I think this would make for an excellent read. I ran across it on another Forum, and thought it worthy of sharing it here;
I accidentally ran across the name of Granville Stuart (1834-1918), generally acknowledged as a pioneer and early cattleman in the state of Montana. He also wrote an autobiography, entitled Forty Years on the Frontier. Google Books has kindly provided us with a substantial excerpt online. Here's the link, if you want to have a look: Forty Years on the Frontier
In reading the excerpt, I found that Mr. Stuart was born in Virginia in 1834, but his family moved to Illinois in 1837, then across the Mississippi to Iowa territory in 1838. The first chapter of Mr. Stuart's autobiography deals with his childhood in eastern Iowa.
This is really interesting reading. There were still some native people present, whom Stuart identified as "Musquawkee" Indians, likely either Fox or Prairie Potawatomi. He described them as "good kind-hearted people," and he and his family got on very well with them. He reported malaria was very common among the pioneers there. He also described plenty of good timber east of the prairie, including sugar maple trees, which they tapped for syrup and sugar. Malaria? Maple sugar? I had never considered either in connection with Iowa. He said there was "an abundance of game," including deer, elk, turkeys, prairie chickens, squirrels, and beaver. Naturally, the men were hunters.
Mr. Stuart devoted several paragraphs to discussing the guns they used. Here's a quote: The guns used for hunting in those days [1843-1850] were flintlock rifles brought by the frontiersmen from Virginia and Kentucky. They were full-stocked... They were heavy, weighing from eleven to thirteen pounds, all hand work with small calibers, running from about sixty round bullets to a pound of lead... Father had two guns which I well remember, as it was with these guns that he taught me to hunt. One was a flint-lock that he used when hunting along streams where there was timber and little wind. If the weather was cold and snow on the ground he could quickly start a fire with his flint-lock by which he would dress the deer he had killed. With the gun he was sure of killing a deer, if it was within one hundred and twenty five yard distance. The other gun he used while hunting on the prairies or out in the wind. It was a small bore rifle fired with percussion caps placed on the nipple. The cap would not blow off as did the powder in the pan of the flint-lock" (pp. 32-33).
He reported a neighbor had "a flint-lock half-stock, of large caliber for those days, using forty round balls to the pound of lead." He stated that this was "the first half-stocked gun I ever saw."
There is a lot of information in all of that. It sounds as if full stocked southern long rifles were pretty common on the Iowa frontier, and flintlocks were in general use, even in the late 1840's. It appears that Stuart's father felt he was only at a disadvantage with the flintlock in heavy wind, and he deliberately chose the flinter in cold weather. As described, he could use it to start a fire, if needed. However, in reading other period writings, I've several times run across references to "self-priming" flintlocks. Obviously, this means some of the main powder charge would leak through the touch hole and into the pan. However, many of the old timers considered this a good thing, as it saved a step in the loading process. If you have ever tried to manipulate #11 caps with wet, cold, greasy, or arthritic fingers, you can see the advantage. In my opinion, this was probably one reason flintlocks held on for as long as they did.
I had also read in other places that the old pioneers got along with smaller calibers than we deem necessary nowadays. Balls that run sixty to the pound measure 0.427". Allowing for a little windage, this would likely be for about a .44 caliber rifle. Stuart did mention the neigbor's rifle with a larger bore, but lead balls weighing forty to the pound would only measure 0.488". Again allowing for some windage, this was likely about a fifty caliber rifle.
There is also the issue of weight. There are few among us these days who want to carry a rifle of eleven to thirteen pounds, but this was the norm on the frontier. I believe Stuart is accurate in all of this, as old Tennessee rifles my father collected many years ago are all long and heavy.
Anyway, there is a great deal of information in Mr. Stuart's book, and the short excerpt on Google Books alone has a lot for us history buffs to digest. My apologies to those among you who have Iowa connections, but I had not given much thought to the early frontier in that state, up until now. There is so much to learn.
Topic: Forty Years on the Frontier (Read 165 times)