Jud Brennan's Blog

[rennikselum]

Jud has some fantastic detailed photos of the Edward Marshall gun on his blog.

http://judsonbrennan.blogspot.com

[Smoketown]

Very nice detailed photographs.

Cheers,
Smoketown

[Joe S]

Very interesting.  In what ways does this gun differ from a jaeger?

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

This is a remarkable set of images of a great rifle from history.  They were taken with the builder's eye, and are superlative.  Jud could write a book using these images on this rifle alone.
Check out those skinny lock panels, eh!!!

[Spinner]

Mixed in with the photos of the Marshall rifle I see a couple of the John Shuler rifle displayed in the Mercer collection. Cory Amsler let me take photos of that gun about 10 years ago and I used them for research and inclusion in my 2012 KRA article about Shuler and the Bucks County boys.  They have several other, interesting, unsigned guns that were, most likely, made in the Bucks County area. The Marshall rifle is, certainly, the jewel of the collection.

Cory and the Mercer Museum staff are really helpful to serious scholars who want to learn from their collection.  If you are ever in Eastern PA the Mercer Museum is an incredible place to view early tools, and artifacts. Even the architecture of the place is unique. I lived near there for about 10 years and really took advantage of the museum and the library.

[rich pierce]

Very interesting.  In what ways does this gun differ from a jaeger?

Chuck, it was stocked in American maple and has clear descendant rifles certainly stocked here, so almost everybody accepts it was stocked here. Other than the wood and that it was stocked here, there is nothing about the Marshall rifle that would prevent it from being identified as made in Europe.  Most but not all Euro work of the period was signed, which is another difference from the norm of Euro work of the same period.  We now know that not all Germanic rifles of the period had short barrels, so that is not a glaring difference either.

This rifle was stocked early enough, or in an early enough style, that we would not expect to see much difference between it and Euro work of the period.  Because of the provenance that it belonged to Edward (not William as I first stated) Marshall, there is debate over whether it was his rifle during the famous Walking Purchase of 1737.  But that would be at the extremely early end of possible dates for this rifle.

Close examination of the rifle raises the possibility that it is a restock of parts that were altogether or mostly altogether on an earlier rifle.  John Bivins thought that idea had some support after his thorough examination which included disassembly.  The tang has been broken and brazed and there has been a break and repair of the cock as well.  The buttplate shows extreme wear and the guard, some what less so.

So there have been a lot of theories about it's origin.  I think these are the main ones:

1) It IS the Walking Purchase rifle and was built from scratch prior to 1737 here in the Bethlehem area.

2) It WAS the Walking Purchase rifle but what we see today is the restock and restoration of that (*possibly European rifle) in America after a major breaking of the gun through the wrist area which destroyed the guard and broke the tang and cock.  And that restock probably took place in the 1750's in the Bethlehem/Christians Spring area.

3) It was scratch built in the 1750's near Bethlehem/ Christians Spring and was never restocked.

[Joe S]

Thank you Rich.  Your response is very much appreciated.

I’ve been researching jaegers recently, and other than the wood being American, the Marshall rifle looked just like a jaeger to me.  But I’m hardly conversant on the topic, so I thought I’d ask.

This is often called a “transitional rifle” but as far as I can tell, there’s nothing at all transitional about it.  In my ignorant opinion, this is just a rather long barreled jaeger made in America.  (That’s one of the nice things about this site – even us ignorati get to post here.  If you can type, you’re good to go....) 

[Eric Kettenburg]

Great photography and wonderful that Jud was able to obtain permission to both photograph the piece and post photos publicly.  Spectacular!

The concept of it being a long-barreled "jaeger" is somewhat simplistic (not trying to be sarcastic here, just trying to convey a point) as while we frequently think of German rifles being short stubby little things - and of course some were - others were longer.  Take a spin through a number of differing European auction catalogs and you will see a very large variety of rifles originating in the German-speaking lands with a fairly wide range of barrel lengths.  This is not particularly out of the ordinary, imho, although the longer barreled pieces tended more often than not to be smoothbores.  Chris Immel could surely comment more informatively here, if he still exists… 

I do not think this rifle as it exists was present for the Walking Purchase, the decorative forms do not seem to fit the timeframe - carving, lock engraving, lock style etc.

The trigger guard is of a style and form which has materialized on a small handful of other pieces in minor variations.  I suspect that the guard at the least (and of course the lock and barrel, but I'm speaking only of brassware here) was either an import piece that was apparently part of a 'lot' of similar pieces, or else was cast here - perhaps in Philadelphia? - to a common pattern.  Moravian casting at Bethlehem?  I don't know, this still seems unclear to me.

The buttplate presents something of a question.  The heel is filled with lead.  Is this a repair?  Obviously it has worn through, but this is to be expected because the brass of the whole butt piece is extremely thin.  There are Hudson River pieces which can be found with lead filling the bulbous butt heel, and these are pieces which have not been repaired.  The lead apparently was put there at construction in order to provide support and to ease inletting, i.e. no need to fill the heel with complex wood inletting for support.  There is substantial scarring around the lower portion of the bulbous heel segment in particular which *looks like* the heel was being hammered into a swage depression.  Part of a repair?  Original forming from sheet?  Nobody knows.  It does not photograph well at all, but in-hand it is very evident.

I also firmly believe, although I think I'm in a serious minority here, that the barrel is installed upside down.  I do think the barrel at least saw prior use, and I think that what we currently see as the top of the barrel was originally the underside of the barrel in another stock.  I'll leave it at that since I can not point to photographic evidence, only my own observations when I was permitted the opportunity to handle it at the MM many years ago.

ANYONE seriously interested in early American history needs to spend at least a full day at the Mercer Museum before they croak.

[spgordon]

Just a quick comment, related to Rich's possibility #1. I don't know if it changes anybody's thinking about anything, but it's worth noting that there were no Moravians--and very few whites--in the area around Bethlehem before the Walking Purchase. The Moravians arrived in Bethlehem in 1741 and in Nazareth the prev. year. The Moravians purchased the Bethlehem land from William Allen, who had himself only owned the land briefly: none of this land was owned by whites until the Walking Purchase in 1737 established (by means of a fraud) Pennsylvania's ownership of it. Easton and Allentown were founded much later. So if this rifle was used during the Walking Purchase, it wasn't produced in the area that the Walking Purchase itself involved ...

1) It IS the Walking Purchase rifle and was built from scratch prior to 1737 here in the Bethlehem area.

[Eric Kettenburg]

Edward Marshall had some substantial land holdings up above Easton, and later on, down in the mid Bucks Co. area.  I am not clear as to whether when he abandoned attempts to settle up above Easton, he retained his lands there at the same time he moved down into Bucks.  The Marshall Rifle (#41, rifle in question here) has a fairly strong provenance within the Marshall family, and the "griffin" Oerter rifle has a very strong provenance within the family of his son William.  There is no question as to who made William's rifle, and the attribution of the Marshall rifle (#41) to the Moravians at Beth. or CS in some way - regardless of who actually stocked it - seems pretty plausible.  Edward Marshall was apparently quite the hunter, as he was paid for a substantial number of elf bounties in Northampton Co. throughout the 1750s, and these bounties also verify his existence in the area as opposed to simply owning land there.  So, all this being said, I think a very interesting course of research would be to attempt to track down some form of verifiable connection between Edward Marshall, and/or his son William, and the Moravians at either Beth. or CS.  Something in period text.

I swear I recall Bob mentioning something to me about this a number of years ago but I may be recalling something that never happened.  I'm getting there….

[Eric Kettenburg]

  spell check.  I'm speaking of "wolf" bounties.  Marshall was not raiding faerie rings…...

[spgordon]

Right--I wasn't questioning the link between Moravians and the rifles linked to Edward or William Marshall. I'm just saying that, if Moravians at Bethlehem stocked rifle #41, it couldn't have been carried in the 1737 Walking Purchase. There were no Moravians in Bethlehem in 1737 or before. Or am I missing/misunderstanding something obvious?

Re: bounties. My favorite: the bounty on squirrels:



In 1749 Pennsylvania issued a bounty on squirrels. That's why, in this entry, the "county must repay." Seems that 640,000 pelts (or heads, too--unless "heads" means "hides") were collected in the province in one year.

[rich pierce]

Good point, Mr. Gordon.  It never seemed to me that this rifle was from the Walking Purchase timeframe, but I seem to recall that being proposed as a possibility.