Thayer's write up and the auction write up always lead me to the question - do people think there was only "one" armory? Because there were multiples. For some reason Perkin seems to get a lot of attention but there were others working in other locations. The auction write up in particular puts an awful lot of emphasis on Perkin and Philadelphia but what about (for example 
) Allentown ca. 1777 through 1779, when Philadelphia was occupied and everything was moved 'up state?'
[snip]
Would love to hear what Scott has to say.
Having written the auction write-up, I can say that I was familiar with the fact that other facilities active during the war, and the emphasis on Perkins and Philadelphia had to do with the gun having Perkin's "IP" mark and being attributed to that armory. If my memory is right, didn't Perkins work at Rappahanock prior to the Continental Armory, and guns from there have his markings on the locks? As I recall, the idea is that the locks with that marking may be actually made by him whereas the guns with his mark on the stocks are believed to be guns inspected by him. It is certainly possible some are later markings after the Continental Armory closed. Positively identifying American Revolutionary War guns is complicated and imprecise at best given we have little true period documentation showing what came from where, few identifying markings, etc. Instead, we have what collectors and researchers have attributed to different armories and what not.
Perkin relocated from Philadelphia to Rappahanock in late 1775 and returned to Philadelphia in 1778.
The
Continental Armory, where Perkin was the superintendent, was established in 1779.
Pennsylvania itself established several gun repair facilities. I don't think any of them produced new arms; they were repair facilities. Individual gunsmiths (not state factories) were recruited to satisfy the demands (quotas) for muskets (and, in some cases, rifles) that the commonwealth placed on each county in June 1775.
There were several Pennsylvania repair facilities. Robert Towers established an establishment at the State House, which began as a cartridge-box making facility and then became a more general arms repair factory. There were two others.
One began as a lock-making factory in February 1776, soon after Pennsylvania authorities recruited Benjamin Rittenhouse to make locks. Established at French Creek, this facility soon became an all-around repair factory supervised by Peter Dehaven. By early 1777 Dehaven had “Nin[e]teen Men at Work in the Gun Way,” which, he hoped, would enable him “in a Short Time to Repair a Great Maney arms & Make Some New ones.” The state provided substantial funds to keep this facility operating. It was removed to Hummelstown in fall 1777 and disbanded in January 1779, its contents sold to Rittenhouse, Dehaven, and others.
A second state factory--which Eric has studied in great detail--developed from the Philadelphia gunshop of John Tyler, who repaired arms on Arch Street throughout 1776. By April 1777, the Board of War was encouraging officers to send unfit arms specifically to Tyler. At some point in 1776 Ebenezer Cowell, who Congress had hired to “manufacture … gunlocks” in Trenton (Cowell tried to lure a Philadelphia “Gunlock Forger” across the Delaware), joined Tyler in Philadelphia. As the British advanced on Philadelphia in September 1777, this operation was hastily removed north to Allentown, where Cowell built a shop from the “Timber of an old Saw mill” that could accommodate “Sixteen armorers.” Joseph Reed recalled later “the Dispersion of our Artificers” after the British took Philadelphia.
[The previous paragraphs from an article, "A Moravian Rifle Goes to War: Disarming and Arming Pennsylvanians, 1775-1776," coming out in a few months in
Pennsylvania History.]
