original halfstock Hawken flintlock conversation etc

[JHeath]

Ahem, I'm no Hawken expert but isn't it probable that J&S were working from something like this.

 "A Fine High Quality English/American Half Stock Flintlock Rifle made by "W & G CHANCE, BIRMINGHAM", circa. 1790-1820, converted to percussion, circa. 1840's-1850's.  30.5", .577 caliber octagon steel rifled barrel (retaining generous amounts of original brown striping finish).  The lock has high quality decorative engraving and is maker marked "W & G. CHANCE, BIRMINGM".  All steel furniture includes a engraved trigger guard, butt plate and, a patch box with push button release (retaining approx. 40% original blue finish).  The stock has a 4" stress crack along the upper right edge of the fore-end, a horn fore-end cap, otherwise solid with a beautiful varnish, light scratches and dings from years of handling.  A beautiful condition rifle in good mechanical working order.

"TTI-528119

"Note; W. Chance (William) was a Merchant in Birmingham (1777-1780).  He and his son (William 2) were Merchants to America to the fur trade in the early 19th century.

"Ref. p. 69 GUNMAKERS OF LONDON 1350-1850, BY Howard L. Blackmore., c. 1986."

Here's the link. Ignore the "pennsylvania smooth bore" text in the link, apparently that's a mistake or holdover from another listing. Just follow the link.

https://tortugatrading.com/products/copy-of-american-pennsylvania-flintlock-smooth-bore-long-gun-circa-1790-1822

The classic St Louis Hawkens don't look like their father's Maryland longrifles. They look a lot like this English rifle.  The fore end, trigger guard, two keys, bbl length etc.  I've seen other similar ESRs.

[Rajin cajun]

Just a thought , do you think the English were perhaps trying to copy an American rifle that even at that time was very popular ? We know for a fact they copied the longrifle for many years.
The rifle you have illustrated is a very nice !

Bob

[Ray Nelson]

Very Nice Example! Good timing as have started a build that may end up looking similar.

Thanks for posting. Link photo's show good info.

Ray

[Shreckmeister]

There is a lot to be examined here and the first thing is the description by Tortuga of what this rifle is.

[Mattox Forge]

That rifle looks like it started life as a straight up English flintlock fowling piece based on the lock engraving.  Normally pieces would be engraved with game that one would take with it.  Rifles usually had deer. It looks to me like the butt plate was very skilfully converted by reforging to have the American form. I would guess the patch box and cheek piece inlet were added at the same time and perhaps the percussion conversion as well. The rifled barrel addition was most likely the main o jet of the work, with all of the other elements supporting it.. The barrel, breech, and tang may have been replaced with entirely new parts as they do not have any engraving. It is also interesting in that the piece is fitted with an English made Siddons type single set trigger. This would be odd for a fowler original equipment. If the plate had a deer or a rabbit or a lion on it I would say it was built as a rifle or heavy bullet gun (i.e. smooth rifle), but pheasants flying indicated the lock was originally on a fowler, and the majority of the form of the piece suggests that the gin was originally that. Having a set trigger on a fowler would be unusual, but not unheard of.

Mike

[Shreckmeister]

Whitmore Wolf hardware and many others were putting pheasants on their locks that were intended for rifles. Are you speaking to an English practice of marking the lock with its intended prey? 

[Mattox Forge]

Yes, I was referring to that practice. That barrel sure does look English though. The sights are not typical English rifle sights. It is odd that the false breech and patent breech do not have engraving.
Mike

[Mattox Forge]

I went and looked at the English flint rifle that I have and some of the fowlers. The rifle is actually engraved with some birds on the butt plate. So I have to retract my earlier statement about the piece being a fowler originally. I now think it was built as a straight up rifle. The architecture is overwhelmingly rifle, so I should have known. The left side flat is styled in the fashion of Staudenmeyer, who used the German type off hand flat. The single set trigger is another big clue. The scroll guard and cheek piece are found on both fowlers and rifles.
Here is the rifle engraving found on the Perry rifle, which is a little earlier than the Chance in the Tortuga. The Perry being approximately 1810, and the Chance is probably 5 or 10 years newer.








Some other fowlers for comparison:
Stauman









Gulley







The good news for me is that I can happily install a rifle barrel on the Stauman, which is missing any sort of barrel, and be correct in the restoration!

Mike

[Shreckmeister]

That all makes sense.  It appears they ceased that practice when it came to exporting locks to America, but I'll look at things in that light now.  Thanks

[Mattox Forge]

According to the reference I have, "William Palmer, Master Engraver", the parts were sent in batches to the engraver shops to be worked. The invoices shown in the references sometimes indicate sets for certain types of guns, presumably for custom high end guns, but often they are just batches of locks, "Dog collars", butt plates, guards, etc, which would presumably mean it was dealer's choice.

Mike

[OLUT]

I really enjoy this post, as it makes me realize how much of a business trade the gun parts & engraving industry was AND also that this posting got me to actually re-inspect several of my old British guns that have been neglected (due to my primary focus on percussion over under guns).

Mattox Forge, note the trigger guard engraving is easy to read as STURMAN on your gun without a barrel. I'm not familiar with British guns, but  Gardner lists several makers with this name in London. Maybe an expert on British firearms could add input to help you identify the gunmaker and the type barrel that the gun original had.

Some other fowlers for comparison:
Stauman

The good news for me is that I can happily install a rifle barrel on the Stauman, which is missing any sort of barrel, and be correct in the restoration!

Mike
[/quote]

[JHeath]

So my question is, why did the Hawken Bros suddenly start making half-stock rifles that look like this in the 1830s? Their experience was with full stock American longrifles. Where did they get the idea for their design?

Wm Chance of Birmingham was active from the 1790s, from what I hear. This rifle is more or less a typical English sporting rifle from the flint period. Because it was flint, it presumably pre-dates the famous Hawken rifles. Why do 1830s Hawken percussion rifles look so much like a Wm Chance English sporting flint rifle?

W&G Chance had a New York office and sold to the fur trade (so I read). Chance were vendors to the American Fur Company, (founded 1808). They were vendors to Pierre Choteau, who bought the AFC St. Louis office in 1834. Again, so I read.

I think the Hawkens must have seen some of W&G Chance's work. Later, when the Hawkens started making half stocks, they dropped their old-school fullstock designs and emulated an English sporting rifle design. That's a hypothesis.

Otherwise, where did they get the design? Pulled it out of their heads and it coincidentally resembled a Wm Chance English half-stock?

Hawkens look nothing like PA rifles, or MD rifles, or VA or TN rifles. They don't look like Jaegers or Dimicks or anything else. But Hawkens look a whole lot like this evidently earlier English-built flintlock likely imported through the fur trade.

The most plausible explanation seems to be that the Hawkens saw W&G Chance's work and later copied it.

I'm not a Hawken scholar. Maybe I am 100% wrong, or maybe this is old news and I somehow never heard it.

[JHeath]

There is a lot to be examined here and the first thing is the description by Tortuga of what this rifle is.

Shreckmeister, I am a trained historian and agree. One can't take most historical information at face value. You must compare, corraborate, piece everything together.

It's possible for example that this rifle is a frankenstein built or re-built when the Hawkens were famous. Or that it is a modern forgery, or a misidentified modern build.

I don't take anything for granted.

But if this rifle is what it appears to be, it predates the Hawken percussion halfstocks and has a possible fur trade connection. Which raises the question of whether the Hawkens copied an English sporting flint halfstock design from a earlier supplier to the fur trade.

[Dennis Glazener]

Hawkens look nothing like PA rifles, or MD rifles, or VA or TN rifles. 

I am NOT a student of Hawken rifles or their history but years ago someone told me that they thought some of the SMR that moved west, with their owners, were early forerunners of Hawken rifles. That they were beefed up with heavier stocks to stand the rigors of western style use. Also larger calibers for the plains/mountain game i.e. Buffalo and grizzly bear.

I have no idea if any of this is true but I do know that I took a drawing I made of an early Gilleslie rifle with me to Fred Miller to see if he had a pattern close enough that he could use as a  pattern for a stock that I could make a Gillespie out of. Of all the patterns he had the only one that came close was a J&S Hawken. Fred duped that Hawken stock and all I had to do was band saw about an inch off the belly of the Hawken to make my Gillespie stock.
Dennis

[Rajin cajun]

That does not appear to be an American conversion on that rifle. I think with the contact the builder had with the fur trade suppliers he may have acquired a Hawken rifle and produced this rifle at a later date to compete with the Hawken. What if??

Bob

[Daryl]

I find the top rifle to be rather interesting. Definitely a 1/2 stock flinter or plains-rifle-type build.
The middle rifle as well.
The top rifle is a 6 bore, approximately a .92 calibre.

[JHeath]

That does not appear to be an American conversion on that rifle. I think with the contact the builder had with the fur trade suppliers he may have acquired a Hawken rifle and produced this rifle at a later date to compete with the Hawken. What if??

Bob

Orthodox belief among Hawken guys is that the Hawkens never built a halfstock flintlock. The argument is that by the time the Hawkens started building halfstocks, the percussion cap was commonly used in the west. And that there are no surviving examples of converted flint-to-percussion Hawkens. [halfstocks]

So this rifle appears to predate the halfstock Hawkens, and comes from a builder who supplied the fur trade earlier than the Hawkens.

Offhand, looking at this rifle, it seems much more reasonable to believe that the Hawkens saw Wm Chance's work, and copied it.

Also, Chance's rifle makes sense, it's basically an English sporting rifle like would be normal to him.

But the Hawken design -- I think -- makes no sense as an American-originated rifle. It's not what they were raised building. What made them suddenly in the 1830s start building short halfstocks that look like English sporting rifles, and don't look like American longrifles?

So -- again offhand -- it looks like the Hawkens' design wasn't some sudden innovation. It was basically near-copy of a rifle or rifles Wm Chance sold to AFC and that the Hawkens would have seen in St Louis.

They are thought to have focussed on repairs only from 1825 until '30 or '32.

It's possible the Hawkens repaired and studied Wm Chance rifles in St Louis. It may even be possible they did this conversion.

[JHeath]

I find the top rifle to be rather interesting. Definitely a 1/2 stock flinter or plains-rifle-type build.
The middle rifle as well.
The top rifle is a 6 bore, approximately a .92 calibre.

Daryl, do you have more information on those builders? Again, it's an English rifle that appears to predate the Hawken halfstocks. So again, did the Hawkens copy an English pattern?

[sqrldog]

My understanding from reading about early safaris out of St. Louis by English noblemen is that they had big game hunting out west for bison, grizzlies,bighorn sheep and other game. They used St. Louis as a staging area. They would of course have brought they're English built rifles. Not a big leap to assume an interest in these English rifle by the locals.

[rich pierce]

There were some fine halfstock rifles being made using some English components in Philly by this time. The parts were available. The St. Louis innovation was coupling them with a big bore barrel.

[smylee grouch]

Well from what is written about J. Hawken he did work at Harpers Ferry before going west so half stock flinters would have been on his mind. 

[T.C.Albert]

Though its design was likely influenced by English makers too, the M1803 was made at Harpers Ferry where J. Hawken worked. It too shares some pretty remarkable (to me anyhow) characteristics with what eventually evolved as the half stock plains rifle. Carl Russel even states they were carried west by Lewis and Clark though that's now debated. I'm curious about what fire arms the Zebulon Pike and Stephen Long expeditions were armed with?
Tim A

[Daryl]

Daryl, do you have more information on those builders? Again, it's an English rifle that appears to predate the Hawken halfstocks. So again, did the Hawkens copy an English pattern?

Sorry, no further information on the pictures.  I don't remember where I got that picture from and only remember the top 1/2 stock flinter was a 6 bore.

[JHeath]

One of the below is a Hawken halfstock. One is a Hawken fullstock. One is an 1803 Harpers Ferry. One is an English flintlock (conversion) from a Birmingham builder who supplied the the American Fur Company.

The Birmingham flintlock is presumably earlier than the Hawken percussion, and the builder passed rifles through St. Louis.

Mattox Forge (above) ballparks the Birmingam rifle at 1815 - 1820.

I'm a cautious historian, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say the Hawkens copied a Birmingham rifle they saw passing through St Louis, adding a couple details.

[Ray Nelson]

This below information from Zebulon Pike Journals and is in regards to T. C. Alberts question about the firearms used in his journeys. In short, this clarifies that his rifle was smaller than 54 caliber and the musket was used by at least one of his men but I suspect all. All his notations are of rifles, muskets and arms and the need of rifles 54 caliber or larger to kill elk and buffalo in particular. His journals are interesting descriptions of what this country once looked like if you get the hankering to read.  Ray

 Pike’s Mississippi River Exploration (1805-06)

2d November, Saturday.—left camp with the fullest determination to kill an elk, if it were possible, before my return. I never have killed one of those animals. I was determined that if we came on the trail of elk, to follow them a day or two in order to kill one. This to a person acquainted with the nature of those animals, and the extent of the prairies in this country, would appear, what it really was, a very foolish resolution. We soon struck where a herd of 150 had passed. Pursued and came in sight at a distance, like an army of Indians moving along single file; I once made Miller fire at them with his musket at 400 yards distance; it had no other effect than to make them leave us about 5 miles behind on the prairie. Shortly after saw three elk by themselves near a copse of woods. Approached near them and broke the shoulder of one; but he ran off with the other two just as I was about to follow. We pursued and when we came up to the party, found him missing. Shot another in the body; but my ball being small, he likewise escaped. Our want of success I ascribe to the smallness of our ball, and to our inexperience in following the track, after wounding them, for it is very seldom a deer drops on the spot you shoot it.

3d November, Sunday.—In pursuit of elk. We made an attempt to drive them into the woods, but their leader broke past us and it appeared as if the drove would have followed him though they had been obliged to run us over. We fired at them passing, but without effect. Wounded several deer but got none. In fact, I knew I could shoot as many deer as any body; but neither myself nor company could find one in ten, whereas one experienced hunter would get them all. Saw immense droves of elk on both banks of a lake about 5 miles long. Two bucks more curious than the others came pretty close, I struck one behind the fore shoulder; he did not go more than 20 yards before he fell and died. This was the cause of much exultation, because it fulfilled my determination and, as we had been two days and nights without victuals, it was very acceptable.

24th November, Sunday.—took Miller and Boley and went in pursuit of buffalo. Came up with some about 10 o’clock. In afternoon wounded one. Pursued them until night, and encamped on the side of a swamp. Thawing.

25th November, Monday.—commenced again the pursuit of buffalo, and continued till 11 o’clock, when I gave up the chase. Arrived at camp about sun down, hungry and weary, having eat nothing since we left it. My rifle was too small a ball to kill buffalo; the balls should not be more than thirty to the pound (54 caliber) an ounce ball would be still preferable, and the animal should be hunted on horse-back. I think that, in the prairies of this country, the bow and arrow could be used to more advantage than the gun; for you might ride immediately alongside, and strike them where you pleased, leaving them to proceed after others. Thawing.

9th December, Monday.—Had a shooting match with four prizes.   

14th December, Saturday,--fortunately my kegs of powder were preserved dry, had this not been the case, my voyage must necessarily have been terminated for we could not have subsisted without ammunition.

Pike’s Arkansas River Journey (1806-07)

Sunday, Dec. 14th. Burst one of our rifles, which was a great loss, as it made three guns which had burst; five had bee broken on the march, and one of my men was now armed with my sword and pistols. Killed two buffaloes.

Dec. 15th. After repairing our guns marched, but were obliged to leave another horse.

Jan. 8th. Put one man to stocking my rifle.

Jan. 14th. We marched our party, consisting of 12 soldiers, the doctor and myself, each of us carrying 45 pounds and as much provision as he thought proper, which, with arms, etc., made an average of 70 pounds.