Please help identify this rifle maker - Lehigh? Allentown?

[jdm]

Something like this.

[Eric Kettenburg]

Jim I don't think he's talking abotu the so-called "prayer hole" that often is found running up from the forward wall of the mortise.  He's talking about the weird hole, or partial hole, that is usually shallower than the remainder of the mortise and is always along the lower side at the rear corner.  Maybe 1/4" to 5/16" diamter off the top of my head.

I have no explanation for it, but I've seen it on quite a few rifles.  But no explanation.  It's almost always shallower than the remainder of the mortise.

Tommy - the two frequently used released in that region were either the long spring with the big 90degree or so bend that is just hammer driven in up through the forward portion of the mortise, or the release as you mention which is is piece that outwardly looks liek the spring w/ the large head, but is typically riveted to the inside of the buttplate or is tacked into the underside of the butt at the end grain (head riveted on afterwards, so buttplate can not be removed) and is basically just an inverted "L" shaped catch with a simple spring that is typically driven into the wood end grain to make it springy.  I've made a few that way but I always rivet them to buttplate so the buttplate can be removed easily if necessary.  I've seen both types - long spring and rivet type - used by the same maker, so I have no idea why one would choose one over the other.

[TommyG]

Thanks Eric.  Makes sense now.  Unless you actually get to take one of these apart, there is really no way of knowing for sure exactly how the riveted one was executed.

[DaveM]

Here is the profile of the Herman Rupp from 1809. It does look slimmer and smaller than the kindig rifle.  What a puzzle! I feel like the kindig rifle is early, and per your research Eric seems to be an earlier maker - yet some details like the wrist scroll engraving, and incise lines along the patchbox make me feel it is the same maker as the one I pictured in my OP, yet I get why there seemed to be two seprate guys. And yet the toe line of the kindig appears similar to the 1809. I assume the 1809 Herman rifle is contemporary with the first rifles John Rupp II would have put out.  Sheesh! What are the odds that the only rifles with incised lines along the lid were only by two different guys named John Rupp? But maybe others used these, I don’t have enough experience to know. It is interesting that the hinge on the kindig patch box extends beyond the lid edges, making the incise lines function almost like sideplates.

Below is the scroll on the barrel of the OP and the one on the kindig. I know it is a common design, but less so in this folksy area.

[DaveM]

One more detail from the rifle in my OP. From a short distance away, visually the wavy lines along the patchbox lid look smoothly engraved. But up close, they are really a series of short straight cuts. I wonder how this compares to how the wavy lines long the kindig patch box were made? Did most makers make their wavy lines this way?



Thanks for your patience if you are reading this thread through my too many questions!

[Eric Kettenburg]

Dave. the incised decoration on the Kindig Rupp you illustrate (forward of the box) above is a very common regional trait.  Molls used it also, and others in the region, some unsigned.  I don't know if its supposed to represent something but there are quite a few variations of it found on multiple pieces.

[Mike Brooks]

Late to the party. Nifty.

[DaveM]

I found these photos online of a Herman Rupp rifle on display at an Ohio museum. Related to the discussion of domed vs not domes with respect to time period, this rifle appears to be a restock - but the parts such as the barrel and patchbox and sideplate, look like the original Rupp gun they came from may be quite early. The signature looks very early. It is interesting that the sideplate - assuming t was original to the Rupp, seems to predate the late evolved arrowhead sideplate type the Rupps used.  It appears that the barrel has a legit date of 1784.


















short poem on honesty

[TommyG]

Those are some very interesting pics Dave.  To my untrained eye, it looks like some Lehigh, some Lancaster.  The trigger is interesting as well, looks like a DST with the rear set missing.

[DaveM]

TommyG, good observation about the DST, I think you are right.

Restock or not, this is an amazing gun! Seems like this would fall into a pretty elite small group of dated signed rifles prior to 1787’s Neihart. I this the earliest signed dated Lehigh rifle?

Almost certainly the patchbox was from Rupp’s original gun, and the probability that the early sideplate was also from that gun seems like it would be very high. If this was restocked in say 1840 it is hard to imagine that the maker had more than one 1780’s ish rifle to take parts from! I assume this would show this Lehigh patchbox finial style was developed by 1784. I would love to see more detailed photos.

[jdm]

I am in the restock camp. Original DST on early Lehigh are rare . The side plates on the box, I believe are not Rupps work . Patch box release would probably be on the end of the but plate and not on the top . Trigger guard does not appear to be Rupp and likely a replacement. Nice barrel.  Jim

[Eric Kettenburg]

Wasn't that rifle posted here maybe a year or two ago?  I know I already have those same pictures and I'm positive someone posted them here. 

I think the only original parts on this restock are the barrel and the central 2-pc box, and that's about it.  The lock is a buggered reconversion but looks too late for 1784 (imho) and I really don't think that sideplate was on the original rifle.  Not saying the original had to be an arrowback plate but I just strongly doubt this sideplate.

Herman was old enough to have potentially been trained, or perhaps just beginning to work at the outbreak of the War.  But honestly, and it's just speculation on my part, I don't think either Herman or John were gunstocking until after the War.  John was too young anyway.

I really, REALLY wish there was more documentable information on who was working at the repair shop/shops in Allentown 1777-1779 because I strongly believe it was after that point, and the closure of the War, that things really took off in that area.

[Hungry Horse]

 I have an old gun I alway attributed to Lehigh when it came to origin, but it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong. It does have some small characteristics that coincide with your gun. It has the same bars engraved on both ends of the sights on top of the barrel. Much of the brass inlays, and the top of the patch box are held on with brass nails instead of screws. The type of patch box hinge appears to be very similar.
 My gun has a triggerguard just like yours, but the trigger is like yours a simple trigger, but it is made of brass and has a fancy cut web on the back of the trigger pad. I did find some picture of a similar made rifle with many of the same features that was signed by a gunsmith named Baer from Lehigh.

Hungry Horse

[DaveM]

Hungry Horse I’d be interested in photos of your rifle if you care to post some, and any other lehigh style rifles. I am very late to the party in studying Lehigh / Allentown rifles, I am only catching up!

As for the revwar arsenals / shops it seems like there is a lack of correspondence regarding these facilities compared to other maker/contract correspondence. Was that intentional to keep these locations as secret as possible? Or have the records just not turned up yet? Like Allentown’s, the one at Lancaster seems mysterious.

[spgordon]

As for the revwar arsenals / shops it seems like there is a lack of correspondence regarding these facilities compared to other maker/contract correspondence. Was that intentional to keep these locations as secret as possible? Or have the records just not turned up yet? Like Allentown’s, the one at Lancaster seems mysterious.

I don't think there's a "lack" of material regarding the Allentown facility compared to other facilities? There is lots of material regarding the Allentown facility, including regular returns that indicate precisely how many arms were sent there and how many (repaired) were disbursed from there; we know lots about who operated it, when it was built, and when it was disbanded.

So if we're comparing maker/contractor correspondence with the Allentown facility, say: we have comparable info, if not more. We know information about who operated the facility, what they were paid, what their work involved.  What we don't know, as Eric said, are the names of the men who worked there (who worked under the heads of the factory).

It's worth thinking about how where such information would have been kept. Returns of incoming and outgoing arms survive because they were sent to central authorities in Philadelphia. But payments to local workers (if they were local: these workers may have been relocated from Philadelphia, as the factory itself was)?: receipts would probably have been produced and saved, if they were saved, by the local managers. So what happened to Ebenezer Cowell's and John Tyler's personal papers? Who knows. Very, very, very few batches of personal papers by such "minor" figures survive today.

I suspect it would be impossible to recover a list of workers in almost any factory setting in early America, unless--miraculously--the materials from the shop happen to survive and those materials involve payments to workers (instead of just ledgers of customers or daybooks of daily work). Very, very, very few merchant's ledgers or craftsmen's ledgers survive. The ones that do enable us, sometimes, to reconstruct a whole world of workers, suppliers, customers, etc. But without such materials: total mystery.

[DaveM]

Scott, your thoughts about how specific folks could be identified made me think of a few instances where documentation survived about drafted soldiers who provided substitutes for themselves while they stayed home to help make guns. Henry Hahn and John Reiffschneider in Reading were examples, and the receipt survived showing that they furnished substitutes. But these sort of records seem rare also and the receipts are not always specific as to the reason. Hahn showed a copy of this receipt when he requested a pension.

Another possibility would be statements made about particular men in pension request records.

I did look up Herman Rupp’s pension dcumentation. Interestingly, he served three years as a private in the PA militia, then served one year as a teamster. Two of the men who provided testimony said he Rupp had his own team while he was a teamster. This may indicate he had no involvement in making guns during the war since he served a full 4 years.

[spgordon]

Scott, your thoughts about how specific folks could be identified made me think of a few instances where documentation survived about drafted soldiers who provided substitutes for themselves while they stayed home to help make guns. Henry Hahn and John Reiffschneider in Reading were examples, and the receipt survived showing that they furnished substitutes. But these sort of records seem rare also and the receipts are not always specific as to the reason. Hahn showed a copy of this receipt when he requested a pension.

Yes, very true. But these men did not (I don't think?) work in a factory setting?

It is relatively easy, in many cases, to identify many gunsmiths who produced or repaired arms or from whom authorities procured arms, because these people were dealing directly with (getting paid by) county or provincial or continental authorities. Those sorts of records often survive. William Henry--at this time no longer a gunsmith but rather a high-level procurement officer--kept records of dozens and dozens of gunsmiths from whom he purchased arms. Payments to particular gunsmiths (including Dickert in Lancaster or Samuel Sarjant in Carlisle) are so large that it is evident that they were employing large numbers of "hands." It is this next level of receipts--Dickert's or Sarjant's with the "hands" they employed--that seem not to survive.

Similar with the Allentown factory. Tyler said he had sixteen "hands" employed; but we do not know who they were or what skills they had (what tasks they engaged in). Just as we would need Dickert's accounts with the men he employed, or Sarjant's with the men he employed--none of which we have--we would need Tyler's with the men he employed.

I suppose a pension application could say "I worked in the factory at Allentown"--that would be something ...