What gun for early 1700's Virginia.

[JohnBHM]

This person's family ( Pouncy ) came to the Richmond Virginia area from Dorcester England in the late 1600's. He still has family in Dorchester and records back to 1200. I am thinking he may like something that might have come with the family in the late 1600's to 1700 from England. From the little research I have done the family were bullies and anti authority.

 

[Brokennock]

Dave Person, that was so well written and informative concerning weapons that predate most of what "we" commonly think of and encounter. Thank you.

100%

 

[Brokennock]

I did visit a cotton plantation some years ago and they explained that there was a " rifle " kept in the house......

What time period was this plantation supposed to represent?

 

[sportster73hp]

If it is to be some sort of english fowling piece were they all stocked in walnut or were other wood type used ? Do you see maple shipped to England for stocks? Were other fruit trees used?

 

[Mike in FL]

Here we go again,,,,
Who's got the popcorn?

I'm staying out. The recent thread about early rifles went south. I'm afraid I engaged in that one way too much. Maybe this one will be tamer.

 

[Mike in FL]

Perhaps something like the doglock in the foreground.
View attachment 303650

Wow, that is a CLEAN work bench.

 

[JDBraddy]

I'm sure the histoians here will correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the impression that the early Virginia colony was basically the 17th century version of a penal colony / slave labor camp.

Many if not most where dead within a couple years of arriving, they where starving, in fact the first years where called the "starving times" yet they where growing cash crops for export instead of food, disease was rampant, most where petty criminals and political disidents sentenced to "Transportation" which basically meant they incurred a huge debt they couldn't pay forcing them into endentured servitude for life.

I don't think they where allowed to own property, businesses, marry, and all fruits of their labor belonged to the company, which had paid the crown to purchase their endenture, then continued to add to their debt for things like transport there, food, lodging, and medical care, with the intent that they would never be able to repay the debt, and consequently never be free.

They where unable to defend themselves as evidenced by events such as the Jamestown massacre.

Multiple informal and therefore unrecognized marriages left multitudes of orphaned children, with no one and no way to provide for themselves.

Honestly, sounds like "He'll on Earth" to me.

 

[Sam squanch]

Am curious to watch this thread, according to Ancestry, (not sure how much to believe), my first ancestor on this continent was a teenager from Sussex, who arrived at Isle of White Virginia as an endentured Servant to the Virginia Co. around 1620, don't know what the rules where, but doubt he would have been allowed to own much of anything, especially a firearm.

He had access to a firearm if an Indian uprising was rumored. If they had enough to go around. You may fear your master, and vise versa, but they were all united in fear of the natives.

 

[Sam squanch]

Thanks Dave
Would you know of any options in kit form that might be available. My gun building experience is very limited but I am not new to woodworking and am always up to a challenge.

Thanks again, John.

Just get a plain round barrel, a very early flintlock ( English lock from Leonard Days sons) a hunk of wood and have at it. Most working guns were crude, so if you don’t do a stellar job, it’s ok. Lots of build info on here!

 

[rickystl]

If we are talking about arriving from England between the third or fourth quarter of the 17th Century, the new comer might have brought with him something like this:

Rick

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
Nice gun Ricky! My previous post describing Gill's book on Virginia gunsmiths points at social and economic conditions that did not stimulate a strong middle class of tradesmen, professionals, small landowners, and industry unlike New England and most of the mid-Atlantic colonies. It was more a structure of "lords", "white peasants", and African slaves. That of course is a gross simplification and there was a lot more nuance but it is fundamentally accurate when comparing the more northern colonies. The power structure was solidly in the hands of the plantation elites and everyone else was of lower class. David Hackett Fisher, in his seminal book "Albion's Seed" describes the social, economic, and political differences in the colonies related to the timing and sources of British immigration to colonial America. The tidewater south was possessed by the "displaced cavaliers" who escaped England during Cromwell's reign. They believed in an elite that was free to govern themselves but that everyone else were their servants. It was not a good model for strong economic equality. Note I write "tidewater" Virginia because the inland regions colonized by later arriving "Scotch-Irish" is an entirely different story. There was an analogous story in New York along the Hudson River. There, very wealthy Dutch and English "poltroons" owned huge tracts of land worked by tennant tradesmen and farmers. Society was very hierarchal just like in the south. My connection to this story is that it gave rise to the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont. Early on, they were essentially a vigilante group, perhaps even domestic terrorists trying to prevent incursion into Vermont from New York land speculators. Many of their members were past participants in the "renter wars" fought along the border of Massachusetts and New York in which Massachusetts freeholders, small land owners, resisted incursion by the big land owners from New York trying to force their version of tenant ownership of the land. The Rev War came about none to soon to avoid a real civil war between the colonies of New York and Massachusetts.

dave

 

[CuNosecap]

Holy smokes, this guy is a proverbial encyclopedia. Thanks Dave for the lesson. I think I may have learned more from this thread than I did in high school history. Then again my attention span is longer now.

 

[rickystl]

Thanks Dave for that bit of history. Very interesting. And thanks for the compliment. I've always thought that gun I posted above "did" fit in a half-century or so period. Very transitional so to say.

Rick

 

[ronaldrothb49]

If we are talking about arriving from England between the third or fourth quarter of the 17th Century, the new comer might have brought with him something like this:

Rick

View attachment 304142

I think you nailed that one looks perfect for that time period.

 

[Carteret Kid]

English Civil war surplus guns would have been the "poor man's" gun for that period.

 

[TBone]

I wanted to have some firearms for Elizabethan through Jamestown era reenactment. After doing some research I built a couple of pieces, and acquired a couple more.

That 1600-1700 range is broad, and covers a lot of styles and change. Assuming an English colony, everything from the Dutch influence on English military weapons, through the English Civil War to Queen Anne period. This would cover fishtail stocks, paddle buts, and rounded heels on the stock. Also depending on how early, you can expect to find snaphaunces, english locks, and even occasional wheellocks. The "firelocks", to use an early 17th century term, were disproportionately represented in the colonies after they found the matchlocks did not work well against Indians.

Looking at a copy of Fireamrs in Colonial America by Brown, Arms and Armor in Colonial America by Peterson, or the various works by Puype, is informative.

In the attached pic, These covers are of the first half of the 17th century. The top two are my builds. the wheel lock was my second. Number two is a snaphaunce. Both those pieces are patterned off the Dutch regulations of 1596, which set the early standards for English military guns. The matchlock (third from the top) is Lodgewood, It is appropriate for turn of the century (i.e. 1600 sear bar, cannon muzzle, no buttplate). The English lock fishtail 4th from the top is Leonard Day. Representative of the Englich Civil War period. The wheellock carbine 5th from the top is an original found in the southwest, and restocked at some point. The Bottom one is a paddle but, also by Day. All of the bottom three have nailed butt plates. They are all smooth bore.

 

[rickystl]

I wanted to have some firearms for Elizabethan through Jamestown era reenactment. After doing some research I built a couple of pieces, and acquired a couple more.

That 1600-1700 range is broad, and covers a lot of styles and change. Assuming an English colony, everything from the Dutch influence on English military weapons, through the English Civil War to Queen Anne period. This would cover fishtail stocks, paddle buts, and rounded heels on the stock. Also depending on how early, you can expect to find snaphaunces, english locks, and even occasional wheellocks. The "firelocks", to use an early 17th century term, were disproportionately represented in the colonies after they found the matchlocks did not work well against Indians.

Looking at a copy of Fireamrs in Colonial America by Brown, Arms and Armor in Colonial America by Peterson, or the various works by Puype, is informative.

In the attached pic, These covers are of the first half of the 17th century. The top two are my builds. the wheel lock was my second. Number two is a snaphaunce. Both those pieces are patterned off the Dutch regulations of 1596, which set the early standards for English military guns. The matchlock (third from the top) is Lodgewood, It is appropriate for turn of the century (i.e. 1600 sear bar, cannon muzzle, no buttplate). The English lock fishtail 4th from the top is Leonard Day. Representative of the Englich Civil War period. The wheellock carbine 5th from the top is an original found in the southwest, and restocked at some point. The Bottom one is a paddle but, also by Day. All of the bottom three have nailed butt plates. They are all smooth bore.

Great collection. I think these early/transitional style guns are so interesting.

Rick

 

[MezcalCharlie]

Plantation owners of that era were not like we imagine the plantation owners of the mid 19th century. The agricultural technology and economics were markedly different. (Jamestown and Plymouth were within living memory.)

To put it in modern perspective think “lower middle class”.

So, such a firearm would be a utilitarian plain sturdy smoothbore; the same as every other working class person that could afford to own a gun.

Very true. Early plantation life, whether indentured servants or slaves would be entirely different from what the slave labor plantation became after the cotton gin. The plantation owner would be laboring alongside the rest of his workers in the first few generations. Even when wealth and circumstance no longer required his labor, he would be closely involved. Often slaves worked an area in small groups say twenty slaves and 200 acres depending on the crops. Slaves had some autonomy and could visit with other slave conclaves on the sabbath. I have read that there could be raucous parties on Saturday nights. In some colonies in the late 1600’s early 1700’s when native Americans presented a threat, it wasn’t uncommon for some slaves to be armed. Remember that the early slaves often came from other colonies like Barbados and had skills needed for rice or tobacco cultivation. While slaves, there was still a work relationship and some trust between owner and slave as well as a mutual self protection desire against the natives. This type of slavery was much more in tune with the slavery that had existed throughout history in Europe and Africa. What came later, the brutality, the inhuman treatment came when crops and therefore slave labor became so much more valuable and slave populations greatly exceeded the white plantation population. This is not an endorsement of earlier slavery but rather an understanding of the differences that came over time.

 

[FlinterNick]

One of my customers family owned a tabacco plantation from the late 1600's until the early 1700's. After seeing a couple of my flintlocks he asked if I could build him one that could have been used by his family during that time. My question is what might a plantation owner in the early 1700's been able to acquire.

I’ve had the opportunity to review some very nice collections of early guns, one observation I made was many very early muskets 1700’s era and earlier had locks that appear to fit the profile of an early sea service lock.

Early Sea Service Locks were very plain, i would describe them as a Dog Lock without the dog catch and no bridles with three lock plate screws. Flintcocks are often double throated.

With sea merchants and the British Navy often in charge of colonial port security, were any older model sea service guns sold or traded to the colonies for militia use or civilian use? Many collectors believe so.

These larger locks, which are very plain looking, are often found on New England fowlers, and Heavier club butted muskets. The french also had a similarly styled early lock.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I'm happy that my first thought was "dog lock".... and what @dave_person wrote will likely "go" for Maryland folks along the Maryland - Virginia border at the Potomac (aka Potamack) River as Maryland Rangers.

LD