Early American Gunsmithing: A Family Affair Part 1

By Clayton E. Cramer

When I was researching the history of American gun culture, I spent quite a bit of time looking for evidence of gunsmiths-both those who made guns, and those who repaired them. What was quite intriguing to me was how often gunsmithing was a craft that passed down from father to son.

I suppose that this should not have been a surprise. Until the federal government consciously transformed gunmaking from a craft to an industrial enterprise, starting in the 1790s, gunsmithing would have been like any other occupation of the time: your shop was in your home, or perhaps immediately adjacent to it. It would only be natural that your children would be pressed into service, learn the skills, and take over the family business when the father died, or became too old to perform the most physically demanding aspects, such as forging barrels.

Some families in the gun business stayed in it for generations. Richard Waters emigrated to Massachusetts from England about 1632. A descendant in 1878 observed that Waters "was by profession a gun manufacturer; married the daughter of a gun maker, and it is a noteworthy fact that the business of gunmaking has been hereditary in some branch of the Waters families almost continuously since."1

Eltweed Pomeroy set up gunsmithing at Dorchester in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. The colonial government granted him 1000 acres on the Connecticut River, on the condition that he carry on the business of gunmaking there. Seven generations of his family continued in that line of work until 1849.2

Perhaps the best known of these families are the Henrys of Pennsylvania. An invoice shows that on January 26, 1765, the Lancaster, Pennsylvania gunsmith John Henry bought hundreds of gun parts: "93 Hamers... 77 Cocks... 81 Cock Pins... 90 Bridles... 79 Tumblers... 2 Groce Gun Bolts... 258 Fuzee Main Springs... 281 Hamer Springs... 263 Cocks... 278 Cock Pins... 305 Bridles... 271 Tumblers... 225 Forg'd Britches..."3 John Henry was making gunlocks, and complete guns-and not on a small scale. This was his primary occupation throughout the 1770s, with receipts for rifles made and money owed for a variety of repair services.4

William Henry I, John Henry's brother, was also making guns before the Revolution in Lancaster. In 1766, he paid William Bradford for advertising, apparently for the gun business.5 During the Revolution, William Henry of Nazareth had a number of contracts to produce rifles for the Pennsylvania government6 (along with other military goods), as well a providing gun repair services to the state.7 Henry's contracts with the state and federal government continued after the Revolution.8

William Henry I's descendants were making guns for at least five generations, ending with Granville Henry in the 1890s. We are fortunate that unlike many of the other early gunmaking families, for the Henrys, we have a surprisingly complete set of documents. William Henry I's son, William Henry II, moved gunmaking operations to Nazareth around 1778, gradually expanding into a modern factory after 1792. The volume of surviving documents provides extensive evidence of the scale of the Henry family gunmaking business, and the business sophistication of its proprietors. Throughout much of the period 1808 to 1825, J. Joseph Henry II (grandson of William Henry I) operated the Nazareth gun factory, while his brother William Henry III operated the Philadelphia based sales and parts procurement office. J. Joseph, the elder brother, appears to have received top billing; an undated business card lists his name, "Manufactures Rifles, Fowling pieces, Barels, Gun locks &c. of every description. No. 290 North third Street Philadelphia."9

While the Henry family business is among the better known, there were other long surviving early Republic gunmaking firms. The Tryon gunmaking business, which partnered with the Henry firm in the making of muskets for federal contracts in 1814, remained in the gunsmithing business from 1811 until at least 1911.10

The Molls have a similar story to the Henrys on a smaller scale. William Moll left a rifle-making tool to his son John Moll I, sometime after 1747, for the tool was so inscribed. By 1772, he appears in records as "John Moll, Gunsmith" living in Allentown, Pennsylvania,11 and a surviving early rifle is known to have been made by him.12 John Moll made firearms for the Pennsylvania government during the Revolution.13 John Moll II carried on his fatherís gunmaking business, selling it to his son John Moll III in 1820, who was still a gunsmith as late as 1883. John Moll II's other son, Peter Moll, was making rifles in Hellertown by 1826, and also made pistols.14

Along with these dynasties of gunmaking, there are many examples somewhat more short-lived. For example, one of my ancestors, 19 generations back, was Thomas Nash, who settled at New Haven in 1640. He was not only a gunsmith, but the colony's armorer, ordered to "keep the Towne Muskitts in his hands, and look to them well, that they be always in good order fitt for service."15 His first son, John Nash, also was a gunsmith16-and an expert witness in what appears to have been America's first firearms product liability suit, in 1645!17 Joseph Nash, Thomas Nash's second son, and Timothy, the youngest son, were both trained as gunsmiths, and apparently worked at least briefly as such, before focusing on blacksmith work.18

(Part 2 will run in the 8/1 issue)

1 Asa H. Waters, Gun Making in Sutton and Millbury (Worcester, Mass.: Lucius P. Goddard, 1878), 3-5; Felicia Johnson Deyrup, Arms Makers of the Connecticut Valley: A Regional Study of the Economic Development of the Small Arms Industry, 1798-1870 (Menasha, Wisc.: George Banta Publishing Co., 1948), 33.

2 Deyrup, Arms Makers of the Connecticut Valley, 33; "Colonel Seth Pomeroy," The American Review 7[May, 1848]:461; M.L. Brown, Firearms in Colonial America (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1980), 149-150.

3 Historical Society of Pennsylvania Henry Papers, 2:9, at Historical Society of Pennsylvania (hereinafter HSP Henry Papers).

4 HSP Henry Papers, 1:7, 2:18, 20, 21, 29.

5 Henry Papers at Hagley Museum and Library (hereinafter, Hagley Henry Papers), accession 1309, series 2, box 8.

6 Samuel Hazard, ed., Colonial Records of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Pa.: Theo Fenn, 1852), 10:523.

7 Hazard, Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, 11:506.

8 Thomas E. Holt, "Pennsylvania 1798 Contract Muskets," American Society of Arms Collectors 2 [November, 1956], 19-20; Arcadi Gluckman, United States Muskets, Rifles and Carbines (Buffalo, N.Y.: Otto Ulbrich Co., 1948), 69-82, 104-116.

9 Series 2, Folder 7, Hagley Henry Papers.

10 Charles Z. Tryon, The History Of A Business Established One Hundred Years Ago (Philadelphia: n.p. [1911]).

11 Earl S. Heffner, Jr., The Moll Gunsmiths (Point Lookout, Mo.: School of the Ozarks, Book Division, 1972), 5-6.

12 Henry J. Kauffman, The Pennsylvania-Kentucky Rifle (Morgantown, Pa.: Masthof Press, 2005), 100.

13 William Jacob Heller, "The Gun Makers of Old Northampton," 7, in Henry Melchior Muhlenberg Richards, ed., The Pennsylvania-German in the Revolutionary War, 1775-1783 (Lancaster, Pa.: New Era Printing Co., 1908).

14 Heffner, The Moll Gunsmiths, 13-14, 18-19, 21-24, 27.

15 Sylvester Nash, The Nash Family; or Records of the Descendants of Thomas Nash of New Haven, Connecticut, 1640 (Hartford, Conn.: Case, Tiffany & Co., 1853), 13-14, 16.

16 Nash, The Nash Family, 19-20.

17 Charles J. Hoadly, ed., Records Of The Colony And Plantation Of New Haven, From 1638 To 1649 (Hartford, Conn.: Case, Tiffany, 1857), 176-77; Clayton E. Cramer, "America's First Firearms Product Liability Suit?", Shotgun News, November 19, 2001, 18-19.

18 Nash, The Nash Family, 24, 27.