reel of microfilms for two summers now, keeping track of all the information (accounts, receipts, letters) about arms collection and repair in Pennsylvania. (Last week I found a couple more receipts from Gonter's work, pretty much like those others.)

It seems like most of the collecting of arms--at least the most urgent arm collecting--occurs in summer 1776, as Pennsylvania is trying to outfit companies that will eventually fight in Long Island and New York.

But there's a lot of repairing going on at the state factories for many years. One of these factories is established at French Creek in February 1776 and is removed to Hummelstown in 1777 (when the British take Philadelphia). The other begins in Philadelphia and is removed to Allentown around the same time. These factories are closed by 1779.

[VP]

Scott,
A couple questions.
Could you possible explain the what the different columns in the main headings mean in Antes and Gill's accounts?  I can't seem to make any sense of what Continental, Exchange etc mean.

I am also trying to understand the value difference between Antes and Gill's accounts in their last line of the statements. Antes was 32 pounds and Gill's was 287 pounds. I understand he bought 23 muskets, bayonets, etc but the charges seem really high unless he had repaired a huge number of arms. Is there any more information available?

Lastly, when there is mention of the arms factories at Hummelstown, French Creek and Allentown , is there ever any listing of the gunsmiths that work at these places?

VP

[spgordon]

Van: These documents are from the late 1780s, and they are trying to account for unpaid debts to the County Lieutenants. So those columns are an attempt to figure out just how much is owed them--with an exchange from one currency to another plus interest. So the columns indicate Continental pounds or dollars, then some sort of exchange rate, then the principal owed (as a result of all those calculations), and then how much interest is due given that a decade has passed since the County Lieutenants laid out the funds. I haven't tried to figure out any particular calculation or an amount owed, but I think that's what the accountant is trying to specify.

I think the difference between the amount owed Antes and the amount owed Gill just means that Gill repaired--or, more accurately, paid others to repair--a lot more arms. Notice that in addition to the arms purchases that you mentioned, the charge on that Gill account says: "also for repairing and cleaning arms." Lots and lots and lots of county lieutenants struggled to get arms in repair at this time. So this just means that Antes laid out a bit of money for that and Gill (in Bucks County) laid out a lot of money. At some point, both men would have submitted detailed accounts of all the work that they had paid for--and these accounts sort of summarize those other receipts or records. You can see in the Antes document that the charges are numbered on the left-hand side: there would have been vouchers (or other documents) that corresponded to each of those numbers.

I don't believe we have learned--yet--who the gunsmiths who worked at the Allentown or French Creek/Hummelstown factories were. We know the folks who "ran" the places: John Tyler and Ebenezer Cowell and James Carter and Peter Dehaven. But we don't know who they employed at these factories. Ebenezer Cowell built the Allentown factory in October 1777 to accommodate sixteen workmen. One of the returns that I found last summer that summarizes all the facility’s work from 15 October 1777 to 27 January 1779 documents that Tyler and his men received 7 pistols, 83 rifles, 2,965 muskets, 2,522 bayonets and “delivered out” nearly the same. So they worked on a lot of arms!

Eric Kettenberg has written the best history of the Allentown factory (http://www.erickettenburg.com/allentown-1777-1779.html) --though these microfilms at the state archives contain a lot of additional information. I believe Eric and others would greatly love to know the names of the gunsmiths these managers employed!!

[VP]

Scott,

Appreciate the reply and the knowledgable information. I will have to put more effort into the calculations to see if they make more sense now that I know what they are about.

VP