Export Historical Society speaker will focus on firearms in U.S. history

Each year on the Fourth of July, Scott Duff of Export takes some time away from the cookout, fireworks and talking with friends and family to reflect on one of the muskets in his extensive firearms collection.

It is a well-used Model 1763 Charleville flintlock musket from the Revolutionary War era, which has “U STATES” branded onto the side along with three sets of carved initials.

“It’s beat-up and ugly, but I cherish this old musket,” said Duff, who can trace his family’s lineage back to some of the first European settlers to make their home in what would later become Franklin Township and Murrysville. “When I hold it, I wonder about the three men whose initials give it some of its character.”

Duff will join members of the Export Historical Society for a noon program July 15 about historic firearms like his Charleville.

In researching the “U STATES” brand, for example, Duff discovered that it became standard procedure starting in 1777 to mark Continental Army firearms as property of the United States in order to combat their theft — often a soldier would simply take his musket home once his enlistment expired.

Duff’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, Scots-Irish immigrant John McIlduff, came to America in the early 1770s and served as a private in Capt. Thomas Morton’s Company of Westmoreland County Frontier Rangers between 1778 and 1783. But it’s unlikely the members of his company were equipped with guns like the Charleville.

“It’s more probably that their weapons consisted of a variety of personal rifles or smooth-bore hunting arms, as well as a tomahawk and knife,” Duff said.

His interest in the history of firearms began in the 1950s when, by his own admission, he’d watched “The Sands of Iwo Jima,” a John Wayne World War II film, “too many times,” Duff said.

After visiting the Springfield Armory National Historic Site Museum in the early 1980s, his interest focused on the M1 Garand rifle, and he eventually co-authored a series of nine books about its use during World War II and formed a publishing company to release others in the field of historic U.S. martial weapons.

But each year around Independence Day, Duff said he finds his mind wandering back to the Model 1763 Charleville.

“Were any of the owners members of the Continental Army? If so, in what battles did they carry this old musket?” he asked. “I’ll never know the answers, but I believe that this old musket was used to gain our independence and forge our freedom. Without the men who carried this Charleville into battle, there would be no Independence Day celebration with cookouts and fireworks, nor would there be a United States of America.”

Duff’s presentation will be at the Export Train Station, in the borough parking lot off Washington Avenue. A muzzleloader salute will take place at 1:45 p.m.