Guns International #: 101709877
Seller's Inventory #: 210851

Category - Kentucky Rifles - Antique Rifles - 1500-1850

Category
Kentucky Rifles
Antique Rifles - 1500-1850

Antique WITHEY Half-Stock .42 Cal. MID-19th CENTURY Percussion LONG RIFLE Kentucky Style HUNTING/HOMESTEAD Long Rifle!

Description:
Antique WITHEY Half-Stock .42 Cal. MID-19th CENTURY Percussion LONG RIFLE 

Kentucky Style HUNTING/HOMESTEAD Long Rifle!

Here we present an antique H. Withey Half Stock Percussion Long Rifle, made circa the mid-19th Century in Camden, Ohio. Henry Withey was born in Massachusetts in 1822 and is recorded as a gunsmith in Camden Township circa 1850. He had a shop made of logs (log cabin style). His Civil War draft registration lists him as a farmer at age 41. He passed away in 1909 (per James Biser Whisker, Sr.).

This rifle’s stout part octagonal barrel is in .42 caliber, large enough to take small to medium sized game or to defend the homestead against unwanted aggression. Rifle manufacture in the mid-to-late 19th Century was rapidly changing over from thousands of craftsmen all over the United States and on the Frontier making and selling their wares, to the large factories with standardized assembly lines and modern manufacturing techniques. Many makers’ names of the so-called Kentucky long rifles have been lost over time. This rifle is one such example.

The American Long Rifle, more commonly, but less correctly, known as the ‘Kentucky rifle’, was described by Captain John G. W. Dillin in the dedication to his seminal 1924 book, The Kentucky Rifle:

“From a flat bar of soft iron, hand forged into a gun barrel; laboriously bored and rifled with crude tools; fitted with a stock hewn from a maple tree in the neighboring forest; and supplied with a lock hammered to shape on the anvil; an unknown smith, in a shop long since silent, fashioned a rifle which changed the whole course of world history; made possible the settlement of a continent; and ultimately freed our country of foreign domination. Light in weight; graceful in line; economical in consumption of powder and lead; fatally precise; distinctly American; it sprang into immediate popularity; and for a hundred years was a model often slightly varied but never radically changed.”

The overall condition is good. Strong action. Good bore. Solid stock with an expected amount of wear, no major damage. Lightly engraved lock. Engravings on the lock and barrel top are partially obfuscated but appear to read “Warranted” and “H. WITHEY”, respectively. Here is a neat ol’ rifle that would have played a big role for a family on the American frontier.

Own the original! This is a legitimate antique and not a reproduction.

Barrel is 25-1/4 inches.

Caliber:  .42 Percussion

Overall condition as seen in photos.

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ancestryguns

$1500

#210851
 

SOLD

Antique: Yes