I know I've said it before, but I still get a kick out of seeing folk reenact the early American frontier period elsewhere in the world. Not unlike that watching the Europeans and Yankees talking about our Southern Civil War experience, but all happy and heartwarming instead of mournful.
(somebody cares - it's so sweet!!! :) )
Butsoanyhow... Le Loup, this is for you - a mountain crossbow -
I went and found the book I remembered seeing, but I think I may have mislead you. Here's the details -
Source - Guns and Gunmaking Tools of Southern Appalachia* by John Rice Irwin.
The items in the book are almost universally housed I believe at the Museum of Appalachia**, so they're the folks to write if you want more information.
Respecting their copyright, I don't want to just duplicate everything in there, but here's the highpoints -
1. Pictured item is the assumed the earliest (most all the others look comparatively modern.) Found in Green county, TN in the 1930's in an area originally settled by German folk. The author describes it as "1700s" based on the stock shape.
2. Stock is poplar, bow was replaced by the gentleman who found it. He says it was "of red cedar" but I can't tell from context if he meant the original, the replacement, or both. I think he was referring to the original. "Black haw" is mentioned by one source as a better bow wood, and hickory is recommended for the "arries." :)
3. One source interviewed (no date is given, but within the last generation or two) mentions the old timers he remembers hunting with them - mostly small game but also deer and (black) bear.
"And the folks back before my time hunted with them. They's so poor they couldn't get hold of a rifle gun, and if they did it was hard to get powder and lead. If a feller back then had a gun, he's a big man.. ... Yes sir, them people up on Newman's Ridge could never have made it way back yonder it it hadn't been for having those crossbows."
4. The above bit about the comparative rareness of firearms is in direct contrast to everything else I've read about the 1700's frontier, and the author of the book also introduces this chapter by saying "None of my research , nor any of the commentaries I have read relative to the pioneer-frontier period of our country, mentions the crossbow as having been used in early America." - then mentions a couple arguable relics from the Revolutionary period by Gene Purcell. (To be fair, he's saying that not from skepticism but excitement - an "oh my gosh what is this?!" moment)
Still, I am assuming that the overall picture goes something like this -
a. Original settlers come in with purchased sundries like you discussed, including a fairly typical assortment of contemporary arms.
b. Although there is a rise of local industry, it may not have been able to keep up with rising demand as population increased.
c. Post Revolutionary War, and especially post War of 1812 it looks like there's a rise of the romantic archetype of the American frontier rifleman turned elite soldiery, possibly borrowing from the English romantic yeoman archer archetype. The side effect is that all the associated goodies (pouches, rifle stocks, riflemen's coats, so forth and so on) work their way into the mainstream, and get all tarted up.
.... many of my modern American friends may recognize this process. ;)
d. Post Civil War, the Southern economy is in shambles. And as bad as the South in general is.... the Appalachians being both geographically and culturally somewhat isolated means its even worse there.
At this point, I'd like to point out the bow itself and the firing mechanism in particular is much cruder than a medieval crossbow (ain't it fun having history fan friends with huge toyboxes to show off?) - despite the former being not substantially harder to manufacture.
Therefore, I'm inclined to think the "old timers" our source mentions aren't Colonial at all, but rather somewhere between 1870 and 1940, and their crossbows an improvised adaptation rather than a continuing tradition of any great size.
So um..Loup? Mea Culpa. Hope this makes up for it. :)
* Fair warning LL, most of what's in the book is way post colonial period - mid 19th c. is about as early as it goes, and the greater part of it looks early 20th c.
** fun story about the M of A - Daddy tells me the old family still is on display there. I feel so proud!! :)
20 comments:
The study of the ingenuity of our forebears is fascinating. The "backwoods engineering" is amazing ... amazing in how they rigged many of their tools, and amazing that they worked so well.
They did very, very well with the little that they had (necessity being the mother of invention and all that).
Safe? Nope. Ya wanta know about my immediate ancestors - look up the Baldknobbers sometime. It wasn't pretty, and it's nothing I'm proud of ... but it's history.
I call occam's razor.
Great work, good post. Thank you. Regardless of the period for this information, I still think that it is feasable that anything that went to the New World in the 16th century could still have been in use during the mid 18th century.
There is a great childrens book called "The Matchlock", and it tells a true story of a woman and her family in the French & Indian War. Well worth reading if you can find it.
Thanks again, much appreciated.
http://woodsrunnersdiary.blogspot.com/
The old gentleman who used to live across the road from me made crossbows to distance shoot with. It was just a hobby for him that he enjoyed up until about 1975 or so, when he finally got too frail to continue.
I went and got 'Guns and Gunmaking Tools of Southern Appalachia: The Story of the Kentucky Rifle' along with 'The Pennsylvania: Kentucky Rifle', 'The Flintlock: Its Origin, Development, and Use', 'The Flintlock: Its Origin, Development, and Use' and 'Flintlock Fowlers: The First Guns Made in America' just to be through. Doesn't hurt that I like the subject and would like to take a deer both by bow and a lock weapon this season.
But that picture looks as clear as one of big foot. Kind of looks like a hockey stick meets Photoshop. Just saying. I've been around bow and cross bows for 33 years and the statics just doesn't seem right.
Kind of have to disagree about the "Ain't no such thing as a safe hillbilly...." too. My good friend John is about as appalachian as anyone could get. We used to take people on Kentucky and Tennessee mountain climbing and rafting trips. Safety was always a top concern. We each took a set of rescue gear suited to each adventure just in case anyone with got in to trouble. Never had a person lost or hurt.
I guess that enough being argumentative for a day to get sent to the dog house.
Paul - ain't it cool? They were inventive folk... but you pretty much have to be when you're on your own hook miles from anywhere.
Baldknobbers - criminy! What a time. :(
Michael - Occam's razor... slicing which way? What do you see as the simplest answer here?
LeLoup - thank you for the recommendation!
Regarding this bow... I've seen some historic crossbows and um... this ain't like them. It really is *remarkably* crude compared to those in common use in the 1500's. I'd be awful cautious before saying there was any kind of living tradition.
Gorges - neat!! Thanks for dropping by!
Michael again - neat! Well, you'll see the picture full size yourself soon then. Good luck on your hunt! I'm sure LL has lots of good advice at his place. :)
I'm putting Le Loup on the reader. (He came in at #2 right under A Call to Wings.) I've been looking for an abandoned farmhouse buried somewhere in undergrowth. It's be nice to go unplugged for a decade or so.
I do archery season until rifle season starts and muzzle stuffers if I feel like it. Got a snapping matchlock I'm trying to build at the moment. They're nice and accurate because of the quick lock time but they have a habit of putting the match out when you fire them. Like a flint-lock except it launches the match into the pan instead of launches a flint at a pan. Not much good for volley fire but decent hunting weapons.
Michael:
There IS such a thing as some unsafe hillbillies, too, though!
Friend's great uncle was known both for his gourd fiddling and also his penchant for dynamiting things when things bothered him. Floyd County, KY. They tried to run a gas well pipe across his property and so he dynamited it when they wouldn't cut him in on any free gas. They ran a telephone line up the holler across his property without his permission multiple times and he shot it in two until they buried it. Colorful dude. His theory was, "if something gets stuck in my craw and I dynamite it, well, there ain't much evidence it was me if nobody saw me do it, is there?" They never did manage to arrest him for any of it and people mostly left him alone ;-)
Ingenuity continues to this day. Feller I know in Missouri came up with a conversion to shoot black powered guns with nail gun blanks from home depot. Turns mailable bp guns into title one firearms, but it works really well. I've seen 900fps in my .50 caliber I converted like his with the heavy blanks for driving nails into concrete. Less mess, less hassle, some wheel weights and a home depot and you always can get a deer.
I was thinking deer scouting might take some time and effort, especially for a first timer. I found a big pile of deer poo behind my Volvo the other day. Might have to switch tactics and get a pair of night vision goggles and a comfy chair for the deck. I know the law says sunup to sundown, but like city folks say, it's always happy hour someplace.
There's always unsafe people in every group. If only we could get the doctors to stop putting them back together.
I'm rather interested in what manufacture you chose for the matchlock. I'd rather spend the money and get a good quality kit rather than end up shooting the Volvo, though the engine fire didn't do much for it's value.
Deer hunting just takes practice. Here in Texas, it's legal to feed them and they are basically a nuisance animal so I admit to getting my annual archery doe from a blind near me and my neighbor's cooperative feeder on our property line. I like to stalk with rifles. Deer are pretty habitual animals and once you watch them for a bit you usually will know where they'll be at various times of day unless one of them gets made into venison or gets hit by a vehicle (If you ever want to hit a deer with a vehicle, this is a good area for it in the hills. I don't think I know anybody that hasn't hit at least one.).
This is where my parts came from, indirectly, as I bought the parts from a fellow that never even started on the project beyond buying the kit. On and off work in progress depending on how much real work I'm doing and I always have nine projects going at once, at the least. Should have finished it a year ago but I have a pile of rifles and rifle projects so it's easy to get side-tracked. Needs sanding and polishing and I'm going to brown it instead of blue it. Lockwork works and it's been tested.
Texas? Are you a transplant? I never head of a guy dying in Texas whose last words were "Hey, watch this".
OK, now on to the more serious end. Deer are a nuisance animal in the metro areas of Ohio. It's possible to get a nuisance permit in some areas. The taking laws are rather whacked here. You can have a deer and coyote out next to each other in a field and you can only take the deer by bow yet you can pull out a 50 BMG for the coyote.
Still, if I find the bugger using the Volvo as an out house, I'm going creative on her. Might just go down to the shop and make a bolt with a RF transmitter in it.
Anyway, I'm going to write about the adventures on huntingbambiwoods.com.
Feel free to let me know of any, um, a Jenny approved word, boo boos.
Montana transplant, actually, via a lot of other places but lived in Texas more of my years (non-consecutively) than anywhere else.
The screwed up thing here is you can't take roadkill home in Texas even if you have a tag in your pocket and it's in season.
According to TXPWD: It is illegal to hunt from public roadways AND taking a deer with a vehicle is not a legal way to hunt, so a hunting license is irrelevant.
Me: But three were hit on the road to the post office just this week alone and the vultures eat them and one of them cratered my 280ZX fender and I wanted to eat him but I didn't because I knew it was illegal but it shouldn't be.
TXPWD: That's why vultures are a protected species, they are nature's clean up crew...
That's where my attempt at reasoning with them ended.
In case it amuses, this is dad with my project that diverted me from finishing the matchlock the past year or so. Shoots 0.3 MOA as a closed bolt semi-auto.
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4068/4655392784_fe4f5d78c9_b.jpg
It's been tested on feral hogs more than once. I'm currently working on a .308 MG-42 semi-auto conversion courtesy of some Steyr parts I found to exploit the "converted belt-fed LMG hunting loophole" in case people start whining about people hunting nuisance animals with 30 round mags because of the AZ happening and they pass another stupid law. I make no qualms about being entirely non-sporting when harvesting nuisance animals and I follow all the game laws. I have hunted Africa and many parts of the US in purely sport stalking mode. When I shoot nuisance animals on my and my friends properties it's because they are nuisances and/or to EAT THEM. That's why the whole "sporting purposes" angle on arms and armaments is silly to me. I have plenty of single shot and bolt guns too. But if the goal is to exterminate/population control/culling I like semi-autos and bait.
My moms side of the family is western Kansas farmers. It only takes a pair of prairie dogs to ruin at quarter in a season. What most people don't get is that some animals species evolved to be prey animals. They thrive genetically when being hunted.
That whole AZ event was rather odd. How does a pothead buy a gun and 8 days later hit 18 for 18. The NYPD is only good for about 30% and their "professionals".
It would be nice if the fed would stop nationalizing the country and leave people alone. I did 2 1/2 years in Utah. I was doing some target shooting done in the basement and the cops came by and asked about the gun fire. I told them I was just shoot the 357 downstairs. They're like, OK and left.
Here in Cincinnati, we have vultures too and their protected. They drive around in orange trucks and whine to the union a lot.
However, anyone can take deer suicides when it isn't season but you got to have the right type of license in season. Apparently you can't hunt from a motor vehicle, but you can hunt with a motor vehicle.
You're dad's looking a little camera shy but the rifle isn't. How exactly does one aim that beast with the mag up? It looks like fun.
Sights are offset to the left. Less offset than a carry handle AR/M rifle sight, so parallax isn't significant. Friend's dad fought the Germans in North Africa and said in open bolt LMG configuration it was almost too accurate. Said "If you weren't careful you easily could put three bullets in the same fascist and waste ammo."
He was a cool old dude :-)
As a closed bolt semi-auto it's even more accurate.
If the sights are on the left, don't you risk hitting a right winger?
I enjoy the WWII stories, but for some it's beyond hard to talk about. My high school friend's dad was the navigator of a bomber crew in Europe. They'd often go up and come back with a third less crew. The guys having been shot out of the gun canopies. From what I have gathered, flight crews fought a much deadlier war than the guys on the ground.
I was going to ask you about optics. I keep finding Steiner getting high ratings for binoculars. They offer a game enhancing lenses and I've seen them offered for scopes but haven't tried them. Do you know if they work or are just a gimmick?
I like regular Swarovski or IOR with large objectives for distance work and smaller objectives with longer eye relief for close work. Never really messed with the game lens ones much. I like bright clear unfiltered optics.
One of dad's buddies was a B-17 ball turret gunner, he lost a lot of his friends to the point he didn't bother much learning anybody's names until he ended up in one of the fine Stalags. Said it was easier to not bother getting attached to people. He was a good artist, and he occupied his mind by sketching some pretty spectacular landscapes as seen from his turret in his down time and basically avoided people as much as possible because they just were gonna die anyway. He gave me a book of the sketches that I've still got somewhere. Hell of a vantage point for an artist but he wasn't horribly keen on the working conditions and survival odds.
Swarovski's prices make Waterford look like Dixie cups. I hope they're more reasonable with their binoculars.
Well, if you build a nice rifle you want to put a good scope on it...IOR used to be more reasonable. Lynx are good but there's no US importer and it wouldn't make sense to buy one unless you lived in their territory. I talked to them about being the US importer but they were too hard to deal with and I gave up. Looked too much like they were going to make money and I would be hung out to dry if anything went wrong, not unlike how some famous Italian shotgun manufacturer treats US dealers...
FWIW, I'm masochistic enough that I used to work for both Pukenot/Citroen/Renault, and Alfa Romeo concerns in the auto trade in America after they had all bailed on importing carts to the US, so I'm quite familiar with people who basically don't care about you much at all that you have to depend on. At least it saved me from starting an optics importation business when I saw where things were going ;-)
Swaro and IOR are really nice glass and Nightforce isn't really any cheaper these days. Leupold and Burris are good at some things and less good at others.
Friend of mine is jealous of all my toys, firearms, musical, and otherwise, but he has a stable family with a cool wife (which is why he has lesser toys). Can't say one's better than the other, just a sliding scale, right?
He chose a family and I chose a pile of toys. But I let him shoot my guns and play my instruments and he's never let me test drive his wife, so he's probably getting a better deal!
That's funny. When I lived in SLC, I had a first and second generation RX-7 out in the driveway and 4 racing motorcycles in the garage. I usually had the garage door up since I spent a lot of time working on the machines. The first thing people would ask me when walking by was if I was married. I never said it, but was thinking what wife would ever let her husband have such toys.
Bummer about the friends wife, but then he isn't free to test drive the rest of Texas.
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