Smoothbore in the deep southern states?

[eagle24]

Were there any fowlers, smoothbores, or smooth rifles made in the deep south?  Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama?

[hugh]

I am wondering that myself.

[Pete G.]

Ft Toulouse is in Alabama, just a little north of Pensacola, so I would say yes.

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Milledgeville GA "Templeton Reid was a man who appeared very good with his hands. He was a skilled mechanic and watchmaker, blacksmith, gunsmith, silversmith and jeweler. In 1824 he was advertising "rifles of a very superior order priced from one to five hundred dollars and barrels fifty dollars." "

Hmmm..........smooth or just rifled?

Wayne Elliott would be you best bet for an answer on this

I hope so cause I am building my idea of a GA 1815 smoothbore right now   

[camerl2009]

poor boy guns some times have smooth bore barrels thay could be anything from .45 and up

poor boy guns where common in the south having less brass and less metal parts and most of the time are made out of forged iron/steel parts and surplus parts of the time thay where made to put food on the table and thay did that job

there is a Virginia smooth rifle style gun thats along the same lines

plus im sure trade guns/Fowlers made it down there

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

There were plenty of smoothbores in the South. The question is were they made there or only imported.

William Bartram carried his "fusee" all through GA, FL & NC in the 1770s

[rich pierce]

Right on Tim.  I don't see any evidence of specific schools of Southern fowling pieces as we do in the North (Hudson Valley, New England, British style) though some smoothies may have been made occasionally by some rifle makers.  If they are rifle built but smooth they are not really fowling pieces in my way of cubbyholing things.

[Mike Brooks]

Mostly english imports judging from archeological evidence.

[eagle24]

Thanks for the replies, and they are about what I suspected.  I find it hard to believe there weren't at least a few smooth bores made in the south, whether it be a smooth rifle or fowler.  I take it there aren't any examples known to have been made in the south.  Is this further evidence of the premium placed on accuracy and marksmanship?  I wonder.  Maybe they had bumper stickers on their mules that said "Real men shoot rifled barrels".

[rich pierce]

I've seen examples of smoothies from the South, but not specifically fowling piece-built guns.  Once in a while a late flint or percussion rifle-built smoothbore shows up and folks wonder if it was always smooth.  If double set triggers, it seems obvious it was originally rifled.

[G-Man]

I believe there is knowledge that some made in Charleston, and if I recall Mr. No Gold posted photos of what appears to be a North Carolina or Tennessee fowler a few years ago.  Not sure about Alabama, Georgia, etc. but I am sure a few were made.  

There is, however, a lot of historical reference material that suggests a fairly early preference for and widespread use of rifles on the southern frontier by the late 1700s. -including references to use of rifles by natives.   Not suggesting that the early colonial era trade guns sent west over the mountains or brought up the Mississippi were rifled - as Mike pointed out there is a lot of arch. evidence of the imported smoothbores.  What I am saying is that by the time a lot of the interior of the deeper south (between the Appalachians, Mississippi and the Gulf) had Anglo settlers and gunsmiths actually beginning to work in those areas - the last quarter of the 18th century -  there seems to have been a preference for rifles.  

That being said, the early south was a complex place and not everything went east to west - the Mississippi was the western door to the region and French and Spanish guns surely found their way in early. Perhaps some smoothbores were made in America in places like New Orleans, St. Louis and Natchez.

Guy

[Dennis Glazener]

I believe there is knowledge that some made in Charleston, and if I recall Mr. No Gold posted photos of what appears to be a North Carolina or Tennessee fowler a few years ago.  Not sure about Alabama, Georgia, etc. but I am sure a few were made. 

Somewhere around here I have an article several pages long, that documents smooth bore rifles made in the Charleston SC area during the Rev War time frame. I think it may have included other areas of SC but I can not remember for sure. If I can find it I will see if it mentions anything other than military guns.
Dennis

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Well I took the bull by the horns and here is my story.. and I am sticking to it. 

A poor rifle builder about 1815 in South central GA found a broken stocked English fowling piece so he salvaged the OTR 46" barrel and the trigger guard.... He had been influenced by Willy Higgins and other early GA and TN riflemakers and so he build a gun with stock architecture that resembled an emerging GA/Southern Appalachian rifle... The buttplate had been lost so there is none and being an economical sort he only put two thimbles in it and no nose cap...... After all there were lots of birds to shoot in the are and being .62 it could handle a RB well for deer and bear hunting... or the occasional encounter with hostiles................

A few more weeks and I will show you how she comes out

[eagle24]

Tim,
Look forward to seeing your smooth bore when she is done.

[dannybb55]

Consider the game that was here in Quantity: carrier pigeon,eastern bison, eastern elk, brown bear, black bear, snow geese, Canadian Geese, A myriad of ducks, alligator, Opossum, coon, tree rats, white tail deer, etc. This game is geographically divided in the Carolinas and Georgia, the same way as Virginia and Maryland Our Coastal plains, Piedmont and Mountains are just more spread out. If I was looking for a smooth bore I would look at the sandhills east of the Fall Line where most bird and deer hunters use shotguns today. There is a sweet late English fowler leaning against the wall in a bed room at the Hope Plantation in Windsor, NC that was donated to the museum from around wake county. Their is an 18th cent. fowler at the MESDA museum in Winston Salem and the NC history Museum in Raleigh has a very plain one in it's collection. Places o start.

[flintriflesmith]

Consider the game that was here in Quantity: carrier pigeon,eastern bison, eastern elk, brown bear, black bear, snow geese, Canadian Geese, A myriad of ducks, alligator, Opossum, coon, tree rats, white tail deer, etc. This game is geographically divided in the Carolinas and Georgia, the same way as Virginia and Maryland Our Coastal plains, Piedmont and Mountains are just more spread out. ...

Joking right?

[dannybb55]

Brown Bear, maybe they were Black? . Mentioned in Lawson and the James Forte: a 17th Century Settlement, Possibly Pre 1625, From The Earliest Known Map Of The Cape Fear River by: C M D Thomas. The second part of the book is a reprint of the first English survey of the Cape Fear River up as far as Rocky Point in Pender County. I do not have the book to hand but they listed all that they saw and I remember the bears. You can read or search Lawson's book through Google, It has a search function. There might be mention of smooth bores. I bet the bears that they saw were big though, and brave.

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Check this out at the NRA Museum
http://www.nramuseum.com/the-museum/the-galleries/the-prospering-new-republic/case-30-the-gold-rush/tennessee-percussion-mountain-rifle.aspx

"Circa 1840 Percussion Tennessee Rifle" (single-shot/ muzzle-loading/ black powder/ ball/shot ammunition) Westward movement of U.S. "conquistadors" spread south of the Ohio River. Some pioneer people called this wild area "Tennessee." Bears and buffalo were plentiful. Hunting these animals required quicker loading time and larger ball size than could be provided by Kentucky rifles. Shorter, large-bore guns were needed. This example represents a solution to those needs. It is often called the "Tennessee Rifle" or "Bear Gun." Here it is referred to by the former name, even though it is smooth-bored and could fire either ball or buckshot. This gun symbolizes the parallel evolution of the United States and its firearms. When settlement of new frontiers made necessary new types of arms, technology had to meet those needs. Such evolution demonstrates that guns are tools which satisfy societal requirements." --Dr. William L. Roberts, THE AMERICAN LIBERTY COLLECTION; #51"

[Dennis Glazener]

"Circa 1840 Percussion Tennessee Rifle" (single-shot/ muzzle-loading/ black powder/ ball/shot ammunition) Westward movement of U.S. "conquistadors" spread south of the Ohio River

Well that date is awful late for that gun to be used on Eastern Bison. Its my understanding that they were extinct by 1825. Also it seems to me that Boone and others were using .40 and .45 caliber rifles for bear back in the late 1760's.

I would think it had more to do with the price's and versatility of the smooth bore than the ball size!
Dennis
 

[dannybb55]

The UNC excavations at the Saratown site in the 1980s have gun parts and one complete gun in several graves. Grave 6 has a .56 caliber 5 foot barrel! The English Doglock was similar to TRS' no 607 but was more like no 625 in proportion. My guess is that the musket was a fantailed musket but the bore and lock were very close to the later Carolina guns. The lead found in context was 24 ga, buck shot and swan shot. They also found lead sprues and lead scrap so somewhere there was a mold or two. Historically the Occaneechi traded up the Dan River with the Virginia traders and controlled the European trade to the tribes west and south of the Roanoke River.
 John Bivins dated the musket from 1625 to 1640. This is a trade gun that I want to build. A musket as tall as I am that doesn't burn through the powder so fast. I am glad I have a long bed Chevy to tote it around.

[woodwright]

Greg, you might find some helpful information in this post:

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=6802.0

[G-Man]

Greg - sorry I may have misunderstood your original question, or the thread is going astray a bit. 

Fowlers and similar guns were used a great deal and were common, both imported and certainly some made in the tidewater as well, during the early colonial periods and settlements near the coast, and also were brought into the early Appalachian and trans-montane south from the east and west, by traders and Natives in huge numbers before the Revolution.   However, I thought you are looking for exampls more specifically of fowlers made in the Appalachian/trans-Appalachian, i.e. Ohio/Mississippi basin, area of the south.

Within that region, you can assume that local gunmaking activity was roughly contemporaneous (probably slightly following) settlement, so from around the time of the American Revolution (give or take a few years) forward.  By that time, there is pretty good information to support that on that western "frontier" there was a strong cultural preference for rifles among the culture that moved in first as hunters and later as permanent settlers.  However, certainly some fowlers and smooth rifles were made in the region and used, just apparently not in great numbers.

I cannot recall if Mr. No Gold's North Carolina(?) fowler is in the virtual museum, but it is a good example of one that looks like it could have been made in or west of the mountains in the early 19th century.

Good luck

Guy

[blunderbuss]

 

I had a Fowler in the shop some years ago that had a 46 in English barrel 12 ga with 1770"s proofs on it and a 1860's percussion Enfield musket lock. The butt plate was hammered out of brass. It was from Louisanna. Just think the barrel was 100 years older than the lock  

[woodsrunner]

James Levy needs to jump in on this one. He has handled more recovered firearms in his archaeological restoration work than any of us have seen.

It was a violation of the Crowns law, and later of U S law to trade rifled pieces to Indians in the Deep South. You can bet that it wasn't observed, however!

[dannybb55]

yeah, you can't get any further south than Fla.