Thanks guys. I'd not heard any suggestion that Catlin had decorated some of them. My first impression of the scrimshaw on the horn TC linked to--thanks TC!--is that it doesn't look like Catlin's hand (but then again, I've never seen any of his scrimshaw). As the blogger suggested, it could have come from the same shop as Clark's horn. I've had that paper from the Wyoming Historical Society on my watch list for some time, I'll have to work harder to get a copy now that I know what it covers.
After about ten years of semi-serious looking, I'm not ready to consider these horns as a "school"--there are some common characteristics, but the architecture is all over the map. Not all of them seem to have been made by professionals. Since they do share some common characteristics, I've been thinking of them as a "group."
Several years ago, I visited a small museum in MO. I asked the bluehair about horns, and she said while the museum had none, there were a couple in her family "but they had white dots so probably weren't what I was looking for!" Turns out her family had 2 horns that fit with the "group."
Both horns were made by a slave named Thomas (that was the only name she had for him). He worked in Missouri; she thought at least one of the horns was made in the St. Louis area but as the family also had business interests in St. Joe it might have been made there. That horn was associated with a shot pouch she was sure was also made by Thomas, and a St. Louis-made boy's rifle. If Thomas also made the shot pouch, he may have had some training as a leather worker.
The family also had another shot pouch and powder horn he made; the powder horn was made from a cow horn. It shared similar architecture, but without the inlays etc. She thought Thomas died in a cholera epidemic about 1850.
Edited to add: it looks like I can examine the Wyoming Historical Society paper on my next trip to town; don't waste time trying to get a copy of Sarton's 1934 paper of a similar name, it adds nothing to the subject.
