A Catalogue of Early Pennsylvania and Other Firearms and Edged Weapons at "Restless Oaks", McElhattan, Pa

A Catalogue of Early Pennsylvania and Other Firearms and Edged Weapons at "Restless Oaks", McElhattan, Pa.

For years this writer's aim was to visualize the armed Pennsylvanian of earlier days; how he went forth to fight his Indian foe, to slay the bison, moose, elk and smaller game, and on his expeditions to the fields of love: where his firearms and edged weapons originated. To create the living man his arms must be secured, and gradually the present collection was assembled. And he lived again, dark, grim, bearded, the spirit of lofty pines and hemlocks among which he spent his days, always plotting to kill something. Many of the arms, if they could speak, what tales of war, the chase, and love adventure they could tell! The Pennsylvania woodsman was filled with the romance of slaughter, a heritage of mingled Continental origins, Huguenot, Spanish, Portuguese, Swiss, Waldensian, Levantine, with the strains of Ulster Scot, Alsatian, Palatine, Hollander and Moravian, cooling cross currents in his veins. No wonder that the women of this blended race were the most darkly beautiful in the world, and a group of the curious edged weapons they carried to destroy men who annoyed them might well be the subject of another separate collection. But the arms stacked in silent panoply, or the daggers, dirks and powder flasks, would not suffice to give the collection the answer to the questions it involved. Along with a group of daring Alpinists to "Restless Oaks" came H. Beam Piper, of Altoona, Pa., a modern master-of-arms, who patiently set to work to describe the collection from its oldest to its newest examples. As the results of his intelligent energy and research the following catalogue has been prepared which gives us the skeleton figure of the armed Pennsylvania mountain man, from the frontier days until later and more prosaic times ensued. While many of the arms listed are in imperfect condition and some of the more important ones are lacking, they give the idea of his times. Other pieces of later periods, and a few of foreign use, are included for purposes of comparison. To these are added Mr. Piper's catalogue of his own collection, all in perfect order, to show similar types of weapons at their best. While, as stated, there are many specimens missing, these vacancies emphasize the wide range of weapons used by the old-time Pennsylvanians. The frequent wars kept bringing new types of arms into the wilderness and new ideas for weapons among the woodsmen themselves, and this was most noteworthy after the Civil War, which was also the end of the grand romantic period of the Pennsylvania wilderness. The mountaineer of Pennsylvania was of martial blood, his ancestors had fought in every state of Continental Europeand the science of armorer was his birthright. David Lewis, the "Galloping Jack" or highwayman of Central Pennsylvania, used new pistols every year, and weapons which he is said to have carried are as plentiful as Ole Bull's violins. The frontiersmen of British origins always named their favorite rifles "My Friend," "My Brother," "Sure Shot," "Confidence," "Never Fail," "Carry My Wish," "Kill Deer," and "Kill Buck," and cherished them almost as living things. Many of them camped out at the wayside gunshops until a specially ordered weapon was begun and finished, so as to supervise every detail of its fabrication. Quaint and full of historic lore were these mystic wayside shrines of arms, which are alas with a few exceptions no more. Billy de Shera's on Larry's Creek near Jersey Shore instilled the love of arms in several generations of mountain boys, and the last gunshops in existence, those of Seth Nelson, Jr., near Round Island, Clinton County, and David C. Busler, near Collomsville, Lycoming County, have had arms loving pilgrims of note from all over the State to learn the last dying secrets of the Kentucky rifles, which, despite their name, were mostly made in Pennsylvania. Often the backwoods arms enthusiast would insist that the shutters be closed and the smith's work carried on by candle-light, lest a passing hechs cast a glance upon the barrel, which would ever afterward be deprived of the power to kill. The proud owner of a cherished gun would never leave it near a hechs, lest she run her cold trembling hand along the barrel and forever destroy its accuracy. There were also spells or pow-wowing to make a gun shoot perfectly, and these were put on before a foe was to be removed, and more especially with the heavy rifles used at shooting matches. Needles and papers written full of incantations were slipped under the barrels where they joined the stocks to keep away the witches. The writer has seen Robert Covenhoven's rifle with thirteen notches on the under side of the stock. His scalping-knife has seven notches, where this merciless scalp-hunter enumerated his red victims prior to collecting the scalp bounty at Harris' Ferry. The Covenhoven rifle was latterly owned by the old deer-hunter Miller Day, of English Centre, Lycoming County, but is now in Philadelphia, while the knife is at the James V. Brown Library, Williamsport, together with his Ketland pistol. As symbols of a bolder and broader day the firearms of backwoods Pennsylvania will always exercise a peculiar charm, typifying as they do the period of trackless forests, Indians, panthers, wolves, unbridled romance. Also, that strangely picturesque period of the Civil War, when the sharp-shooting Pennsylvania mountain boys (and older ones) went forth to snip; for did not Jake Karstetter, of Sugar Valley, Clinton County, enlist as 37 when he was 57 and compass the death of seven Confederate general officers? Notched on the walnut stock of his favorite weapon, the work of Henry Barner, a wayside Sugar Valley gunsmith, were seven sets of minute carvings in the form of collar insignias in all the grades from a Lieutenant General to a Lieutenant Colonel. And when they led him haltered through the streets of Richmond they labelled him "a wild Yankee from the North," because of his unshorn hair and beard, which he swore he would not cut until he had "set Jeff Davis cold." It is a pity that the science of ancient arms is not more popular in inland Pennsylvania, and that more of the curious specimens of arms have not been retained, but were allowed to be shipped away to collectors elsewhere before their local value was recognized. It is with a hope that it may stimulate other collectors at home to assemble ancient weapons before it is too late that this catalogue has been published. It is as a fragment, and not as a complete collection, but it puts before the reader the picture of an arms loving race, in the glorious ante-mollycoddle age, which was the golden age of Pennsylvania manhood. But in truth there has been very little, if any, decline, when one thinks of the valor of the boys of the 28th, the 79th and other outfits where Pennsylvanians were most in evidence in the World War. Many of these had old Civil War grandfathers, who could tell of Fredericksburg or Petersburg, of how earlier they barked squirrels on tall hardwood trees, or shot into the flocks of wild pigeons "which darkened the sun" in their great flights. And to welcome in the "apostolic succession" of arms new lovers among our boys, even the least of them, this collection stands catalogued, thanks to Mr. Piper's perseverance. It is an invitation and appeal to carry on all that is boldest, bravest and best of that fearless company that bore their spears along the dark warpaths of obscurity, and stacked them on the campgrounds of eternal night. Henry W. Shoemaker. "Restless Oaks," McElhattan, Pa., July 30, 1927. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 20442
Author: Shoemaker, Henry W.
Release Date: Jan 25, 2007
Format: eBook
Language: English