"Canoe gun" or "Whipit gun" either PC?

[Joe Yanta]

It is easy for me to conjure up an image of me paddling down a river in a homespun canoe loaded with plews with a short barreled smoothbore gun along my side. Has anyone ever read any historic documents where the term "Canoe gun" was actually used?

My grandfather, a backwoodsman and black powder trapper if there ever was one, refered to short barreled smootbores as "Whipit guns". Anyone ever heard that term before?

Do you think any pet name or term was accually given short barreled smoothbores besides blunderbuss or coach gun?

Joe

 

[Ridge]

When I was growing up we called them "snake guns".

I think the whole canoe gun thing was more or less a creation of Jackie Brown. It's a neat little gun, but I doubt it's very historically accurate.

 

[faw3]

Dont know if this would help, Ive seen so much about they arent real, but in storage Ive got a old NDN Sharps thats cut down to barrel 11" and about 8" of the stock on it? Fred :hatsoff:

 

Hansons works and the exibits at the Museum of the Fur Trade give full testimony to the existance of many short barreled smoothbores.

Pontiac captured Detroit using "blanket guns" if my memory serves me. The women smuggled them inside the gates.

It is suspected that any smoothbores were not cut down for convinience, but to salvage functioning weapons that had burst barrels.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

I heard that Clyde Barrow coined the term "whippet gun" for the 12 gauge Browning Auto which he cut down at both ends and carried on a strap under his coat so that he could just "whip-it-out" and open up.
We do know that some trade guns were cut down for concealment or for handy horseback use or just because they had burst. But those were relics from the west and from a later period. Woodland Indians who actually used canoes on a daily basis seemed to have no objection to long barrels. :grin:

 

[Russianblood]

Pontiac captured Detroit using "blanket guns" if my memory serves me. The women smuggled them inside the gates.

Actually it was Ft. Michilimackinac that was taken with "blanket guns". Ft. Detroit never fell during Pontiac's War.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Seems to me that when you're in a canoe you got more weight carrying capacity and more room to swing a heavier/longer gun than when on foot in the woods. :winking:

I used to hear "blanket gun" before "Canoe Gun" appeared; as they were said to be used for smuggling into forts inside blankets or under cloaks, and there is a historical reference to that occurring.

Treachery was to be the first movement of Pontiac and his followers in the execution of the sanguinary scheme. He was to begin the tragedy at Detroit. Under the pretext of holding a friendly council with Major Gladwin, the commander of the fort, he entered it in May, with about three hundred warriors, each carrying a knife, tomahawk and short gun, concealed under his blanket.

from Vol I of "Our Country", published late in the 1800's

 

[Okwaho]

Pontiac captured Detroit using "blanket guns" if my memory serves me. The women smuggled them inside the gates.

Actually it was Ft. Michilimackinac that was taken with "blanket guns". Ft. Detroit never fell during Pontiac's War.

Russianblood is correct here. Detroit didn't fall The British were forewarned and had armed troops waiting for the Indian leaders who, upon realizing the folly of carrying out the plan, retreated.There is a report extant that the warriors had been previously observed sawing off gun barrels by an Indian girl supposed to have been the Commandant's mistress and that she warned the British.
Ft Michilimackinac was taken by subterfuge. The warriors were playing lacrosse and let the ball go into the fort.After the gate was opened the Indian women handed the warriors the weapons hidden under their blankets whereupon the warriors rushed in and virtually wiped out the garrison.As I recall the weapons hidden by the women were tomahawks and war clubs rather than guns.
Tom Patton

 

The origional post was a querry about the existance of sawed down muzzleloaders. The references to their existance in many of the documents relating to the era in question is overwhelming.

My lapse in memory seems to have started a egocentric battle of one upmanship having no connection to the origional post.

I am very sorry to have put every one through such trivail.

 

[Norskie]

Oh, don't worry, ghost, that's just our little way...

 

[Okwaho]

My lapse in memory seems to have started a egocentric battle of one upmanship having no connection to the origional post.

I am very sorry to have put every one through such trivail.

Wow!Have I really been part of an "egocentric battle of one upmanship"? Do I get a campaign medal or what? I guess I need to find a bumper sticker that says:
"I was in the egocentric battle of one upmanship of 2006".

What a trip!
Tom Patton

 

[TN.Frank]

The only logical reason that I can see for having a short barrel musket is if the barrel blew out and had to be cut back to make it a working gun again. I'm sure it happend, I'm sure they had short barrel muskets but I don't think it was done for any other reason then to fix a messed up gun. JMHO, YMMV. :hmm: