My great-Aunt Margaret, who we would stay with, noticed my interest in history and the old ways of the pioneers.
On that trip, she gave me my great-grandfather's .62 caliber percussion rifle.
This launched me on a 'life interest' in studying, shooting, and preserving antique arms.
I think my favorite public library book was Howard L. Blackmore's, "British Military Firearms". I could see 'military features' in the family heirloom rifle, but, it was not a military model.
I read gun magazine articles that stressed 'we were custodians of the arms that came into our care'. I learned basics of preserving and doing 'no harm' to surviving finish and patina.
Over the years, I came to recognize the barrel on the family rifle was a modified Baker Rifle barrel. I eventually saw six other rifles, identical in pattern (complete or cut-down), at gun shows and in Canadian museums. (I have since learned of four more from articles and catalogs).
My great-Aunt told me that she thought her father had traded guns with an Indian friend. This was 'validated' when I saw an article in the "Canadian Journal of Arms Collecting", vol. 38 No. 2, by Ross Egles.
Mr. Egles pictured an identical type of percussion rifle with British Government documentation that identified them as gifts to influential Canadian Indians.
I received an alert yesterday, from a 'British Arms Forum', that there is currently such a rifle for sale on the John C. Denner Co. site.
"Thank you great-Aunt Margaret" - (Some pictures of the rifle she gave me "to look after". She was smart and included her father's mold, horn, a tin of caps and his compass).
p.s. Tiny "Aunt Margaret" knew how to load and fire it!
