Contemporary Gunmakers and Allied Artisans Show

This Saturday, February 12, 2011 at the Campus Martius Museum in Marietta

Have you ever wondered about the Kentucky Flintlock Long rifles used by Daniel Boone or Simon Kenton in the late 1700s? What can be learned about the people who used huge flint muskets in the Ohio wilderness at places like Pickawillany, Fort Laurens, Fort Meigs and Fallen Timbers by studying the wonderful set of parts we have recovered during archaeology projects at those places? How were they made and how were they used? Do you know that the muskets of the Revolutionary War were often nearly as long as the fellow using it was tall? Why was that? You might be surprised to learn that the phrase Kentucky Long Rifle is actually a misnomer. The rifles of Boone, Kenton and thousands of other frontier folk really had very little to do with Kentucky and actually came from a Pennsylvania German tradition or school of gun building that had its beginnings about 1750 in the townships of Lancaster and Lebanon Counties in Pennsylvania. It spread from there and moved west with the frontier. Gun building and its allied trades reached Ohio by the early 1800s and developed into a school of gun making that produced handsome, hand made rifles that were well designed and aesthetically pleasing in their own right You might also be surprised to know that there are artisans still today that produce these functional works of art the same way their forefathers did two or more centuries ago. This is an official invitation to attend the Contemporary Gunmakers and Allied Artisans Show this Saturday, February 12, 2011 at the Campus Martius Museum in downtown Marietta Ohio.

The show will be from 9:30am to 4:00pm. Museum admission is $7 for adults and $4 for students. Free for OHS members and children under 5. Here is an excellent opportunity to see the rifles, powder horns and hunting pouches as re-created by modern masters in that still time honored tradition. Contact Bill Reynolds at 800-860-0145 for further information.

Thanks to the NMLRA for the use of their calendar picture

Bill Pickard