The Twentieth Century Story of Two Extraordinary Frontier Guns, Part 1 Wallance Gusler

Wallace Gusler

This article first appeared in Muzzle Blasts Magazine in 2016. NMLRA Members get access to digital scans of all the Muzzle Blasts Magazines since 1938. Join Today

The '·pursuit of happiness" presents an endless array of opportunities. Over sixty years ago the pursuit of the 18th­ century American frontier became the major direction of my life. The two flintlock firearms that are the focus of this se­ries (figs. 1 & 2) are extremely important as landmark sur­vivals of the mid-18th-century frontier. They represent the conflict between Colonialism, becoming Americans, and the collision with American natives.

This is the story of the "discovery" of these two extraordinary frontier firearms and the individuals involved in their pursuit. Sometimes "too good to be true" is absolutely true. These cultural objects and individuals are certainly in the rare cat­egory. The late Joe Kindig, Jr., who was, and remains the most prominent individual associated with the study and ap­preciation of the Kentucky rifle, brought these two guns to­gether. In the second quarter of the 20th-century, he as­sembled the largest collection of finely carved Kentucky rifles.

In 1960, he published part of his extraordinary collec­t ion and research in Thoughts on the Kentucky Rifle in its Golden Age. This writer first became aware of the Joe Kindig, Jr., collection from an article in a 1955 issue of The Magazine Antiques that illustrated two walls covered with longrifles. In 1964, when visiting him, I saw the two walls at the top of the landing of the stairway of his bouse. Back in 1955, I had no idea that the wall racks were only the lip or the iceberg of his seven hundred (seven hun­dred in 1968) long rifle collection.

About 1954, at the age of 12, I had started to work as a clean-up boy at Logan's Barn Antiques. Logan's was about five miles west of Salem, Virginia, on State Route 11. The shop was in a twelve-room, two-story building that had been the post office of Glenvar and had closed about 1910. My job there was the result of the purchase (layaway plan) of a grooved stone Indian ax. My first obsession was Native American prehistoric artifacts, mostly those found in the nearby farm fields along the Roanoke River. It was Mr. Rob­ert Logan, Sr., who introduced me to The Magazine Antiques and Mr. Kindig"s reputation as a leading antique dealer in Pennsylvania. A small photograph in the magazine inspired my first gun-making in 1956 (fig. 3). 

In 1958, Mr. Kindig attended the Charlie Wilcox sale of approximately fifty longrifles held about five miles from my home. This was the first time I saw him, but we did nor meet. At that time he was quite well-known in the antique trade as a major Americana dealer and not just because of his long rifle collection. His arrival caused quite a stir among the crowd.

In the straight-laced, short-haired conservative society of Western Virginia in the 1950s, a full-bearded, long-haired, shabbily dressed man wearing sandals was perceived as out­rageous! He bought the first three fine rifles. Then Mr. Wilcox abruptly stopped the auction because he was unhappy with the low prices ($150-$300 range).

Al this time (1958), I was sixteen and finishing my sec­ond or third muzzleloading rifle (fig. 4) and repairing and re­stocking old muzzleloaders and modern guns. My "chicken house" (fig. 5) gun shop was attracting customers and in 1960 one arrived carrying Thoughts on the Ke111uc/...y Rifle in its Golden Age written by Joe Kindig, Jr.

Kindig's book was the single most important publica­tion in my life. At that time, 19th-century Kentucky rifles passed for Revolutionary War period in magazine articles and other sources. Kindig was the first to make sense of the rifle chronology and define the rifle's important ar­tistic and regional qualities.

Several friends (close-by neighbors) had become part of my shop by this time; they included the late Donald Dehart (who made one rifle) and the late Gary Brumfield, who became one of the best Kentucky rifle makers of the 20th century.

A few months before being aware of Kindig's book, a man from Roanoake, Virginia came to my shop carrying, what me and my two best friends, Gary and Duck, was an enigma - a heavily carved rifle (fig. 6). The Kentucky rifles encoun­tered in our neighborhood had highly curved profile at1d thin butt pieces and none had carving! This example had a brass patch box, cheekpiece, and square toe features we were fa­miliar with however, the thickness of the butt and wrist was strange. Likewise, the large lock, tapered and flared barrel was of a scale we had only encountered in the occasional military musket we had seen. At this point, my friends and I knew something was missing in the story of the Kentucky rifle. Did a musket maker turn to rifle making? Nothing like this had appeared in articles we had seen entitled "The Rifle That Won the Revolution" or variations on this title. A few hours spent studying Kindig's book put this example in its proper 18th-century Revolutionary War perspective.

Today it is difficult for most collectors and rifle makers to understand our situation - living in a small country com­munity where many people owned family guns that had be­longed to their grandfathers. As a teenager with a driving in­terest in the I 8th-century frontier, these family muzzleloaders and stories clearly represented a traditional link with this early phase of our history. Virginia frontier history survived all around us, we grew up in Fort Lewis Hollow, now named Fort Lewis Church Road (VA State Rt. 777), hunted on Fort Lewis mountain, attended Fort Lewis school, and Andrew Lewis High school. Fort Lewis was constructed during the French and Indian War somewhere west of Salem, Virginia. In 1756 it was the rendezvous point for Andrew Lewis's Virginia militia companies and a large force of Cherokee warriors in a failed campaign against the Ohio Indians. Lewis and his brother Charles were surveyors for the Greenbrier Land Company during the 1740s and 50s. Andrew was stationed in numerous forts along the Virginia frontier and in 1758 served as a major under George Washington in the Forbes Campaign that took Fort Duquesne and established Fort Pitt at the forks of the Ohio. Lewis was wounded and captured by the French and Indians in Grant's Defeat during this campaign. In 1774 Lewis commanded eleven hundred Valley of Virginia militiamen (rifle companies), including one company lead by his brother Charles. Charles was killed in the day-long battle that defeated the Ohio Indians at Point Pleasant (now West Virginia). An­drew Lewis was made General of all Virginia troops during the Revolution and served until his death in 1781. He is bur­ied in Salem, Virginia.

Clearly we were immersed in frontier history and the Ken­tucky rifle. Kindig's book put the rifle in its historical con­text. The knowledge gained by Kindig's book and the early Virginia rifle (fig. 6) had profound effect on this author's rifle making and collecting. Many of my earliest rifles have original barrels that l finished in the traditional way with cast lead on a hickory rod guide.

In 1961, I traveled to Covington, Virginia, to visit Howard Sites to buy an old rifle barrel from his immense collection of parts, as I had done several times before. Howard was the last practicing gunsmith in the Sites family that started in the 1790s in Harrisonburg. Virginia. I had met him about 1957 and he became an important mentor. On this trip in the back corner of his large shop (approximately 25' x 40') I found a 47" barrel with nice taper and flair that I wanted to buy to make another rifle. Howard said he could not sell it because somewhere in the shop be had the rest of this rifle! I was astonished at the carved thick butt, iron mounted rifle (fig. 7) that emerged from the stock blanks and pieces of wood that stood around the wall at that end of the shop. It has many features that later became part of a complex puzzle of attri­bution of several schools in the James River headwaters and drainage area of the Valley of Virginia. Armed with the knowl­edge gained from Kindig's book, I acquired that rifle by mak­ing Howard a new stock from an assemblage of old parts. I was amazed at Howard's shop. The ceiling beams had leather thongs nailed to them. each pair holding an old gun. Altogether there were about 40-50 rifles and a wonderful early black walnut rifling guide. I acquired the rifling guide and that is now in the Colonial Williamsburg collection.

Howard had bought it from the John Tyree shop in Bath County, Virginia, in 1930. I remember as a young teen looking up at Howard's ceiling and thinking it was like looking up into a school of fish, except they were a school of muzzleloaders lined up, hanging down with their barrels run­ning parallel to the beams. Thirty or forty years later, I saw an 1816 print of a London gun shop that had guns suspended from the ceiling in the same manner. Probably this was a com­mon practice going back to the 18th century. 

The acquisition of this iron-mounted rifle and tbe study of early carved rifles (fig. 7 and 6) led to my first correspon­dence with Joe Kindig, Jr. I sent Polaroid photos of both rifles (fig. 8). The following is Mr. Kindig's response sent to me at my home in Fort Lewis Hollow:

    May 30, 1962

Dear Mr. Gusler;

Thank you for your letter with pictures and informa­tion on the 2 rifles. They are both unusual ones and I do not know the maker of either one. Since they are so different I might guess that they are both Southern ones. I do not care to make statements about r[fles from pic­tures and descriptions especially ones which are very unusual. I prefer to have the gun in my hands to study.

However your own gun (iron mounted) certainly shows association with the Bethlehem-Allentown School in the side plate, and slightly Roman nose. I might guess that it was made in the south by some­one who learned his trade around Allentown. Prob­ably after 1800 due to the very thin trigger guard. Otherwise it would appear earlier:

The other rifle would appear to be earlie1: But it shows no details of any maker or school !hat l know. So again I would guess that it was made by a Southern maker who learned his trade probably around Lancaster. I have one rifle that might be by !he same hand but of which I know nothing. Mine shows a little more Lancaster influence than yours. Set triggers cannot be used to much in dating as they can be early but usually are later.

All the above is what I might guess al. Howeve1; both of your guns have many unusual details that I would not care lo go further without having the guns in my hands. And then I doubt if I could guess much more. Sincerely,

Joe Kindig Jr.

While Mr. Kindig attempted to understand the rifles in fa­miliar Pennsylvania associations, his overriding message was that they had so many "unusual" details: he could only guess they were Southern. His caution and concern for careful study before reaching a conclusion is striking.

Part 2 of this series continues to track discoveries in Ken­tucky rifles in my Iife and how my research interfaced with Mr. Kindig.