Author Topic: An Account of the Skills of Kentucky Riflemen in 1833  (Read 1738 times)

Offline Seth Isaacson

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An Account of the Skills of Kentucky Riflemen in 1833
« on: February 14, 2023, 06:45:25 PM »
I figured many of you would find this interesting:
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/118616908/account-of-kentucky-riflemen/

The author discusses hunting by barking squirrels with Daniel Boone and notes shooting for hours by wiping after each shot among other details.
I am the Lead Historian and a Firearms Specialist at Rock Island Auction Co., but I am here out of my own personal interests in muzzle loading and history.
*All opinions expressed are mine alone and are NOT meant to represent those of any other entity unless otherwise expressly stated.*

Offline okawbow

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Re: An Account of the Skills of Kentucky Riflemen in 1833
« Reply #1 on: February 14, 2023, 10:40:41 PM »
I am from Vandalia, Il where this was printed.

I suspect there was a little exaggeration involved.
As in life; it’s the journey, not the destination. How you get there matters most.

Offline Seth Isaacson

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Re: An Account of the Skills of Kentucky Riflemen in 1833
« Reply #2 on: February 14, 2023, 11:00:00 PM »
Oh I'm sure there was.  ;D
I am the Lead Historian and a Firearms Specialist at Rock Island Auction Co., but I am here out of my own personal interests in muzzle loading and history.
*All opinions expressed are mine alone and are NOT meant to represent those of any other entity unless otherwise expressly stated.*

Offline David G

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Re: An Account of the Skills of Kentucky Riflemen in 1833
« Reply #3 on: February 15, 2023, 12:01:53 AM »
Well that settles it…Ye wipe after the shot for repeated loadings and accuracy,lol. Cool little read and thanks for sharing.

Offline David G

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Re: An Account of the Skills of Kentucky Riflemen in 1833
« Reply #4 on: February 15, 2023, 03:57:10 AM »
Daryl, respectfully, it’s just an article.

Offline Daryl

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Re: An Account of the Skills of Kentucky Riflemen in 1833
« Reply #5 on: February 15, 2023, 07:26:17 AM »
You're right - I was out of line. ;)
Daryl

"a gun without hammers is like a spaniel without ears" King George V

Offline David G

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Re: An Account of the Skills of Kentucky Riflemen in 1833
« Reply #6 on: February 15, 2023, 01:40:23 PM »
Daryl, you’ve given me good advice in the past and I respect your opinion and for that I thank you.

Offline Seth Isaacson

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Re: An Account of the Skills of Kentucky Riflemen in 1833
« Reply #7 on: February 15, 2023, 05:23:58 PM »
I don't see Daryl's "out of line" comment. Was it something snarky about not needing to wipe with the right load? Definitely true. I generally don't wipe when out shooting for a while. What the article does show is that some back then definitely were suggesting wiping between shots. I wonder if there were also proponents of being able to shoot with the right loads without the need for wiping? Perhaps the debate will go on for a few more centuries.  ;D
I am the Lead Historian and a Firearms Specialist at Rock Island Auction Co., but I am here out of my own personal interests in muzzle loading and history.
*All opinions expressed are mine alone and are NOT meant to represent those of any other entity unless otherwise expressly stated.*

Online smylee grouch

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Re: An Account of the Skills of Kentucky Riflemen in 1833
« Reply #8 on: February 15, 2023, 05:49:42 PM »
Yep, pretty much an endless debate like almost all aspects of shooting. Some do it different than others.

Offline flinchrocket

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Re: An Account of the Skills of Kentucky Riflemen in 1833
« Reply #9 on: February 15, 2023, 10:21:45 PM »
I suspect that they probably spent more time lolly gagging between shots than we do today, thus requiring a wipe between shots.

Offline Daryl

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Re: An Account of the Skills of Kentucky Riflemen in 1833
« Reply #10 on: February 15, 2023, 11:23:59 PM »
I don't see Daryl's "out of line" comment. Was it something snarky about not needing to wipe with the right load? Definitely true. I generally don't wipe when out shooting for a while. What the article does show is that some back then definitely were suggesting wiping between shots. I wonder if there were also proponents of being able to shoot with the right loads without the need for wiping? Perhaps the debate will go on for a few more centuries.  ;D
Ned Roberts alluded to shooting without wiping, in "The Muzzleloading Cap Lock Rifle" with his guess at a Dutch man's vernacular " Ven you loads der next shot, you cleans der last shot".
Daryl

"a gun without hammers is like a spaniel without ears" King George V

Offline Bob Roller

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Re: An Account of the Skills of Kentucky Riflemen in 1833
« Reply #11 on: February 17, 2023, 04:22:43 AM »
Yea verily and I heard geezers who,when I was 16 claim that Grandpa could take the head off a running chicken
at 100 yards with a muzzle loader.These same geezers recommended prying open smokeless shotgun shells for the powder to load a muzzle loader.They were proof that it was possible to start at the bottom and then go down.
Bob Roller

Offline TDM

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Re: An Account of the Skills of Kentucky Riflemen in 1833
« Reply #12 on: February 18, 2023, 06:51:25 AM »
I love to hear the old tales. True or not or to what degree doesn’t really matter to me. It’s from a period I admire. Hopefully one day folks will be reading these comments and making the same comments themselves.

Online Spalding

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Re: An Account of the Skills of Kentucky Riflemen in 1833
« Reply #13 on: February 18, 2023, 09:20:30 PM »
My grandmother used to talk of the shoots on their farm back in the late 1800’s and well into the 20th century. A nice Sunday afternoon usually saw the rifles come out and competition, often with neighbors,  would ensue. Driving a nail into a fence post was one of her favorites, and yes she had her own rifle.
My Dad often bragged on his brother who was an excellent marksman. Before the hordes of year round Canadian geese here, it was a fairly rare occurrence when a migrating flock would land. A large flock landed in his field and he slowly stalked and waited for his shot. When two lined up in his sights, he fired and got both with a single head shot. The game warden would have probably frowned on it, but over 80 years have passed so the statute of limitations is probably over. 😁

Bob

Offline T.C.Albert

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Re: An Account of the Skills of Kentucky Riflemen in 1833
« Reply #14 on: February 20, 2023, 02:13:06 PM »
It's commonly believed by some researchers that Audubon had a penchant for stretching the truth and that he made that entire Boone story up. TCA
« Last Edit: February 20, 2023, 02:19:51 PM by T.C.Albert »
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Offline Seth Isaacson

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Re: An Account of the Skills of Kentucky Riflemen in 1833
« Reply #15 on: February 20, 2023, 05:23:49 PM »
Interesting, I've not dug into Audubon very much myself. So he didn't even hunt with Boone at all? The story was published over a decade after Boone's death I noticed, and I'm sure many would like to claim they had gone hunting with him.
I am the Lead Historian and a Firearms Specialist at Rock Island Auction Co., but I am here out of my own personal interests in muzzle loading and history.
*All opinions expressed are mine alone and are NOT meant to represent those of any other entity unless otherwise expressly stated.*

Offline MuskratMike

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Re: An Account of the Skills of Kentucky Riflemen in 1833
« Reply #16 on: February 20, 2023, 09:53:56 PM »
Remember: When the myth becomes more famous than the truth, print the myth.
"Muskrat" Mike McGuire
Keep your eyes on the skyline, your flint sharp and powder dry.

Offline T.C.Albert

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Re: An Account of the Skills of Kentucky Riflemen in 1833
« Reply #17 on: February 21, 2023, 09:50:05 AM »
Seth I, unfortunately they don't think Boone was in Kentucky at the time Audubon claimed to have hunted with him there.
 
Audubon would have been about 14 when Boone went to Missouri, some say never to return to Kentucky. When Audubon came to America in 1803 Boone would have been 69, in Missouri for four years already, and helping his son build the stone mansion house. As early as 1805 Boones health was reportedly failing to the extent that family wouldn't let him make extended winter hunts alone any more.

Audubon claims to have hunted with him in Kentucky about 1810, but that's just when the 76 year old Boone was supposedly feeling well enough to head up the Missouri in the company of his old Kentucky friends Stoner and Bridges, maybe all the way to the Yellowstone. In 1811 one of Astors traders recorded that Boone had indeed recently returned from a spring hunt with 60 beaver pelts. Accordingly, there's probably no way Audubon hunted with Boone in 1810 back in Kentucky then too. So says one main school of thought anyway.

Though Boones family has always denied it, another school of thought believes Boone may have returned east to see his brother Squire "near" Kentucky about that time, and that's when Audubon met him. That legend comes with its own can of worms though too, not to mention the less than accurate purely romantic description Audubon wrote of Boone and their encounter in the Kentucky woods. 

Audubon did supposedly write Boone in 1813 to ask if he would go hunting with him, but Boone turned him down. Here is an excerpt of an article describing the lengths Audubon would go to in stretching a good story about himself. This regards the true back story of a painting depicting what the naturalist wanted people to believe it was like for him when he once allegedly engaged himself in the extremely dangerous pursuit of a golden eagle specimen for his collection, one supposedly captured in the wild.



The true story, however, is that Audubon didn’t capture the eagle in the wild, didn’t crawl over the precipice with his specimen. He bought it from a friend in Boston, a bird in a cage that cost fourteen dollars. Then he took it back to his hotel room, kept it in the cage for three days, and tried to kill it by covering the cage closely with a blanket, putting a pan of burning charcoal in the room, closing the door and windows tightly, and waiting for the eagle to die. It didn’t work. After a few hours, Audubon writes, he “opened the door, raised the blankets, and peeped under them amidst a mass of suffocating fumes.” There the eagle still stood, Audubon continues, “with his bright unflinching eye turned towards me, and as lively and vigorous as ever!” The next morning, to make the fumes even more toxic, Audubon added some sulfur to the smoldering charcoal, making the indoor environment a small-scale version of $#*! itself, but again “the noble bird continued to stand erect, and to look defiance at us whenever we approached his post of martyrdom.” Finally, to finish off the defiant bird and to make the martyrdom complete, Audubon “thrust a long pointed piece of steel through his heart, when my proud prisoner instantly fell dead, without even ruffling a feather.”     

http://commonplace.online/article/john-james-audubon/

Note: The intrepid Audubon did eventually make his way up the Missouri to the Yellowstone in 1843. Despite the facts that he sat on the deck of a steam boat most of the trip and that he was nearly 20 years younger than Boone was when Daniel went up river in boats paddled by men in 1810, Audubon, great hunter though he was, complained that it was his advanced age that prevented him from successfully shooting a buffalo from horseback.   
TCA   
 
« Last Edit: February 21, 2023, 01:04:13 PM by T.C.Albert »
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Offline Seth Isaacson

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Re: An Account of the Skills of Kentucky Riflemen in 1833
« Reply #18 on: February 21, 2023, 05:11:57 PM »
Very interesting. I'll have to read about him more sometime. I have long admired his art but never read much about him aside from some of the very truncated biographical information sometimes presented with the art.
I am the Lead Historian and a Firearms Specialist at Rock Island Auction Co., but I am here out of my own personal interests in muzzle loading and history.
*All opinions expressed are mine alone and are NOT meant to represent those of any other entity unless otherwise expressly stated.*