Swiss gunsmiths with a link to early Pennsylvania

[mkeen]

Last year I posted a question on this forum about information on Swiss gunsmiths. Joe Puleo was kind enough to post a response and supply some information. Thanks Joe. That information opened the door to the sources I needed for an article I was preparing. The resulting article appeared in the October 2010 issue of Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage. I'll give a short synopsis of the article as it applies to Swiss gunsmiths and early Pennsylvania.

Hans Rudolf Bundeli arrived in Pennsylvania late in 1703 from Bern, Switzerland. In 1704 he purchased 100 acres of land in Germantown but sold it four months later at a profit of 33%. By 1708 he purchased ten acres in Cheltenham Township outside Philadelphia. In 1704 a traveling Swiss promoter of land deals, Franz Ludwig Michel, reported he had meet the son of the gunsmith Bundeli. Who was his father? As it turns out Hans Rudolf came from quite a family of gunsmiths. His father, David, worked in the Zeughaus or armory in Bern and made ordinary rifles and swivel-breech (Wender) guns. The grandfather Abraham Bundeli was also a gunsmith working at the armory in Bern. He became a master gunsmith in 1648. Hans Rudolf's maternal grandfather, Rudolf Dick, was also a gunsmith working in Bern. Numerous gunsmiths apprenticed with Rudolf Dick and two of his sons, David and Hans Rudolf became gunsmiths. David Dick also worked in the armory in Bern, but in 1680 moved to Kassel, Germany.  His brother, Hans Rudolf, also moved to Kassel, Germany and from 1692 to 1719 worked as the court gunsmith in Kassel. Hans Rudolf Dick is credited with making regular guns and Windbüchsen or air guns. Four of Hans Rudolf Dick's sons became gunsmiths in Kassel. So Hans Rudolf Bundeli of Pennsylvania had both grandfathers, father, two uncles and four cousins who were gunsmiths.

No evidence has been found that Hans Rudolf Bundeli was also a gunsmith. Why the interest in Hans Rudolf Bundeli? In October 1710, Hans Rudolf Bundeli was instrumental in helping a group of recently arrived Mennonites acquire land in what would become Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. One of the members of that group was Martin Meylin. Yes, that Martin Meylin, the so called progenitor of the Pennsylvania rifle. Is there any connection between Bundeli and Martin Meylin? That is unknown at this time but is under investigation. Just a note, in most Pennsylvania records Bundeli appears as John Rudolph Bundeli or Bondeli.

Mart Keen

[smylee grouch]

This is interesting and thank you for doing the research.   Gary

[Dphariss]

Very interesting
He was likely a gunsmith. It was hard to get into trades and he definitely had an "in".
Unless he lacked talent he was likely a gunsmith.
But this is a guess.
Dan

[mkeen]

Very interesting
He was likely a gunsmith. It was hard to get into trades and he definitely had an "in".
Unless he lacked talent he was likely a gunsmith.
But this is a guess.
Dan

Hans Rudolph Bundeli arrived in America when he was 19. His baptism date was January 20, 1684 in Bern, Switzerland. At almost 20 years of age, would he have had enough time to finish an apprenticeship to be a gunsmith?

Mart Keen

[dyted]

I am also interested in early Swiss colonial gunsmiths, in particularly Jacob Dubbs Jr. This man arrived at the Great Swamp in 1734. He was from an old prominent armourer/gunsmith family in Zurich and his guns show all the artistic components early on that the later Lehigh Valley school guns exhibit. My guess is this school/region is artistically Swiss Huegenot.

[grabenkater]

I am headed to Zurich in May, to visit my family there. If anyone would care to point me in the right direction, I would be happy to make contacts or even research on that end.

The good thing is Ich spreche Deutsch 

[dyted]

    Wonderful! I will send you the info on the dubbs family they were from Altofern, Zurich and very prominent they even were granted their own coat of arms. I'll get my stuff all together for you, but it may be easier to send it by post

[whitebear]

Welcome to the forum dyted.

[Dphariss]

Very interesting
He was likely a gunsmith. It was hard to get into trades and he definitely had an "in".
Unless he lacked talent he was likely a gunsmith.
But this is a guess.
Dan

Hans Rudolph Bundeli arrived in America when he was 19. His baptism date was January 20, 1684 in Bern, Switzerland. At almost 20 years of age, would he have had enough time to finish an apprenticeship to be a gunsmith?

Mart Keen

Yes.
Some were apprenticed as early as 13-14. But he would not have had time to do the "Journeyman" phase.
He could have trained and never worked at it.
He could have never trained at all.
But Gunsmithing was a good trade and he certainly would have had the opportunity. Unless he lacked the necessary talent.
Dan

[Bob Pearl]

Dyted, what do you mean by Swiss Huegenot?

[dyted]

 The Huegenots were a protestant or reformation religious group mostly French, but some Swiss and German. They came over slightly before the big German Palantine influx, and were considered to be more middle class/professional,descibed as the bone and sinew of France. Thanks for the welcome Whitebear!

[Bob Pearl]

Didn't the Swiss and German Huegenots originate in France? There is a really interesting book on the Hauser family of Forsyth county, N.C. They fled France and worked on a Mennonite farm in one of the free states along the east bank of the Rhine. Came to Penn., split from the Mennonites and eventually settled along the Yadkin River, 1750. There were also many Huegenots in the Moravian movement, wouldn't have survived without them.
I used Rupps' work in demonstrating the use of the Huegenots motif.
You also need to read The Flintlock: its origin and development, by Torsten Lenk.
Genealogy is good, but because a man comes from France doesn't mean his influence is French. Or Swiss is Swiss or German is German. Influence has no boundaries (I learned that from Earl Lanning).

[dyted]

 Well I didn't really mean it as a regional designation, just that they came from that area.  I suppose though there are going to be some differences, I'm building a gun that has definite Bavarian influence from the 1720s. There is a paper by Colonel James Tomkins Watson titled"Experiences of the French Huguenots in America- The Kings Refugees" that was helpful to me.