Missouri Ozark guns

[MontanaFrontier86]

My favorite place to be next to the mountains of Montana is the ozarks of Missouri. It has me wondering what kind of muzzleloaders the typical people carried in that area. Was it the typical Kentucky rifle? Southern mountain rifle or plains type rifle? Any kind of info would be great reading. I know there is the missouri gunsmith book but I don't have access to the library due to the virus has it closed down.

[John SMOthermon]

My Family moved Westward from the Carolinas during the 1800’s.
 
I have no documented prove, but I would think they would have taken whatever they type gun they owned with them be it a smoothbore or a rifle.
Some of which could have been manufactured here or could have been brought over when they came too the Country originally.

Just my opinion, for what it’s worth. < 2 cents

[Pukka Bundook]

I seem to remember an old article in Guns and Ammo magazine, (1960's) about guns from this area, and the rifles  seemed to be long barreled plain Southern "Hog rifles",   Iron mounted.

Best,
R.

[rich pierce]

We need Loudy to chime in here.

[Hungry Horse]

My grandparents on my mothers side of the family all migrated from The Carolinas ( right after the revolutionary war) to Tennessee ( where they were given land purchases, for their Military service). They sold out in Tennessee  in the 1880’s and moved to Arkansas, and homesteaded there. Most of them brought SMR’s with them. My great grandfather Albert Ellis Wilson bought a brass cartridge shotgun for the trip, but all the others brought their old muzzleloaders. Some of the gunsmiths from the Carolinas migrated with them, and made muzzleloaders in Arkansas. My grandfather who lived just over the state line in Missouri, took a trip as a young man up into Arkansas to have a rifle built by a gunsmith from North Carolina named Wishon, which he used well into the twentieth century.

  Hungry Horse

[gibster]

Hungry Horse - John Wishon was listed as a Gunsmith in Haywood County North Carolina in the 1850 census. In 1860, he was listed as a blacksmith in Lexington KY, and he died in 1862 in Pea Ridge Arkansas (Benton County), about 10-miles from where I sit.  So that should give you a pretty good timeline on when your Grandfather traveled to have a rifle built by him.  I have one of his rifles that was owned by an elderly lady in Fayetteville Arkansas for as far back as she could remember.  It has quite a few characteristics on rifles made in Haywood County. Wayne Bryson is writing a book on western gunsmiths in NC and he seems to think that Wishon worked with the Gillispies's while there. It's a typical iron mounted rifle with some nice file work on the furniture.  It Wishon didn't work with the Gillispie's, I think he was at least influenced by their work.  There are pictures of it in the library.

[Hungry Horse]

My great grandparents are buried at Nail in Newton County. They originally came from Asheville N.C. Where they were married. My grandmother Mary Jane Brown was fourteen at the time. Albert Ellis Wilson was a little older and had deserted the Confederate army after second manassas when he himself was only fourteen.

 

  Hungry Horse

[Pennsylvania Dutchman]

Jerry Noble makes a referance in volume one of his books on southern longrifles to an Elias Nelson Bearden, gunsmith, who died in Springfield MO in 1895. He was born in Spartansburg SC in 1819 and married in Giles county TN in 1841. He marked his guns E. N. Bearden or E N B. He says that several of his guns are in the School Of The Ozarks museum just south of Branson MO. Elias is the son of Pleasant Bearden who I believe is the brother of Alfred. The one Elias Bearden gun Jerry has pictured in volume four resembles Alfreds work.
Mark

[Pennsylvania Dutchman]

Hungry Horse, We live about 50 miles north and east of Nail in Marion County. Most of my wifes ancestors are from Newton County and her Daniels and Casey ancestors were living in Nail. Several years ago, we went to Nail and we believe we located her Daniels family homeplace. Her ancestors like yours came here from the Carolinas thru Tennessee to Arkansas in the 1840s or 1850s.
Mark

[TN Longhunter]

I seem to remember an old article in Guns and Ammo magazine, (1960's) about guns from this area, and the rifles  seemed to be long barreled plain Southern "Hog rifles",   Iron mounted.

Best,
R.

I remember that article also. Jim Carmichael wrote it after he took over from Jack O’Conner. His wife was from that area so he had some family photos.