Harmony gunsmith kept tradition of American long rifle alive
When Charles Flowers started working as a gunsmith in the 1850s in Harmony, he was taking up a very old trade in Pennsylvania.
Gunmakers from Europe, particularly from Germany, had come to America starting in the early 18th century. They brought with them a technology common in their homeland but rare elsewhere — rifling.
Rifling refers to putting a set of spiral grooves on the inside of a gun barrel, which cause the projectile the gun fires to spin, making it more stable and accurate.
The accuracy was great, but as anyone can tell you, things in America are different from what they were in Europe, especially when it came to hunting.
Rick Rosenberger, curator of the Harmony Museum, explained the origin of what would become known as the American long rifle. The museum, at 218 Mercer St. in Harmony, has a collection of Flowers’ rifles.
“The European gun, as the immigrants knew it, wasn't satisfactory to the hunters here,” Rosenberger explained in a YouTube video about Flowers' rifles. “That gun, called a jaeger, was developed to hunt boar. Wild boar in Europe took a large ball and a heavy powder charge to stop. Here we didn't need that. Our hunters wanted a smaller caliber, and they wanted it particularly because it was cheaper to operate.”
The gun those immigrant gunsmiths developed would become an icon of the early American frontier.
In his 1967 book, “The Kentucky Rifle,” John Dillin wrote a summary of the weapon.
“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,” he wrote. “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.”
Flowers' work is actually an example of how long the popularity of the rifle lasted. Rosenberger said Flowers moved to Harmony in the 1840s and in the 1850 census is listed as a coal miner. In subsequent censuses, he's listed as a gunsmith.
By the 1850s, the American long rifle was nearly 150 years old and was somewhat antiquated. It was loaded by first pouring black powder down the barrel, then taking a round lead ball, wrapping it in a paper patch and ramming it down onto the powder charge.
Originally ignited by a spark from flint striking a metal plate, by the time Flowers was making guns, percussion caps, which created a spark when hit by the gun's hammer, had taken over. But still, by the 1850s, early metallic cartridges, breech-loading designs and even repeating firearms like the revolver, had been introduced.
In 1860, for example, the Henry Rifle, one of the first commercially successful repeating rifles, was introduced.
But Flowers still made American long rifles. And he kept making them until he died in 1897, long after the rifles were no longer somewhat quaint, but downright obsolete.
But for their intended purpose — hunting and target shooting — Flowers' guns were still good. After all, if you're taking careful aim with an accurate rifle, the hope is you won't need a second shot at all.
Flowers made quite a few rifles; Rosenberger said the museum has seen at least 60 at its annual antique gun shows.
The listing for a Flowers rifle that sold for more than $2,000 at auction in 2018 notes that his guns were so prized locally that relatively few have been sold on the national market.
And looking at the guns, it's easy to see why.
In an August blog post about a Charles Flowers rifle, Mona Meyer, a librarian at the University of Southern Indiana, noted the decorative flourishes common to his work.
“There are three decorative items here, the Hunters’ Star, the acorn, and the weeping heart,” Meyer wrote. “Having three such decorations is indicative of Charles Flowers; only one is really needed to hold the screw in place and keep it from digging into the wood.
“In this case the functional shape is the acorn, an American symbol common in the early 19th century, and associated with small game like squirrels that ate acorns.
“On the left is the Hunters’ Star. This rifle has two of these … this one and the one on the cheek rest. This image is typical of those used by 18th century German immigrants, although it goes back to older European hunting lore. It’s common to have a Hunters’ Star on the check rest.
“The final shape is the weeping heart: 1/2 heart, 1/2 teardrop. This image was popular with Native Americans, but could also be found on weapons of English or Scottish origin.”
One rifle in the Harmony museum collection has 26 German silver inlays on the stock and the patchbox, which was used to store cleaning and shooting supplies, was also made from German silver.
By the end of Flowers' career there were more kinds of rifles available, made with interchangeable parts and designed to use modern smokeless powder and metallic cartridges.
But for people who wanted the rifle that had helped shape the nation and became a symbol of American ideals, Flowers was making them at his shop in Harmony.
