Martin Fry (Frey, Frye), Sr. (1739-1780). gunsmith. York. We know that Martin Fry apprenticed with Jacob Leather because he was placed in that servitude by the Orphan's Court [Docket A, p. 64]. Fry's father, Martin, Sr., died on 16 October 1739, just a month after his son's birth. At that time the absence of the male head of the household was sufficient cause to consider a youth to be an orphan. Thus, Martin, Jr., was taken from his mother, the former Maria Magdalena Wilhide. Upon completion of his apprenticeship, Fry set up shop in York. He married Anna Maria Small. In 1762 he bought a lot in York, which was to be his home and work place for the remainder of his brief life. In 1779 the York tax list called him a locksmith, with a house and half-lot [3 Pa Arch 21 at 5]. It is highly probable that Fry, as one of the major Revolutionary War gunsmiths of York, participated in the manufacture of the 300 muskets assigned to York County by the Pennsylvania Committee of Public Safety. To date a precise accounting of the manufacture of these arms has not been located. Fry died at age 41 years and had some of the tools of the gunsmith's trade, including augers, screw plates, molds for casting mountings and gun rifling rods.
Martin Fry, Ill. (1769-1841). gunsmith. A son of Martin Fry, Jr., Martin, III, would have been too young to have apprenticed with his father when his father died at age 41. Although Martin, III, would have been only about 12 years old when his father died, there are no orphan's court records pertaining to guardianship for him. We do not know with whom Martin, III, apprenticed, although it was quite probably with one of his father's associates in York. Professor Kauffman [p. 234] found records that show that Fry was baptized at the York Reformed Church in 1800, and the baptismal record gave his birth date as 1769. He married Elizabeth Rummel. In 1799 the York tax list called Fry a single freeman, gunsmith. In 1800 he was listed on the regular tax enumeration, indicating that he had been married. Since Martin, Jr., would have been age 30 in 1799, it is almost certain that he was a gunsmith well before 1799. He may have worked for one of the other York gunsmiths, probably the man with whom he had served his apprenticeship.
In 1801 Fry bought a one-third interest in the lot and ruins of the boring mill on the Baltimore Road, which mill had burned down in 1800 [Deed Book 2-P, p. 494]. The mill dam was probably the main interest in that property. His partners in the property were gunsmith Philip Heckert and blacksmith Peter Reiseinger.
Martin Fry, Ill., was an associate of Jacob Doll, Jacob Leather and Henry Pickel in a federal government contract of 1804, to make 100 rifles. He was also a participant in the contract of 2 July 1806 for 50 Indian trade rifles, with Leather and Doll. In 1809 he was a contractor for 100 pistols made for the national government. Two letters Purveyor of Public Supplies Tench Coxe, reproduced in Hicks [I, 42] indicated that Fry was not maintaining quality and that he had to be more careful and diligent in his work. All the York, and most of the Pennsylvania, gunsmiths were accused of providing substandard arms and few federal contracts were let to the York gunsmiths after the War of 1812. The crisis of 1812 caused the "York Arsenal" to produce arms for state militia and national army use. This was the last war in which the state and national governments depended on cottage industry production to provide needed arms. Some Philadelphia arms manufactories continued making arms on national contract, but most military and militia arms were produced in New England and especially the national arsenals at Springfield, Massachusetts, and Harper's Ferry, [West] Virginia [Hicks, II, 31-32 & 42]. Virginia was also producing its own militia arms in a state manufactory.
Lewis Miller painted Fry in 1804, noting that Fry was a gunsmith on Beaver St. Before and after receiving governmental contracts Fry produced Pennsylvania long rifles of unusual artistic merit. Few cottage industry gunsmiths of York seem to have been especially adept in marketing their wares in the west, and, with the decline in government contract work, gunsmithing in York was a matter of extreme competition for an increasingly small local market. In 1821, Martin Fry, gunsmith, was noted on tax lists in Carlisle. He apparently did not remain there long and returned to York. In his last years, Fry seems to have turned to another trade. The extant York tax lists show him in the 1830s as an innkeeper. The last year Fry was listed in York was 1841, but there was no will or estate inventory filed for him. We assume that he died in 1841 or early 1842.
