Need help identifying rifle

[debnal]

I just rescued this out of a house. I think it's a target rifle from around 1860. The barrel is 31 inches .36 caliber. The mounts are German silver. My uneducated guess is New York or Ohio as to where it was made. Any comments appreciated.
Al

[Shreckmeister]

Very interesting triggerguard.  I think you're on the right track for it's origin.

[eddillon]

My educated guess is Ohio.  Like schreck, the triggerguard is puzzling to me.

[Dennis Glazener]

My guess would be West VA or possibly Ohio but that acorn fits well with West VA.
Dennis

[nord]

My first impression is NY-like, but not NY. Wrong (strange) guard and not quite the perch belly I'd expect. And so my guess is farther south and probably west. Ohio river would be my suspicion.

[eddillon]

My first impression is NY-like, but not NY. Wrong (strange) guard and not quite the perch belly I'd expect. And so my guess is farther south and probably west. Ohio river would be my suspicion.

I agree.  Engraved symbols make think southern Ohio.

[Gaeckle]

My guess is the Eastern Seaboard area, Boston, New Hampshire, the New England states perhaps........I have a close copy of that guard (it is in the possesion of another, and will be cast in the future). The one I have is an original and from what I have been told it is a transitional piece when the flintlock era was ending while the percussion era was starting...........that is what I have been told, how true this is I cannot say.

I do have all 5 books of the Ohio Longrifle series and I'll see if that guard was indeed used in any in Ohio. The design of the patchbox, the shape of it, is what drives me to think that the gun has an Eastern birthplace.

[smokinbuck]

I've been wrong before and I know I will be again, but I don't buy into Ohio. I'm saying late middle eastern pennsylvania due to the shields, stars, hearts and engraving patterns which to me are Germanic in nature. I had a Pennsylvania rifle years ago with a "similar" trigger gaurd and butt plate treatment, It was marked but I can't bring up the maker.
Mark

[nord]

Gentlemen:

Focus on any one detail and you could reasonably support just about any part of the east. But take this gun as a whole and I believe the conclusion would be much different.

Lets begin with the stock. Not maple. Possibly cherry. More likely walnut. This hints of NY or New England. Then the perch belly. Not quite what I'd expect from up around the lakes. Not pronounced enough. And, of course, a halfstock.

Trigger guard? Not something usually associated with any area that I know. I'd tend to guess German influence.

Patch box? A late commercial piece nicely decorated. Really nothing remarkable.

Inlays? They do tend to say Pennsylvania, don't they?

And so my question is to where all these influences were most likely to come together. Logic (to me) dictates the Ohio River area roughly west and south of Pittsburgh.

[westerner]

Hammer type, wood type, trigger guard tell me Wisconsin. Milwaukee?

Inlays?

      Joe.

  

[debnal]

Wow,
Seems really tough to narrow down without some form of identification.
Al

[nord]

For whatever it might be worth...

Those pieces we associate most with the late NY rifles tended to originate west of Rome and on to Buffalo, Erie, and into Ohio. Usually a deep perch belly, often inlaid, and quite distinctive. This style, while centered on the south side of Lakes Ontario and Erie, was not confined to this narrow band of geography. In NY you could find rifles made in this general style south to the PA border. My experience has been that these guns made farther from the lakes, while still maintaining NY traits, began to take on features more associated with other schools.

We must further bear in mind that by the time this style of gun was being produced travel was comparatively easy. This being especially true for those living along the Mohawk River and westward. Lake travel was reliable and railroads were by then pretty well established. So why wouldn't a maker in Buffalo or Erie pick up and follow the trade westward? And makers did follow the trade in considerable numbers!

The rifle in this post? I can't argue about the various ideas proposed mainly because without more information there's really no proof of anything, just circumstantial evidence. But within that evidence are certain details I cannot overlook.

This rifle lacks the distinctive perch belly associated with so many of the guns made along the lakes. It's a late piece quite likely made just prior to the Civil War. Inlays speak of Pennsylvania, yet their style says otherwise as does the wood. Trigger guard is a wild card. The acorn hints of the West Virginia / Ohio region. Further, the general stock architecture more resembles PA than NY.

While I don't preclude a Wisconsin rifle or Michigan for that matter, I think the evidence points away rather than toward. I'd be more comfortable with the Ohio River attribution anywhere from Pittsburgh almost to the Mississippi. My intuition says closer to the former than the latter, but if the gun were to be proved to be made in Illinois or Indiana I'd not be surprised either.

All I'm saying is that by the time this gun was made the various schools were so widely dispersed as to make it almost impossible to determine where the piece was made without some kind of supporting evidence. We all have our own opinions of course. We see the various features, draw upon our own experiences and prejudices, then probably almost universally come to the wrong conclusions.

But this is what make our hobby so much fun! And just maybe one of us will be proved correct at some point! 

[Dphariss]

Good chance the hardware and inlays are all store/catalog bought. Someplace like Tryon. It was possible to buy them already engraved even in Colonial times. Tryon had these things in stock for decades is various shapes and styles.
Trying to base hardware on a generic gun from this time frame to a region is tough. Even in Colonial/Federal period we find VA rifles with Dickert buttplates (or Dickerts with VA buttplates).

Dan

[Curt J]

For what it's worth, I have two Illinois-made rifles with that same trigger guard, both in brass, one on a rifle by Joseph Legler, Lockport, Illinois, the other on a rifle by L. Manker, Pittsfield, Illinois.  I have four other Illinois-made rifles with very similar trigger guards. Two of those are by Henry P. Brunker, of Ottawa, Illinois.  Brunker (as well as his local competitor, D. S. Ebersol) was also a brass founder.  Both of them made their own mountings, and quite likely supplied castings to other gunsmiths in that area. I have seen a number of non-typical trigger guards, as well as butt plates, on guns by both of these two Ottawa makers.

Take a look at the two L. G. Ward, Springfield, Illinois, rifles that are pictured in the Library here. Both have extensive silver inlays, all engraved. One is signed "Fairthorne, Engraver", and is dated 1854.  That one even has a similar trigger guard.

[Don Tripp]

Don't rule out Michigan as a place of origin.