RCA 122

[bp]

I was browsing my copy of RCA  and was struck by a couple of features on the gun with the name Deming on the barrel.
This gun has always been a favorite of mine from the perspective of artful  engraving and carving.

The small thumb on the front of butt return, double arc on trigger guard  and the scalloped or web like carving on the box and carved in front of the toe piece.  Seems that  I have seen this combination of features or variations of them on photos of other gun(s) but can't place where.  

Have any guns similar to 122 turned up or more recent hypothesis formed on when and where 122 was made?


Bruce

[flintriflesmith]

I believe that there has been some additional documentation on H. Deming uncovered since RCA was published but I have not been able to find it.
One place to look might be in the later reprints of Thoughts On the Kentucky Rifle in Its Golden Age. If memory serves, George added some newly discovered info in the back of one of the later reprints. Either that or it might have been in one of his Longrifles of Note articles in Muzzle Blasts.

I don't remember any details but I remember thinking that the new info cast doubt on it being an Eastern Virginia rifle.

Gary

[RifleResearcher]

He turned out to be a New England gunsmith with ties to the Hills family.  I have handled a fowler by him and found a New Hampshire newspaper advert. placed by him about a robbery of his shop which included a serial number for an unfinished rifle stolen, which was lower than the published rifle.  From that number, it would appear that the rifle 122 is a product of the teens, not the late 18th century.  I will see if I can dig out the advert and transcribe it here.  A lesson on attributing non typical longrifles with "English" features to always being from the South, they might actually be from the North.
AG

[bp]

Thank you Gary and AG,

It may have been a New England Gun I was thinking of.

AG, did the fowling piece you mention bear similarities in carving or engraving to the published piece?

The later date makes sense.  The hardware and cheek seemed Germanic but highly modernized or modified. 

Maybe an Easton, PA or such gun was used as a guide.  Interesting gun.


This is a wonderful web site.

Bruce

[RifleResearcher]

It has been awhile, but I believe they had the same stock profile, some of the same carving and wrist inlay.  If I remember, Demming was either Medad Hills' son in law, or that of one of Hills' partners.

[RifleResearcher]

OK, I had it a little foggy, it is not from the teens, but from 1802, but here is the quote (spelling preserved) from the newspaper advert...
"Stolen out of the Subscriber's shop in Canaan, on Sunday evening last, a new rifle GUN; the barrel 2 feet 9 inches in length, on which was ingraved the name of H. Deming, with the No. 64 in figures ingraved upon the the muzzel; with out the lock, the stock not fully trimmed or mounted, the thumb piece of silver."
HARMON DEMING
Canaan, March 8, 1802.

They also stole from him three locks, one marked Capper & Co., another Ketland & Co. as well as an "elegant" silver mounted and inlaid pistol.

Deming was married to a daughter of Norton, an gunsmith who worked with or for Hills during the Revolution.
A.G.