History on display at 23rd annual Bushy Run Historic Arms Show
It’s easy to see the passion Bill Vance has for antique firearms as he cradles a 50-caliber St. Louis plains rifle, with intricate inlaid metalwork and a unique feature the average person would not even notice.
“A lot of these types of long rifles were made with curly maple, the fancy stuff,” said Vance, who lives in the Murrysville area. “But the ones that were sold or traded to Native Americans, a lot of those were regular maple, and so they painted them to look more fancy.”
A closer inspection reveals brush strokes every bit as intricate as the metal inlays, giving the rifle’s wood the stripes and swirls typical of curly maple.
A strong interest in the history behind “Kentucky rifles,” muzzleloaders and other antique weaponry was a common theme among exhibitors and attendees at the 23rd annual Bushy Run Historic Arms Show, organized by the Old Westmoreland Rifles Collectors Show Association at the Lamplighter Restaurant in Salem.
Vance, who grew up in the St. Louis area, has been collecting antique guns since 1968.
“I grew up with a gun in my hand,” he said while picking up an 1806 rifle made in Lancaster by gunsmith Jacob Dickert. “These are all handmade. They made a lot of guns in the Lancaster-Philadelphia area that went out West.”
That journey has led to some confusion about their primary origin. The so-called “Kentucky rifles” were largely long rifles manufactured in Eastern Pennsylvania, Vance said. Between 1700 and 1750, Germanic settlers created their weapons based on the “Jaeger” rifle, which had rifling grooves inside the barrel that immensely improved its accuracy and made it nearly indispensable for frontiersmen during westward expansion.
The gun’s heyday was between 1790 and 1850, when rifle-making started to flourish in America’s colonies. The development of carvings, inlays and the patch box — which stored small patches of clothes used to wrap round shot so it would fit snugly in the gun muzzle — became a uniquely American art form.
Mike Hardwig of Somerset County is a former board member and former director of the Somerset Historical Center and, after retiring, started collecting antique weapons and their accessories in 2007.
“I’ve always had an interest in not just antique guns, but also their history,” Hardwig said.
Of particular interest is a Pennsylvania rifle that came with most of the accessories typical of a late-1700s-to-early-1800s frontiersman: a powder horn, hunting bag, a tin to hold firing caps, two bullet molds and a sheath for a hunting knife.
Hardwig acquired the set from the last surviving member of the Jackson family, well known in Huntingdon County with a township and a former stockade, Fort Jackson, bearing their name. He also received documentation from the family certifying the gun and kit’s history.
“This is the first time I’ve ever acquired the gun and almost all of the things that come with it,” he said. “You’ll see both separately all the time, but rarely altogether.”
The Bushy Run Historic Arms Show continues Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the ballroom at the Lamplighter, 6566 William Penn Highway. Admission is $10.
For more, see OldWestmorelandRifles.com.
Patrick Varine is a TribLive reporter covering Delmont, Export and Murrysville. He is a Western Pennsylvania native and joined the Trib in 2010 after working as a reporter and editor with the former Dover Post Co. in Delaware. He can be reached at pvarine@triblive.com.
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