Who was the most influential 18th century gunsmith for the american longrifle?

[DaveM]

I asked a leading online artificial intelligence website (ChatGPT) this question. AI’s response shown in this photo seems reasonable to me!

Who do you all think was the finest? Do you agree?

[JTR]

Dave, that sounds like a pretty good response!

For example, here is the Dickert rifle in the Library;

https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=22664.0

One of my favorite rifles!
John

[rich pierce]

It would be a matter of taste I think, and there was quite a lot of style change from 1750-ish to 1800. I think there would need to be enough known work to have a good feel for the gunsmith’s work. For me there would need to be originality in some aspects of design and decorative elements.   For me George Schroyer showed creativity over at least 3 decades and comes to mind because of his productivity too.

[Avlrc]

Dave, that sounds like a pretty good response!

For example, here is the Dickert rifle in the Library;

https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=22664.0

One of my favorite rifles!
John

Wonderful.  Maybe AI does know something after all. 

[DaveM]

John that Dickert is a real work of art! Must be some of his finest work on that one.

Rich, I also thought of Schroyer. He was probably almost as influential as Dickert.

[JV Puleo]

I'd vote for Thomas Earle

[A Scanlan]

With human intelligence deteriorating it's a good thing AI has arrived.  Ask a typical college grad the same question and see the dumb look on their face.

[smart dog]

Hi,
I bet if you asked that question to any college grads 50 years ago you would get the same blank look.  I think it would be hard to beat Dickert as the choice although Schroyer might be a close second.  You see the styling of his guns repeated over and over again in wide region and his decorative elements the basis for countless guns by other makers. He was also a successful businessman and a leader within his trade and community. 

dave

[WESTbury]

"Gunsmith" in my mind encompasses a great deal of territory. How about breaking things down by categories? How about, Longrifles, Pistols, and Fowlers. In the case of fowlers, I would include New England Fowlers. "Most" New England Rifles probably date to the 19thCentury.

Please note the qualifier in bold italic. 

[JTR]

I think Dickert would be hard to beat.
He was an early maker, fairly prolific, with good design and obvious carving skills. And as smart dog points out, a successful businessman.

I enjoyed doing the restoration work, and owning that rifle for many years. If I could have one back, that would be the gun! 
John

[5judge]

Did not contemporary frontiersmen, whose lives depended upon their weaponry, not also vote, often using "Dickert" as a word synonymous with "long rifle"?

[spgordon]

I don't know about "contemporary" frontiersmen, though I would love to have evidence of that. When I was writing my article about Dickert (https://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entries/jacob-dickert/), I tried to talk about this--but the earliest evidence I found that his name had become "synonymous" with long rifle was from the 1850s. Here's what I wrote (several years ago: I'd love to know more!):

Dickert’s signed barrels seem to have created him as something of a “brand.” Indeed by the 1850s the term “Deckard” rifle — it seems likely, though we cannot be certain, that this is a distortion of “Dickert” — became synonymous with a well-built and dependable longrifle. An early account of the Battle of King’s Mountain in J. G. M. Ramsey’s Annals of Tennessee (1853) claimed that all the patriots were “well mounted, and nearly all carried a Deckhard rifle,” “so called,” a note elaborated, “from Deckhard, the maker, in Lancaster, Pa.” A writer in 1915, imagining Daniel Boone in 1760 — just a few years after Dickert’s apprenticeship had begun — pictured Boone “carrying a long Deckhard rifle, hunting knife, and tomahawk.”

Scott

[DaveM]

It would be very interesting to find out who Dickert learned the trade from in Lancaster. It's interesting that Dickert married a woman named Hafer / Hoeffer in Lancaster. I know there were Hafer gunsmiths there but not sure if there were any of this name early enough to have trained Dickert? Often a gunsmith married into the family of another gunsmith. Wonder if there was an earlier Hoeffer/Hafer he could have learned the trade from?

[Carl Young]

How much of Dickert's reputation is based on the volume of work produced by him and his assistants? I am just curious, and am not disputing anything in this thread.
Regards,
Carl

[spgordon]

It would be very interesting to find out who Dickert learned the trade from in Lancaster. It's interesting that Dickert married a woman named Hafer / Hoeffer in Lancaster. I know there were Hafer gunsmiths there but not sure if there were any of this name early enough to have trained Dickert? Often a gunsmith married into the family of another gunsmith. Wonder if there was an earlier Hoeffer/Hafer he could have learned the trade from?

Dickert's wife was Hannah Höfer (1746-1819)--but her father, Hermanus Höfer, had died before 1752 (when her mother remarried). Dickert would have been 11 or 12 when Hermanus Höfer died. I don't know what trade he practiced, but he wasn't alive to train Dickert. The father-in-law who Dickert would have known was Johannes Spor (1725-1787), who wasn't a gunsmith.

Hannah mother was born a Weibrecht (Anna Maria Weibrecht Höfer Spor, 1718-1796), if that is of any help: and her family emigrated & was present in Lancaster as well, since her father is present at the baptisms of her children (those she had with Spor).

BTW, Anna Maria had 4 children with Höfer and 7 more with Spor: at her death she had 43 grandchildren and 22 great grandchildren.

[DaveM]

Carl, in line with your question about how the volume of work (good businessman versus strictly quality) may have led to much of Dickert’s market - I wonder how much he may have tapped into the western expansion market - folks travelling west, compared to other makers. Maybe word of mouth reached folks on the east coast recommending they see Dickert for your rifle on your way west. I read Lancaster was a jumping off point for kany heading west.

I also thought I read somewhere that William Henry had some very early rifle contracts with ther towns and/or folks heading west?  Could be wrong about this. But, if so, maybe Dickert got involved with William Henry early on and learned his business ways? Maybe William Henry marketed / sold rifles from several makers?

Scott - thanks for your info on the Hoeffers, that is excellent and narrows the field of Dickert’s possible mentor.

[WESTbury]

I'd vote for Thomas Earle

I will second this nomination with regard to fowlers.

[spgordon]

Carl, in line with your question about how the volume of work (good businessman versus strictly quality) may have led to much of Dickert’s market - I wonder how much he may have tapped into the western expansion market - folks travelling west, compared to other makers. Maybe word of mouth reached folks on the east coast recommending they see Dickert for your rifle on your way west. I read Lancaster was a jumping off point for kany heading west.

I also thought I read somewhere that William Henry had some very early rifle contracts with ther towns and/or folks heading west?  Could be wrong about this. But, if so, maybe Dickert got involved with William Henry early on and learned his business ways? Maybe William Henry marketed / sold rifles from several makers?

This brings up, though, a question we've discussed before. How would the people to whom these rifles were sent--out west (say, Pittsburgh or the Ohio Country)--know that they were "Dickerts" unless they were signed by Dickert? And when do we imagine Dickert began to sign the barrels of his rifles?

William Henry did not have any rifle contracts, but he did send batches of Lancaster rifles to Fort Pitt in the 1760s, I think (haven't looked this up again)--after he had left the gunmaking trade entirely and was partnered in a prosperous hardware store. I believe that he gathered rifles from several makers and sent them in batches. But if these rifles weren't signed at this time (early 1760s), how would buyers/users have learned that they were "Dickerts"?

I don't think there's any evidence that "Dickert" was known as a particularly good or reliable gunmaker before the Revolutionary War. Has anybody ever seen anything that suggested this? 

[smart dog]

Hi Scott,
What gunsmiths before the Rev War were identified as good and reliable in surviving records?  Certainly Thomas Earle was recognized in New England but he may have been strongly influenced by Barnabas Mathis, a wonderful gunsmith rarely discussed.  Plus Ebenezer Pomeroy, Seth Pomeroy, Medad Pomeroy were all well noted as skilled "mechanics" and "smiths".  Which PA gunsmiths were recognized as top quality before the war?  Albrecht? Oerter? Henry?  Who?   Dickert was still relatively young before 1775, however the question was not gunsmiths before the Rev War but the best during the 18th century.

dave

[DaveM]

Here is an interesting article printed in 1869. It does not mention Dickert’s name specifically, but folks apparently knew Lancaster rifles were THE rifle to own way back.

[Daryl]

Jacob Kuntz made some very fancy rifles for the upper crust. I don't know the "years".

[spgordon]

What gunsmiths before the Rev War were identified as good and reliable in surviving records?  Certainly Thomas Earle was recognized in New England but he may have been strongly influenced by Barnabas Mathis, a wonderful gunsmith rarely discussed.  Plus Ebenezer Pomeroy, Seth Pomeroy, Medad Pomeroy were all well noted as skilled "mechanics" and "smiths".  Which PA gunsmiths were recognized as top quality before the war?  Albrecht? Oerter? Henry?  Who?   Dickert was still relatively young before 1775, however the question was not gunsmiths before the Rev War but the best during the 18th century.

I don't know of any contemporary comments that indicated by name that any Pennsylvania gunsmiths were particularly "good" or "reliable" or "top quality" (that is, distinguished from their peers). Maybe I'm forgetting something? Others can chime in.

As I've expressed many times over the years, I don't think eighteenth-century consumers purchased rifles because they knew who the maker was. I don't think, in most cases, they knew who the makers were (or knew who they were merely because they purchased from their local, known gunsmiths). I don't think there was a marketplace with the sorts of choices we take for granted.

The original question was who was the finest gunsmith in the eighteenth century. Somehow the question has morphed into who was known in the eighteenth century as the finest gunsmith? I don't think there's any evidence that permits us to answer that second question.

[spgordon]

Here is an interesting article printed in 1869. It does not mention Dickert’s name specifically, but folks apparently knew Lancaster rifles were THE rifle to own way back.

This article is from 1869 and suggests that 25 years earlier--1844--Lancaster rifles were all the rage. I think that's two generations past the period we're talking about (although Dickert did keep working into the nineteenth century).

That said: I think there is evidence that Lancaster was known in the eighteenth century as a center of rifle making. No doubt. But, as you said, Dave, it doesn't mention any maker by name. So ... ?

[DaveM]

I asked AI for the earliest contemporary mention of Dickert and they said this:


I assume it is simply an ad, but he was only 24 years old and it would be interesting to see this ad. Scott do you have a copy of this ad?

[spgordon]

Which PA gunsmiths were recognized as top quality before the war?  Albrecht? Oerter? Henry?  Who?   

It is worth stating this again and straightforwardly. I don't know of a single piece of contemporary comment that shows that anybody recognized Albrecht or Oerter as particularly skilled gunmakers. We certainly recognize that they were (and I am not suggesting that we're wrong). But did eighteenth-century Pennsylvanians?

Henry was a gunsmith for about a decade (1750-1760), after which he left the trade. The fact that he was hired as an armorer in the 1750s suggests, I guess, that important people trusted him to repair arms efficiently. Whether he made a "top quality" rifle--or whether he made any rifles--is entirely unknown.

The Lancaster Committee of Observation (1774-1777) discusses the various gunsmiths in town quite often. But the quality of their work is never mentioned and they never differentiate one from another.

If anybody knows of any contemporary comments that identify any particular Pennsylvania gunsmith as "top quality," I'd be eager to hear of them.