The RifleHere are some pictures of my new-to-me Henry Deringer Trade Rifle built by Jack Brooks.
The rifle has a Getz barrel with a custom swamp profile to match originals. The barrel is 42 inches long and .54 caliber. The lock is one of R. E. Davis’ “Contract Rifle” flintlocks with a single throated cock. The tail of the lock plate has been modified in a fashion common on trade rifles of the early 19th century. The brass butt plate and trigger guard are Brooks’ own castings. The stock is plain maple that has been artificially striped. The stock is also decorated with antique brass tacks in the fashion popular with Indians and some white fur trappers.
The stock and all the metal parts have been “aged” to mimic the patina that might be found on a rifle that is more than 150 years old. Faux aging is a popular trend among contemporary muzzleloader builders. Even though it is “pleasing to the eye”, I find the faux aging on the metal parts is often inconsistent with the condition and finish of the wood. Much of it appears to me to be an expression of the builder’s art form and not necessarily meant to make the rifle look like an antique. A friend pointed out to me that Brooks’ treatment of this rifle is not faux aging, but rather accelerated aging. The stock is dented, scratched, and even has a small crack on the forearm consistent with years of regular use.
If not for J. S. Brooks stamps on the lock and the top flat of the barrel, one might mistake the rifle for an original antique.
Jack even removed the head of one of the tacks on the forearm to further the illusion of an antique.
Background on Deringer’s Trade RiflesHenry Deringer is best known today for his small pocket pistols which are popularly known as “Derringers”. Early in his career, he built military arms, both pistols and long arms, for the US government and many state militias. In 1809, he received his first contract with the US Office of Indian Trade for trade rifles. Before long, he was the primary supplier of rifles to the Indian Trade Office for the government-owned trading posts, or factories.
The US government factory system was created in 1796 and continued to 1822. Several factories were set up in the South to trade with the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw tribes. Others were established in the Great Lakes region and along the Mississippi River. The western most factory was Fort Osage (1808-1822) near present day Sibley, Missouri. George Moller in
American Military Shoulder Arms, Vol. II, notes that Deringer trade rifles were sent to Prairie Du Chien, Council Bluffs, Fort Osage, and St. Louis as early as 1815.
Deringer’s trade rifles varied in details. Some had a pronounced curve or Roman nose in the comb of the butt stock. Others only had a slight curve. Deringer’s signature patch box had an eagle’s head shaped finial. Some were larger and a more literal representation of an eagle’s form while others were smaller and more stylistic. He also used a patch box with a “ghost” form on the finial. Some fancy, and possibly later rifles, have elaborate patch boxes such as engraved daisy patterns and commercial boxes from suppliers like Tryon. The fancier rifles were obviously built for the Eastern market. His trade rifles usually had either a Lancaster style side plate or a military style side plate. Most of his trade rifles were plain with little or no engraving or decorative touches. Some “Fine Rifles” were ordered by the Office of Indian Trade. It’s likely that these had some level of engraving, cheek and thumb piece inlays, and decorative stamps or engraving on the flats of the barrel and muzzle.
Surviving correspondence between the contractors and clients for trade rifles and military long arms shows that obtaining a sufficient quantity of locks was a common problem.
Some Deringer trade rifles have military style locks that are also seen on his rifles built for state militias while others have sporting locks—a few were obviously imported from England.
Jack Brooks chose the military style lock for his Deringer trade rifle similar to these locks on Deringer rifles procured by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. (from Moller)
The Rifle Shop offers a sporting style Deringer lock.
Enter Bill Williams (from
Old Bill Williams: Mountain Man by Alpheus H. Favour)
Bill Williams was born on January 3, 1787 in Rutherford County, North Carolina. In 1794, his father sold his holdings in North Carolina and packed up the family and moved west. Reaching the Mississippi River opposite St. Louis, they crossed over into Spanish territory and received permission from local Spanish authorities to farm a tract of land about twelve miles northwest of St. Louis. This was Osage country, and Williams’ playmates while growing up were often Osage children.
Williams was raised in a religious family. The year that the Louisiana Purchase was completed, Williams left home and became an itinerant preacher. For five years, he traveled the sparsely settled country preaching to the white settlers. Family tradition has it that some event caused him to give up preaching for a while, and he left the white settlements to go to his childhood friends, the Osage Indians, as a missionary. The Osage were more successful in converting him to their way of life than he was in converting them to Christianity. He became a member of the tribe and ultimately took an Indian wife. Even before he joined the Osage tribe, he had become a skilled hunter and trapper as a means to supplement his income as a preacher. Life with the Osage allowed him to hone these skills further as well as learn the Osage language and the sign language that was used by many plains Indians.
Williams knowledge of the Osage language made him a natural asset to government agents that sought him out to act as an interpreter for them. In 1817, he was hired as the official interpreter at Fort Osage. His duties as interpreter did not occupy him fulltime, and he continued to trap and trade on his own account. When the government factory system was dissolved in 1822, he took up trapping and trading full time while still living with the Osage.
By 1825, two seminal events occurred to change the direction of Bill Williams' life. His Osage wife died and a new treaty was negotiated with the Osage Indians to give up their claims to all the land in Missouri. When an opportunity presented itself for Williams to join a government survey party to map the route to Santa Fe, Williams eagerly joined up as a guide and interpreter. The survey party reached Taos on November 30, 1825. Williams ended his services with the survey party there in Taos while the leaders of the party continued on to Santa Fe to meet and negotiate with Mexican authorities. Upon reaching Taos, Bill Williams entered the next phase of his life as a true mountain man.
During the fifteen or so years that Williams lived with the Osage and worked at the Fort Osage factory, he invariably became acquainted with Henry Deringer’s trade rifles, and in all likelihood, used one or more during his hunting and trapping excursions. It would be fitting with his stature with the tribe and consistent with his level of income that he could afford one of Deringer’s “Fine Rifles” with engraving and silver inlays such as the Jack Brooks rifle pictured above. We have no record of what make of rifle Williams used, and other trade rifles by different makers such as John Joseph Henry, Peter Gonter, Christopher Gumpf, and Jacob Dickert would have been available to Bill Williams in St. Louis, but his association with the government factory system makes it more likely that he would have used a Deringer rifle as the Office of Indian Trade was purchasing rifles almost exclusively from Deringer in the years leading up to 1822.
It’s fun to imagine that Old Bill Williams carried a rifle just like the Jack Brooks trade rifle on his trip to Taos and the start of his life in the Rocky Mountains.
Needless to say, I’ve named my Jack Brooks rifle “Old Bill”.
Phil Meek
