Unusual Hawken features found

[Dave B]

Had a couple hours to spend at the Cody Buffalo Bill museum this last Tuesday. Spent all my time in the portion that had the good stuff. The cool thing was the last time i was there the JP Beck rifle was showing the cheek side and this time it was showing the patchbox side(whale tail). Can't let Herb have all the fun talkin bout the fruit of Sam and Jacob. I was glad to see several of the Hawken rifles from the fan of them over the entrance to the firearems sectión. Several were very interesting. One full stock as you can see is the  longest in the display casé. It is the longest  Hawken i have ever seen. I got 48" for a rough barrel measurment using my cloth tape and standing on my tiptoes to reach top of the casé and gage the breach location. It is  all brass mounted. Brass nose cap, rod pipes, trigger guard and butt plate. Next is a rifle that is shown in Baird's book "the Hawken Rifle Mountainmans choice". Its dated 1815-1822 for mfg. IT has a 2 piece butt plate, signed S Hawken. IT also has a horn forend cap that looks to be pinned in place. I plan on going back when i am not so rushed. Well worth the look in if your passing through.











 

[WESTbury]

I got 48" for a rough barrel measurment using my cloth tape and standing on my tiptoes to reach top of the casé and gage the breach location.
[

Dave----Thanks for sharing your Hawken photos.
It would be a great book to offer for sale in the Cody Museum if they were to catalog the items in the museum and provide details about the items such as measurements, etc, etc. The Springfield Armory NHS does so with each of the many thousands of pieces they have in their collection. See attached sample sheet for just one of the firearms in their collection.

If our grossly incompetent government can do it, the folks out in Wyoming should be able to do it.

[Hungry Horse]

 Just because the Hawken Brothers are best known for guns tougher than a burned boot, and plain as a stick, doesn’t mean thats all they made. We tend to see both ends of their line of guns, and precious few of those that fall into the middle.
 Thirty five or so years ago, an old timer in my gun club asked me if I’d like to see his antique muzzleloader. This was a big breakthrough for me, because most of the senior members of the club though anybody that shot muzzleloaders was a little touched. I arrived early for our meeting at the range, and not long after he arrived, and walked over to one of the shooting benches with a gun rolled up in an old patch quilt. He unrolled it, and to be honest I was a little disappointed. It was a pretty nondescript plains rifle. It’s stock was maple, and had a little curl here and there. It’s hardware was brass with some sparse engraving, on the cap box, and side plate. The lock was one more reminiscent of percussion shotguns, and stamped with the name Adolphus Meier. That name rang a small bell in my head. I remembered that Adolphus Meier was a merchant in St.Louis that on occasion supplied parts to the Hawken Brothers. I asked to hold the gun and the owner handed it to me. I slowly tilted the gun so I could read any stamping on the barrel, and sure enough, there stamped on the top flat was S. Hawken St. Louis. He said you weren’t shocked, so you must have known it was a Hawken, I just let him believe that, after all it isn’t bad to have one old timer think your pretty darn sharp. But the point is this gun did not look like a Hawken at all, but it was.

  Hungry Horse

[Dave B]

It just shows that you can't use the words allways and never when it comes to these rifles. Thank you for sharing that story with us. Here are  more shots of not often seen detail features.

[Bob Roller]

That odd lock plate was one I copied for Tom Dawson years ago.
I suppose it expedited the inletting a little.

Bob Roller

[Clark Badgett]

So they are claiming an 1815-1822 mfg date for an S. Hawken marked rifle?

[Dave B]

There were only two rifles that i looked at that had these dates given for possible time of manufacture. They had the same dates listed on their respective card just the caliber of .56 and being a half-stock being different. The card shown is from a full stock that had a solid patented breach with snail. IT would be nice if they qualified that choice of date. Other more informed may offer more information but  based on when Samuel started out in St Louis and the early features, two piece butt plate, flat standing breach and transitional cheek piece can point to that early time frame.  Don Stith can  offer more enlightenment being more versed than I. I hope he will chime in on this. To be clear the really long gun was only given a date of some time in the 1800's for time of mfg.

[Dave B]

You can get more views of the early half stock on their web site but I have only been able to get a couple of the rifles to view.

[Dave B]

I went to check the dates in Baird's book Hawken rifles the mountainmans choice. Samuel didnt join Jacob in St Louis  till 1822 so i get your point about dating it ealier than 1822.

[Dave B]

There were only two rifles that i looked at that had these dates given for possible time of manufacture. They had the same dates listed on their respective card just the caliber of .58 cal. and of a half-stock, being different. The card shown is from a full stock that had a solid patented breach with snail. IT would be nice if they qualified that choice of date. Other more informed may offer more information but  based on when Samuel started out in St Louis and the early features, two piece butt plate, flat standing breach and transitional cheek piece can point to that early time frame.  Don Stith can  offer more enlightenment being more versed than I. I hope he will chime in on this. To be clear the really long gun was only given a date of some time in the 1800's for time of mfg.

[Clark Badgett]

If it is an S. Hawken marked gun, it's a later era rifle, most likely 1850s, and it does have the look of such.

[Bob Roller]

It's one of a long line of hand made rifles and  most carry similar but not EXACT characteristics.
Nothing more.

Bob Roller

[Mtn Meek]

Dave B, thanks for posting these pictures of the Hawken rifles.  You did a good job of photographing through the display glass.  Not an easy thing to do.

This rifle was owned by Archie Peterson when John Baird examined it and wrote his book, Hawken Rifles: Mountain Man's Choice.  It is frequently referred to today as the Peterson Hawken.


Baird discussed it in detail in Chapter 3 of his book.  He gave a date range for its manufacture between 1825 and 1830 (Baird, pg 18).  I think conventional wisdom today would date it 1830 +/- a couple years, so not too different from Baird's estimate.

And the Peterson Hawken is marked "J & S HAWKEN" on the barrel, not S. Hawken, another error made by the Museum staff if that's is what is on its exhibit card for this rifle.

The Cody Firearms Museum doesn't apparently have the most knowledgeable staff.  A couple years ago, an intern working there heavily plagiarized a piece I wrote and posted on my website called "The Heyday of the Hawken".  This is pretty typical of what young people are learning they can get away with in school these days with the use of the internet.  It wouldn't surprise me to learn that an intern prepared those exhibit information cards with the "1815-1822" dates.  No telling where they got that from, but not from any of the published resources since Baird's book.

A substantial amount of research has been conducted on the Hawken family and Hawken rifles since Baird's book was published in 1968.  Daniel D. Hartzler included in his book, Arms Makers of Maryland (1977), some extensive research that George Shumway prepared for him on the Hawken family in Maryland.

Charles E. Hanson, Jr. also spent many years researching the Hawken brothers and their guns and published the results in his book, The Hawken Rifle: Its Place In History (1979).  Hanson found records of Jacob Hawken working (with some gaps) at the Harper's Ferry Arsenal from April 1808 to February 1818.  Hartzler and Shumway found the earliest evidence of Jacob Hawken in St. Louis in a deed to him dated August 21, 1818.  Not long after arriving in St. Louis, Jake formed a partnership with James Lakenan, a gunsmith who Jake may have known back in Virginia.  Lakenan worked at the Virginia Manufactory at the same time that Jacob Hawken was working at Harper's Ferry.  They both left Virginia "within a month of each other, and turned up in the St. Louis area in the fall of 1818." (Hanson, pg 95)  Lakenan died prematurely on August 25, 1825.

Samuel Hawken arrived in St. Louis in June of 1822.  He set up his own gunshop and worked independently until after Lakenan's passing, when Jake and Sam formed their partnership that lasted until Jake's death on May 8, 1849.

Any gun marked "J & S HAWKEN" would have been made between late 1825 and early 1849.

One of the more interesting things I learned in your post and pictures is that the Peterson Hawken has a horn nose cap.  Baird provide a very detailed description of the rifle in his book, but I don't recall him mentioning a horn nose cap.  It's surprising that he would have missed that.

[louieparker]

Mtn Meek...That horn nose cap made me wonder if Phillip Creamer may have had a hand in that rifle..  He was in the area at the time and used a lot of horn caps.. just a thought, but possible ......LP

[Mtn Meek]

That's a good point, Louie.  Creamer was well known, and as you are aware, even Andrew Jackson had a set of his pistols.

[Vaquero]

Dave B,

Thanks for sharing those pics. Don’t know if you could tell from viewing them through the case, but do you or anyone else know if the barrels on the fullstock Hawkens are swamped to any degree?

Davison

[Dave B]

To my eye there apeared to be a very slight swamp. I could be wrong.

[moseswhite]

 I know of two early J.&S.HAWKEN pieces with horn nose caps both 1820's guns with the same barrel markings . I also know of 3 Gemmers with 48 inch barrels . One needs to keep an open mind , there are many variations and a lot of fake stuff out there !

[moseswhite]

I might mention that it is of my opinion that the barrel has had about 14 or so inches wacked off of the early Archie Peterson J.&S. Hawken half stock rifle .

[rich pierce]

Moosewhite, if you know of pictures of early 1820s J&S Hawken rifles that are not widely known, many would like to see them.

[Dave B]

Here is the muzzle as well as entry pipe shot of the full stock  Hawken.

[RobertS]

For some reason that I don't recall, I've always associated the snail type breech with the later percussion era, and the drum and nipple as earlier, probably because it is more crude or less refined. Seeing that fullstock Hawken suggests that maybe that design is earlier than I thought.  Any ideas as to  when the snail type breech came into common usage, and whether that is any reliable indicator for dating a rifle? 

[Clark Badgett]

For some reason that I don't recall, I've always associated the snail type breech with the later percussion era, and the drum and nipple as earlier, probably because it is more crude or less refined. Seeing that fullstock Hawken suggests that maybe that design is earlier than I thought.  Any ideas as to  when the snail type breech came into common usage, and whether that is any reliable indicator for dating a rifle?

The 'snail' in various forms was used from the earliest Hawkens through the end. The drum was just an easy way to convert flintlocks to caplock and was an easier and cheaper way to make percussion guns.

[Mtn Meek]

I believe Clark is saying "no", and in any meaningful or practical sense, I agree, the snail type breech is not a reliable indicator for dating a [Hawken] rifle?

In a couple of specific cases, the type and style of breech bolster is useful in helping to date the rifles in chronological order but not in absolute terms.

To the first point of "no" in the general sense.  Below is a composite image showing the snail on a number of S. Hawken rifles.  I arranged these as if there is an evolutionary progression in the development of the snail.  This is a false assumption.  We really don't know the dates these rifles were made, though some are certainly earlier than others, so the order I have them is not necessarily the true chronological order.



We do see some differences in the "snail" during the J&S period versus the S. Hawken period.  We often see one of two types of breech bolsters on J&S Hawken rifles:

What I call the "brazed on" breech (Rich Pierce has a more descriptive term--Conquistador Helmet breech)


The other is something I call the "comma" snail



Of course, we already know a rifle marked "J&S Hawken" is earlier than a rifle marked "S. Hawken" so the shape of the snail doesn't provide much new information except in the case of an unmarked rifle.

The two special cases I refer to involve (1) the Peterson Hawken that has been discussed in this thread and (2) the J&S Hawken rifle in the Montana Historical Society collection.

As mentioned in an earlier post, the Peterson Hawken may be the earliest surviving Hawken dating to the late 1820's or early 1830's.  It has a very primitive "snail" or breech bolster.  In fact, it's little more than a drum that has been brazed or forge welded to the false breech and filed to shape it a little.  It may be an example of the Hawken brothers' early experimentation with the percussion system.


The style and shape of the breech bolster along with other features of the Peterson Hawken such as the trigger guard, barrel wedge escutcheons, patch box, and shape of the cheekpiece suggest a very early rifle.

The J&S Hawken rifle in the Montana Historical Society collection also has what appears to be an early, primitive breech bolster.  It is a very early example of the "brazed on" bolster, though it could also be forge welded on the barrel.

The full length MHS rifle.


The breech and lock on the MHS J&S Hawken.


I believe the Peterson Hawken has a patent or false breech, but the MHS rifle does not.  The breech bolster is an integral part of the barrel.  It was either brazed on or forge welded on the barrel.

There is only a hint of a rear and front fence on the breech.

I might also point out that the lock plate appears to have been made for a flintlock as it has a beveled edge common to the flintlock period.  The lock is marked "TRYON" over "PHILADa".

This rifle has the same type of trigger guard as the Peterson Hawken.


Both the MHS Hawken and the Peterson Hawken have shorter tangs than later Hawken rifles.  The Peterson's tang is about 2/3 normal length an has two tang bolts.  The MHS rifle tang is about half length with only one tang bolt.


So with these two rifles, the breech bolster helps build the case for these being early Hawken rifles.

[RobertS]

Thanks so much, I appreciate the thoughtful and informative responses!  I never thought that breeches could be so interesting.  I love this forum!