Luke I'd like to see the whole rifle if possible. The trigger guard on there, which is an 1850's style, is not necessarily out of place if one considers during the supposed conversion the triggers and guard may have been replaced as well.
But dependent on other features of the rifle (style of cheek piece and buttplate for instance) one could replace it with an earlier style guard more befitting the late 1830's or 1840's era for the conversion.
Now with all due respect to galamb, I must disagree regarding some of his statements....
While yes we currently have no extant flint Hawken mtn rifles in their original state, the fact is we also as historians need to look at the shops production based on the context of the time period in consideration as well as the written records as well as the still existing items.
1) The Hawken Bros were building rifles in an era when percussion rifles were still looked upon skeptically by many of the mountaineers, a major consumer base - I really don't see them refusing a to build a flint rifle, especially since they not only built guns, since they weren't so well to do that they could turn down jobs. The shop did a bunch of general blacksmith work as well as building guns as did most such shops. Regarding the lack of existing flint Hawken Mtn Rifles, as my old history profs beat into my head lo those many years ago, abscence of evidence is not evidence of abscence. We also know that Sam built a rifle for Gen'l Ashley in 1822 that was most likely a flint model since a few years later the Gen'l noted he had used the percussion system but little, yet he carried that Hawken west for over a year at least.
2) In 1829 Etienne Provost, booshway for the American Fur Co. had the company purchase two Hawken rifles for him. The same year, Kenneth McKenzie, chief factor of the AFCo's Fort Floyd (later Ft Union), had the order two Hawkens for himself. In April of 1830, 9 Hawken rifles were shipped by the AFCo to Ft Union. While we have no exacting descriptions of these rifles, these were purchased by a company who we know ordered thousands of trade rifles from Henry and others and it was not until 1840 that they ordered ANY percussion rifles.
3) There is a question of exactly when the Mountain rifle style was first developed and most Hawken students will say the process began in the mid-1820's and saw fruition by 1830 or so. While we have no dated Hawken rifleI'm aware of anyway prior to the mid-1830's, there are those such as the Dunham and Peterson rifles which show signs of being a transitional style from the Maryland style the brothers had cut there teeth on. But there were other influences on their work by the time they began working together in 1825 - Jake worked at Harper's Ferry, the varied styles that they may have worked on doing repairs such as the So Mtn rifles with their iron mounts and long tangs, and the English sporting rifles which had an influence on their half-stock style at least and the scroll guard (the Peterson rifle uses a typical English scroll guard with a short trigger bar, unlike the typical guard used with the long trigger bar on later Hawkens) even on the fullstocks. While we cannot be absolutely sure of exactly when the style was born, there are hints that such a style was in vogue by 1830. For instance in that year the American Fur Company began ordering steel/iron mounted rifles from Henry of Boullton, a major supplier of western trade rifles. with many of the features that make up the Hawken Mtn style, including long back straps (6" tangs), long trigger bars with two wrist bolts between the tang and bar, steel mounts, and often somewhat shorter (38") barrels. By 1834 Henry was offering the Scroll model rifle with scroll guard along with the features noted. Henry was well known for incorporating improvements developed by others and AFCo was always looking for a less expensive gun - in this case the Hawkens purchased by AFCo during the 1830's was $22.50-25.00 and the steel mounted Henry's were $17-19.00. not a huge cost savings but enough to make them attractive.
see the Peterson rifle here
Peterson Hawken4) The Smithsonian Hawken conversion is a total hack job, when viewed closely, so I can't see Sam building a rifle using such crappy parts, especially on a fairly fancy rifle - the tacks on the wrist BTW are part of a repair job. While the 1850's may seem late for a flinter, it's far from the realm of believabilty since many flint arms were still being built during the period and not just trade guns.
5) Now I may be accused of heresy by some Hawken students, but regarding the other fullstock conversion pictured above (often called the Fuller after Harold Fuller), I do not believe the rifle itself was a product of the Hawken shop. It may have been converted by them sometime in the late 1830's-1840's (based on the bolster styling) but I got to inspect that gun in 1978-79 and what I saw was a Lancaster style rifle, buttplate, triggerguard, and patchbox are all much more of the school than any other Jake or Sam made rifle. The you have the overstamping of the probably original name on the barrel to mark it out completely followed by the J & S stamp pver that. The Hawken shop was well known in it's day for working on eastern rifles to make them more fitting for the western usage. Sabin, in the 1840's noted that was much of the work done by the Hawken shop up until that time. So frankly I would not use this gun as a good example of an early trigger guard, especially since we have scroll guards used on Hawkens at least as early as the mid-1830's.
Here's the stamp below - you can see more of the rifle here
Fuller Hawken
While I admit none of my points can prove absolutely that there were flintlock Hawken mtn rifles made at any point in time, when all the evidence is taken into consideration and based on those facts we do know for sure, IMO it's pretty good evidence, despite being circumstantial evidence, for the very good possibilty such Hawken mtn rifles were built during the 1828 or so to 1850's era.
