Jack Brooks today on contemporary blogspot

[rich pierce]

Elegant simpicity in the carving.  His guns look real.  real good.

[Mike Brooks]

Yep, seen that this morning. Cousin Jack did a super job with that one! I'm sure Grandpa Cecil would be proud!

[smokinbuck]

Mike,
I never associated the name, but is "grandpa Cecil" the Cecil Brooks from Lowell, Ohio? If so, I have one of his underhammer chunk guns, probably built in the 60's or 70's. If you'd like to see pics of it, let me know.
Mark

[Acer Saccharum]

Jack was at the 18Th Cent Artisan show in Lewisburg. He builds a nice gun. I like the age/wear on this one. This is a real nice piece. Like Rich says, a real gun. The carving is notable for its simplicity and elegance. It's all incised. Minor comment: I think the carving could have been made to look a little more 'used' like the the  breech and comb shots.
Acer

[Lon Baugh]

Showing my ignorance but where can I view the contemporary blogspot?

Lon

[Randy Hedden]

Showing my ignorance but where can I view the contemporary blogspot?

Lon

http://contemporarymakers.blogspot.com/

[Larry Pletcher]

I really like the incised carving behind the cheek piece.  (I like any carved raised carving too.)  This has an elegance that really stands out.

But I need an education on the style.  The lock looks English, so I think Virginia, but the patch box lid reminds me of the E Marshal rifle.  Would someone help to enlighten me about the regional style and perhaps time period. 

Regards,
Pletch

[Acer Saccharum]

Minor comment: I think the carving could have been made to look a little more 'used' like the the  breech and comb shots.
Acer

I look at  #52 in RCA, with similar carving, and THAT looks almost brand new, even tho' it's over 200yrs old. I think incised holds up better than relief carving.

There I go, talking to myself again.

[rich pierce]

I really like the incised carving behind the cheek piece.  (I like any carved raised carving too.)  This has an elegance that really stands out.

But I need an education on the style.  The lock looks English, so I think Virginia, but the patch box lid reminds me of the E Marshal rifle.  Would someone help to enlighten me about the regional style and perhaps time period. 

Regards,
Pletch

The recently shown original 1770's Oerter "Griffon" rifle has an English style Philadelphia-made lock.  The rifle Jack made is heavily influenced by Christians Spring and nearby work. As built it would be a 1770's rifle from that area.  I like his creativity with no buttplate, a dragon sideplate and carving.  He makes it work.

In general, the "English locks went on Southern guns and Germanic locks went on Pennsylvania guns" rule probably applies about 75% of the time before the Golden Age or Federal period.

[PINYONE]

I love the rifle shown on the Blog- another point is that the pictures don't do it justice- I lived in Boulder CO in 1980 and saw an Article on Jack in a National Magazine, I called him and went down to meet him and see his work. I wish I would have carried my knee pads because i was floored and banged my knees up. There were 3 rifles on the wall, A Lancaster - a York and one other- all 3 were Masterpieces, The Lancaster Rifle was beyond incredible and as of yet i have never seen another anywhere that comes close to it. I was lucky to go to Jacks on many occasions and see the best work possible. He built a York Co. Silver inlayed rifle with delicate wire work that was at the Co Gun Collectors in Co Springs- the best rifle in the whole Show. Jack is way more than a rifle Builder he is a Master Wood Worker also- the whole inside of his home is his work including great Furniture. Not many so multi- talented as he. He sold me his signed Shop Copy of Kindigs book because I didn't have one- ragged out from use - many drawings in the pages- covered in Elk Skin. He and Arnie Dowd are 2 of Colorado's Best- The Great Pinyone

[G-Man]

That gun has a lot of charm.  There are a lot of subtleties to stepped wrist architecture and when the best makers get it right it looks really cool. 

Everybody has their own take on what they read into these guns, but when I first saw that Jack Brooks gun it brought to mind a reference I have seen to the Christians Spring shop stocking a rifle for a "Shawanoe" chief in the 1750s.  And also some past posts (I think by Dan Phariss) about references to the Shawnees having, and being proficient with, rifles in the 1750s-60s.  I was wondering if that was sort of Jack's concept - maybe a rifle made for a native who had an old English tradegun that was brought in and restocked with a rifle barrel.  On the other hand, a rifle stocked up with parts that include pieces of a traded or captured tradegun is the other way you could go with it.  Either way, I love pieces like this that sort of tell a story.

On the locks, the English vs. Germanic lock issue has been over generalized, in my opinion, especially when it comes to early guns.  Like Rich pointed out, English locks turn up on early Pennsylvania guns, just not as frequently, and you see Germanic style locks on many Shenandoah Valley guns made up through the early Golden Age period. There are very, very few definitively attributed southern rifles from the pre-golden age period.  We know they were being made, and there are many pieces that are possible or likely and are presented under the assumption of being southern in the books, but we just don't have as many signed examples by makers documented to be working "where and when" as you do from Pennsylvania.  To further confuse things, some pieces that have been  in the collectors' and museum worlds for a long time were reconverted many years ago with parts that were not necessarily representative of what was there originally. 

Guy

[Eric Kettenburg]

I asked JAck about the gun a the Lewisburg show.  He had it there and the color is PERFECT.  He said he envisioned it as a piece stocked by one of the Moravian dudes when they were sent out to the missions (which a bunch of them were at times).  for what he was asking, it is a HUGE bargain.  Really, really nice.  If I could afford it, I think I'd add a buttplate (which would probably add 2K to the value, no kidding) but that's just me.  It's a great rifle!  Beautiful!  Color in person is really dead on to the Marshall gun.

[Larry Pletcher]

Thank you all for modifing my ideas on regional styles.

From Guy: "On the locks, the English vs. Germanic lock issue has been over generalized, in my opinion, especially when it comes to early guns.  Like Rich pointed out, English locks turn up on early Pennsylvania guns, just not as frequently, and you see Germanic style locks on many Shenandoah Valley guns made up through the early Golden Age period. "

From Rich: "The rifle Jack made is heavily influenced by Christians Spring and nearby work. As built it would be a 1770's rifle from that area.  I like his creativity with no buttplate, a dragon sideplate and carving.  He makes it work.
         In general, the "English locks went on Southern guns and Germanic locks went on Pennsylvania guns" rule probably applies about 75% of the time before the Golden Age or Federal period."

I think that I try to pigeon hole makers too much.   Trying not to catagorize too finely helps me at least.  And, no matter how you look at it, the carving on the Brooks rifle is elegant.

Regards,
Pletch

[G-Man]

Eric - I've always been curious - having grown up in and worked around Ohio most of my life I findthe Moravian missions very interesting - do you know of any record of gunsmiths working in the mission towns of Lichtenau, Gnadenhutten, Schoebrunn or the others around the Tuscarawas and Muskingum Valley areas in Ohio?

One of the things on Display at Old Salem in North Carolina that I found to be really interesting was a Bible translated into the Delaware Indian language -although it dated a bit later (about 1800 as I recall) than the Ohio Moravian missions among the Delaware, which I think were pretty much abandoned by the late 1780s.  Many of the Christian Delawares from the missions eventually moved to Moraviantown on the Thames River in Canada.

Anyway, I agree - it is a really fine piece and a good buy if you have the money available.

Guy

[RifleResearcher]

The only Moravian gunsmiths I know of working in Ohio with the Indians, were Indians.  If memory serves me, "Mohican Joshua", killed I think in the Gnadenhutten massacre, was identified a gunsmith, and later, when the Shawnee Prophet rose to power, I believe there was a Delaware Moravian with the White name of Billy Patterson, who was killed for his Christian faith.  He was identified as well as a gunsmith.   Henry Albright was here for a while, but I think only after the mission towns were shut down.  Translations of the Delaware language made by the missionaries at the Ohio towns had many detailed gun and rifle terms, helping to confirm their popularity in the Ohio Country.

There were a few non Moravian gunsmiths in Ohio before the Revolution, including Moses Henry and Thomas Burney.  Both worked for Native customers.

Trivia, on Jack Brooks, since it started as a thread about him...  Jack actually portrayed a Moravian missionary at Schoenbrunn for a reenactment there a few years back.

A.D.G.

Eric - I've always been curious - having grown up in and worked around Ohio most of my life I findthe Moravian missions very interesting - do you know of any record of gunsmiths working in the mission towns of Lichtenau, Gnadenhutten, Schoebrunn or the others around the Tuscarawas and Muskingum Valley areas in Ohio?

One of the things on Display at Old Salem in North Carolina that I found to be really interesting was a Bible translated into the Delaware Indian language -although it dated a bit later (about 1800 as I recall) than the Ohio Moravian missions among the Delaware, which I think were pretty much abandoned by the late 1780s.  Many of the Christian Delawares from the missions eventually moved to Moraviantown on the Thames River in Canada.

Anyway, I agree - it is a really fine piece and a good buy if you have the money available.

Guy