Original Hawken question

[M. De Land]

I have always been under the impression that originally Hawken rifles were offered in flintlock early on and later transitioned to percussion but after reading a book I found in the back of my gun library given to me by, I know not who some time ago, it seemed to imply that Hawkens were all percussion guns from the get go. The book is called "Fifteen Years in the Hawken Lode" by John D. Baird.
What is the truth on this?

 

[Grenadier1758]

While there are a few rifles attributed to Jake and Sam Hawken that were flintlock. These flintlock rifles were built along the lines of Virginia / Pennsylvania styled rifles. All of the plains rifles have percussion locks. There are some that appear to be rifles that have a conversion from flint to percussion, but these seem to be a conversion of a flint lock to percussion before the percussion rifle was built. I believe a few actually have a drum and nipple, but once again there is no indication of the rifle being flint in the first place. None of the Hawken builders that I know believe there were plains rifles built with a flint lock. Ashley's rifle built in 1823 could have been a flint lock, but there is no documentation to define the actual architecture. Probably that would have been of the east coat long rifle style in 62 caliber for Ashley.

 

[Thagomizer]

Hop down a few forums to the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade forum where there is a spirited study of Hawken rifles in progress. Much to learn.

 

[tenngun]

Jake and Sams father made rifles, thought to be southern styles. Jake opened a shop in Maryland I think about 1818, then later moved to Ohio. First guns would have been flinters.... if he was building guns and not just doing repairs and alterations.
I was on the band wagon for full stock flint lock Hawkens. My first built was copied from a David Write drawing, and patterned my early outfit off of the same....
But sadly all was wrong

 

[F.G. Ford]

Hi,
You can discuss this topic forever. But given the time in history of 1820's & 30's the possibilities of buying percussion caps on the frontier would be difficult.
Sure you might be able to get some caps at a rondevous, maybe.
Yes the modern plains rifle was on the cutting edge of firearm evolution. But to keep it shooting could be an issue.
Even today getting caps can be a problem.
Walmart does not always have them.
Leman being a competitor made flintlock rifles ( plains style ) right into the turn of the twentieth century.
For every rifle Hawken made, Leman built ten or twenty.
So, the Hawken boys would make anything the customer wanted. These rifle lived a very tough life, being lost in the rivers, beaten to death with hard use.
The Hawken rifle study is incomplete, to say the least.
Fred

 

[plmeek]

I have always been under the impression that originally Hawken rifles were offered in flintlock early on and later transitioned to percussion but after reading a book I found in the back of my gun library given to me by, I know not who some time ago, it seemed to imply that Hawkens were all percussion guns from the get go. The book is called "Fifteen Years in the Hawken Lode" by John D. Baird.
What is the truth on this?

I'm not familiar with the passage in the book you mention that "seemed to imply that Hawkens were all percussion guns from the get go." I would need to understand the context in which these implications were made.

After Baird published his first book, Hawken Rifle: The Mountain Man's Choice, and second book, Fifteen Years in the Hawken Lode, he was on the lookout for a flintlock J&S Hawken rifle. He published a couple articles in Buckskin Report about possible early Hawken rifles that were flint (May 1975, pg. 16 and October 1979, pg. 26), so at that time, he was thinking there were likely flint Hawken rifles made.

As Grenadier1758 said, there are a couple eastern made flintlock rifles likely made by Jake (with father Christian) and Sam (singly), but these were built in either Hagerstown, MD or Xenia, Ohio and not in St. Louis. Further, there are a couple of "J&S Hawken" marked rifles that might have been built as flint and later converted to percussion, but these have not been authenticated and are full stocks, not the half stock rifle we normally associate with the name Hawken.

A conclusion one could draw, and maybe this is what Baird was implying, is that J&S utilized the percussion system in their first half stock rifles. The logic for this is that they realized they could not fully compete on price with the full stock flintlock rifles coming from places like Lancaster and Philadelphia, PA. They needed to differentiate their product in some way. A half stock percussion rifle would certainly be different than a Lancaster pattern full stock flintlock rifle.

This has some timing implications. In both his two books, Baird included a timeline or "Chronological Record Of Events Connected With Hawken Shop". In this timeline, he includes "1813 Joshua Shaw develops percussion cap" and "1814 Shaw attempts to patent his invention" along with dates that Jacob Hawken arrived in St. Louis and date when he opened gun shop as well as date when Samuel Hawken arrived in St. Louis. It's interesting that he included the seemingly unrelated info on Joshua Shaw unless he meant to imply a meaningful relation to Shaw's percussion cap and the Hawken's early time in St. Louis.

The information he presented on Shaw and his percussion cap is incomplete, though. Shaw did claim to have developed a metal percussion cap around 1814 or 1815 while still in England, but it's speculative that he tried to patent it at that time. Others in England were experimenting with the percussion system since the Rev. Alexander John Forsyth of Scotland patented his system in 1807 including Joseph Egg, who may have also developed a metal percussion cap at the same time as Shaw. Forsyth aggressively protected his patent in the English courts until it expired in 1821. After that date, several top gun makers in England started making guns utilizing percussion caps. Percussion sporting guns were pretty common by 1825 in England and almost universal by 1830.

In the meantime, Joshua Shaw had emigrated to America in 1817. He apparently continued to experiment with percussion caps and filed for a US patent on a copper percussion cap in 1822.

As in England, some American gun makers were quick to incorporate the percussion cap in their arms. Henry Deringer was making percussion pistols as early as 1826 (Henry Deringer Pistols from 1826 to 1870 by L. D. Eberhart, pg. 10). George Shumway in Pennesylvania Longrifles of Note shows a Henry Deringer percussion rifle that he says was made in 1829.

Charles Hanson, Jr. found advertisements for percussion arms and percussion caps in St. Louis papers as early as 1830. There could have been some percussion guns in St. Louis a year or two earlier than that for the hardware and guns stores to start supplying caps and start advertising same in 1830.

This rather long winded explanation about the development of percussion caps and use on firearms is meant to make the point that if the Hawken brothers did develop the percussion half stock "Mountain" rifle to differentiate themselves in the St. Louis market, it likely happened right at the end of the 1820s at the earliest. Before that, they were likely making flintlock rifles.

The earliest written record of a mountain man using a Hawken rifle is 1829 (previously Hanson had reported it was 1831). This record was uncovered by Jack Tykal who was researching the activities of Etienne Provost for a book he was working on. Tykal first published this information in the The Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly, Vol. 19. No. 2, Summer of 1983 in his article titled “Etienne Provost and the Hawken Rifle”.

Mr. Tykal is to be congratulated for the research outlined in this article. As far as we know, this is the earliest reference to the sale of a Hawken rifle to a mountain man and the invoice of 1834 is the only record of Hawken rifles being taken to a rendezvous for sale.

The first documented reference connecting Provost and the Hawken occurs in 1829 in a letter from Kenneth McKenzie, commanding at Fort Floyd (later to become Fort Union), to Pierre Chouteau, Jr. In what amounts to a post-script to that letter, dated January 2, 1829, McKenzie requests that Chouteau, “Please add to the spring order two Rifles similar in all respect to the one made by Hawkins for Provost.” In 1827 B Pratte & Co. had taken over the Columbia Fur Company, which henceforth was called the Upper Missouri Outfit, and had sent McKenzie to oversee the company’s post at the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers. Provost had been sent out by the company probably in 1828—although possibly in 1827—to contact the trappers in the mountains to encourage their trading at the company post. In the winter season of 1828-29 he trapped and traded among the Crow Indians, returning to St. Louis in July of 1829.

Jack Tykal published Etienne Provost: Man of the Mountains in 1989. In it he states that Provost spent the latter half of 1827 in St. Louis then headed up the Missouri early in 1828 as an employee of McKenzie’s Upper Missouri Outfit. This would have given Provost ample opportunity to purchase the Hawken rifle in St. Louis prior to going up the Missouri.

Provost may have attended the 1828 Rendezvous at Bear Lake as part of his mission to encourage trappers to trade at the new fort. Provost then traveled to Crow country and spent the fall and winter of 1828/29 trapping with the Crows. He must have visited Fort Union that fall or winter for Kenneth McKenzie to have seen him with his Hawken rifle. In the spring of 1829, he started down river to St. Louis with his furs. He arrived at Fort Tecumseh on July 7th and was in St. Louis by late July.

Mr. Tykal’s research also uncovered that as part of a trapping and trading partnership agreement between Provost and the American Fur Company in August 1829, that Provost purchased an outfit including horses, tomahawks, beaver traps, knives, blankets and the sundry other necessities for such a venture and “2 rifles, Hawkins & Co., $50”.

Apparently, Etienne purchased one Hawken rifle in 1827 and at least two more in 1829. It’s not known if the latter two were for him or the two or three men he hired to accompany him on the 1829/30 venture. Provost again spent the winter hunt with the Crows and traveled back to St. Louis that summer to deliver his furs per his agreement with the AFC.

Based on the discussion above about the development and timing of the percussion cap system, the rifle that Etienne Provost acquired in 1827 would have been a flintlock. The two Hawken rifles he purchased in 1929 were also likely flintlocks and based on their price were almost assuredly full stock rifles. No price info is available on the 1827 rifle so can't say whether it was full stock or not.

Again, I'm not sure what you read in Fifteen Years in the Hawken Lode that "seemed to imply that Hawkens were all percussion guns from the get go." The only basis for Baird to think that was that he hadn't seen any surviving Hawken rifles that appeared to have been made with flintlocks at the time he published the book, but to my read, he seemed to expect to find one someday.

 

[Pete G]

Thanks, Phil. Very well written.

 

[rich pierce]

There’s an original J&S Hawken-marked fullstock rifle with drum and nipple conversion from flintlock. Don Stith is using it as a model for kits. I’m pretty convinced it’s authentic and was a flintlock.

In addition to the documentation above there’s the story of the Ashley Hawken rifle which almost certainly was a flintlock.

To me there is no doubt that J&S Hawken made full stocked flintlock rifles that went west. Probably not hundreds of them. I’d expect most to have long, fixed tanged, plain flint breechplugs, slightly swamped or slightly tapered barrels around 38” long, walnut stocks, possibly pinned barrels versus keyed, straight cheekpieces, double set triggers with or without the long bar, and large bow scroll guards and forged/brazed buttplates.

 

[M. De Land]

There’s an original J&S Hawken-marked fullstock rifle with drum and nipple conversion from flintlock. Don Stith is using it as a model for kits. I’m pretty convinced it’s authentic and was a flintlock.

In addition to the documentation above there’s the story of the Ashley Hawken rifle which almost certainly was a flintlock.

To me there is no doubt that J&S Hawken made full stocked flintlock rifles that went west. Probably not hundreds of them. I’d expect most to have long, fixed tanged, plain flint breechplugs, slightly swamped or slightly tapered barrels around 38” long, walnut stocks, possibly pinned barrels versus keyed, straight cheekpieces, double set triggers with or without the long bar, and large bow scroll guards and forged/brazed buttplates.

I thought authentic Hawkens always employed a patented breech, no drum and nipples. Would not those found with forged on snails be more likely flint conversions?

 

[plmeek]

I thought authentic Hawkens always employed a patented breech, no drum and nipples. Would not those found with forged on snails be more likely flint conversions?

The rifle Rich is describing, if an authentic Hawken, was likely made as a flintlock by J&S, but converted by someone else to percussion using a drum and nipple.

Not all Hawken rifles employed a patent breech. A patent breech is what the English called a "false breech". It was a separate section that screwed into the breech end of the barrel. A patent breech could be fixed, meaning the tang was integral to the breech, or it could be hooked with a separate standing breech that included the tang.

This picture is from Hanson's The Plains Rifle and illustrates the common type of percussion breech systems. What I'm calling a "hooked patent breech" is what Hanson illustrates as a "Patent breech" and what I call a "fixed patent breech" is what he is calling a "Semi-patent breech". Hanson's terms were commonly used before circa 1990, but you don't see or hear the term "Semi-patent breech" much anymore.

The Hawken brothers sometimes used a breech where the breech bolster was an integral part of the barrel, something like Hanson's "Plain side lug". The Leonard J&S Hawken in the Museum of the Fur Trade is an example.

You'll notice that there is no seam present in front of the breech bolster indicative of a patent breech. The breech bolster is part of the barrel. There are several J&S Hawken rifles with this style of breech that is not a "patent breech".

"Would not those found with forged on snails be more likely flint conversions?"
It would be very hard to tell if a rifle with a forged on snail had been a flint conversion. It would probably mean that the barrel had been replaced because the forging of the snail was likely done during the process of making a barrel or at least before the bore was rifled and the breech threaded. Forging, or more properly forge welding, requires heating iron white hot and results in the formation of a lot of forge scale. You wouldn't want that scale on the rifling or the threads because it is essentially iron oxide, the same as rust.

 

[M. De Land]

The rifle Rich is describing, if an authentic Hawken, was likely made as a flintlock by J&S, but converted by someone else to percussion using a drum and nipple.

Not all Hawken rifles employed a patent breech. A patent breech is what the English called a "false breech". It was a separate section that screwed into the breech end of the barrel. A patent breech could be fixed, meaning the tang was integral to the breech, or it could be hooked with a separate standing breech that included the tang.

This picture is from Hanson's The Plains Rifle and illustrates the common type of percussion breech systems. What I'm calling a "hooked patent breech" is what Hanson illustrates as a "Patent breech" and what I call a "fixed patent breech" is what he is calling a "Semi-patent breech". Hanson's terms were commonly used before circa 1990, but you don't see or hear the term "Semi-patent breech" much anymore.

The Hawken brothers sometimes used a breech where the breech bolster was an integral part of the barrel, something like Hanson's "Plain side lug". The Leonard J&S Hawken in the Museum of the Fur Trade is an example.

You'll notice that there is no seam present in front of the breech bolster indicative of a patent breech. The breech bolster is part of the barrel. There are several J&S Hawken rifles with this style of breech that is not a "patent breech".

"Would not those found with forged on snails be more likely flint conversions?"
It would be very hard to tell if a rifle with a forged on snail had been a flint conversion. It would probably mean that the barrel had been replaced because the forging of the snail was likely done during the process of making a barrel or at least before the bore was rifled and the breech threaded. Forging, or more properly forge welding, requires heating iron white hot and results in the formation of a lot of forge scale. You wouldn't want that scale on the rifling or the threads because it is essentially iron oxide, the same as rust.

Thanks Phil, good point and sound reasoning on the forge welded snails!

I was thinking the snail forging could have been done when it came time to fresh out the bore after the crown was worn down, a good time to convert to percussion while the gun was in for repairs.
Have any of the "maybe flint" Hawken rifles been found with flash hole re-lining that you now of?

 

[plmeek]

Have any of the "maybe flint" Hawken rifles been found with flash hole re-lining that you now of?

Not that I know of. The installation of the drum likely would have removed any or covered up the evidence if they had been bushed.

 

[plmeek]

I’d expect most to have long, fixed tanged, plain flint breechplugs, slightly swamped or slightly tapered barrels around 38” long, walnut stocks, possibly pinned barrels versus keyed, straight cheekpieces, double set triggers with or without the long bar, and large bow scroll guards and forged/brazed buttplates.

Rich,
I don't disagree with your description of an early J&S flintlock, full stock Hawken, but if you left out the part about the "large bow scroll guards" and possibly change the stock from walnut to maple, couldn't the same description fit one of JJ Henry's steel mounted Lancaster rifles?

In the The Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly, Vol. 19. No. 2, Summer of 1983, Jack Tykal's article titled “Etienne Provost and the Hawken Rifle”, he says he also found in the AFC records an “Invoice of merchandise sent to Lucien Fontanelle in charge of Etienne Proveau to be sold in the Rocky Mountain for account and risks of U.M.O, 1834.” In 1834, Etienne Provost was tasked with bringing supplies to the AFC brigades in the Rocky Mountains that were led by Lucien Fontanelle and Andrew Drips.

The invoice included among the weapons, “10 steel mounted rifles,” at $17.50 each, 30 Northwest guns, “3 rifles in use (used),” and a listing for “…6 steel mounted rifles, Hawken,” at $20 each.

The 10 steel mounted rifles at $17.50 each would have been some of those made by JJ Henry for the AFC. Hanson tabulated AFC orders for such rifles which totaled 70.

Some historians and gun writers have created confusion, if not controversy, over what these steel mounted Henry rifles looked like. For example, Garavaglia and Worman in Firearms of the American West: 1803 – 1865 quote a letter dated 31 Dec 1830 from Ramsay Crooks of the AFC to J. Joseph Henry ordering 10 rifles as:

3 feet to 3 feet 2 inches, to have Steel mounting instead of Brass...and to have the very best Locks of 5 inch plates.

This is the same order that Hanson tabulated in the first row of the table above.

They left out a key part of the description of the rifles, though. The letter actually said:

• 10 Rifles Single triggers - to be 3 feet 6½ to 3 feet 8 inches in the barrel to carry a Ball 32 to 40 to the pound, and in every other respect to be the same as the sample Rifle of J. Dickert Gill now furnished by the Compy
• 10 --do-- the same in all respects as the preceding 10, except that the Barrels are to be Brown
• 10 --do-- Same as the first 10, excepting the length of the barrel which are to be 3 feet to 3 ft 2 inches, to have steel mounting instead of Brass but of the same shape & dimensions [emphasis added] and to have the very best Locks of 5 inch plates.

Garavaglia and Worman left out the portion highlighted that said the steel mountings were to be the "same shape and dimensions" as the brass mountings. Garavaglia and Worman may have left this out of their quote so they could present the iron mounted rifle in the Smithsonian collection, which they pictured on page 35 (see below), as a sample of a JJ Henry steel mounted rifle.

The rifle pictured above is marked "ES" on the barrel and was most likely made in the mountains of North Carolina. It is not a JJ Henry rifle.

The full wording of the Ramsay Crooks letter makes it clear that the Henry steel mounted rifles look the same as the brass mounted rifles except for the color of the mounts. And the Henry steel mounted rifles would have looked a lot like the flintlock, full stock rifles that J&S had been making.

It's interesting that Ramsay Crooks was ordering steel mounted rifles from Henry two years after Kenneth McKenzie requested Pierre Chouteau, Jr. send him "two Rifles similar in all respect to the one made by Hawkins for Provost.” Was the AFC attempting to source steel mounted rifles that were cheaper than what they could get them from J&S Hawken? If they were, it wasn't to replace the Hawken rifles because they were sending to the rendezvous both Henry steel mounted rifles and Hawken steel mounted rifles. Apparently, they were giving the mountain men a choice.

 

[plmeek]

I couldn't get the table Hanson created of the AFC orders for JJ Henry steel mounted rifles to appear. I finally got it to work. Edited the original post, too.

 

[rich pierce]

Price choice!

 

[brazosland]

Better price. Or maybe the Hawkens just couldn’t produce rifles in the quantities needed.

 

[58viktor]

While there are a few rifles attributed to Jake and Sam Hawken that were flintlock. These flintlock rifles were built along the lines of Virginia / Pennsylvania styled rifles. All of the plains rifles have percussion locks. There are some that appear to be rifles that have a conversion from flint to percussion, but these seem to be a conversion of a flint lock to percussion before the percussion rifle was built. I believe a few actually have a drum and nipple, but once again there is no indication of the rifle being flint in the first place. None of the Hawken builders that I know believe there were plains rifles built with a flint lock. Ashley's rifle built in 1823 could have been a flint lock, but there is no documentation to define the actual architecture. Probably that would have been of the east coat long rifle style in 62 caliber for Ashley.

Hello- Here is a picture proving this original Hawken first turn of the century rifle being flint before being converted to percussion. Untouched original used. Any feedback welcomed. Thank you,

58viktor

 

[Notchy Bob]

58victor, thanks for sharing that picture. I don't doubt that Jacob Hawken built flintlock rifles for westering pioneers while he was in St. Louis. However, I'm not really seeing anything there to definitely indicate the rifle in the photo was originally flintlock, or is in fact a product of the Hawken shop.

I have handled a number of old rifles (although none were Hawkens) that were originally made as percussion rifles with the drum-and-nipple arrangement. It is true that this was a common technique for converting flintlock rifles to percussion, but it was not the only way, and plenty of original percussion rifles started life with a drum and nipple.

A lot of original flintlocks have a relief cut in the wood just above the lockplate to give the cock greater clearance. I don't see that in this rifle. I don't see holes in the plate to suggest the pan, frizzen , and feather spring were removed, although it is certainly possible that the lock is a replacement. Those "clips" securing the nose and tail of the lock plate are most unusual, so it could very well be a replacement lock.

Whether it is a conversion or not, this rifle saw a lot of use with percussion ignition. All of that erosion around the bolster on the barrel is a result of the corrosive elements in percussion cap flash. Flintlocks tend not to "burn" so badly.

Finally, are we sure this rifle is indeed a Hawken? I don't see anything in the photo that says "Hawken" to me. More photos with more views of the rifle would be great.

By all means, tell us what you see that confirms the rifle in the photo is a Hawken rifle that was originally flintlock.

Thanks!

Notchy Bob

 

[rich pierce]

Hello- Here is a picture proving this original Hawken first turn of the century rifle being flint before being converted to percussion. Untouched original used. Any feedback welcomed. Thank you,View attachment 58679 58viktor

Looks like a generic percussion rifle. “Hawken” means made by someone with the last name “Hawken”. For our purposes, Jake or Sam.

 

[tenngun]

One of the problems is what is a ‘Hawken Rifle”. Our eyes are drawn to the classic half stock plains gun. Or a full stock version there of.
The 1829 rifle mentioned above comes to mind. What did it look like. Was it flint?
It was unlikely to be a flint version of the Jim Bridger Hawken
Jakes first guns known have a Maryland style look to them to my eye.
The brothers later in Ohio and in their Saint Louse shop would turn out some delicate and fancy guns. Even some of the classic ‘By God Mountian Men’ rifles could be touched with a few graceful addition.
Any gun made before the classic Hawkins’ could be put in a display of Federal age guns and be lost. Even experts might not pick them out of the group. You might not be able to pick a Hawken made rifles out of a display of Vincent rifles, or one out of a display of early Tennessee made guns.
I referenced my gun based on a David Write drawing. Such gun was most likely a myth.
We have called Hawken a type the brothers. And later Sam didn’t know they were exclusively to be known for