Arms, Armor and Militaria

About .44 caliber. 41" octagonal barrel. SN: NSN. Browned metal finish. Curled maple stock has a narrow butt with straight edges similar to most Huntingdon County rifles, with simple incised line to both sides of forearm. Percussion rifle with fixed notch and brass teardrop blade front sight. Item features double set triggers with lathe-style post trigger also typical of Huntingdon County makers, as well as faceted brass triggerguard, buttplate, and forend. Patchbox is twice pierced with parallel sides in the style used by some gunsmiths of the Lancaster and Bethlehem County Schools, including those made by Melchoir Fordney, John Rupp, and the Pannebecker Family shown in Kindig's Thoughts. The patchbox cover is deeply engraved with floral scroll, dash-dot borderwork, and cross-hatching. Barrel is marked J. DOUGLASS, and lockplate is engraved with a simple game scene and scroll that is obscured by pit marks. Unlike other rifles attributed to Joseph Douglass Jr., this rifle only has the trademark silver four-petal floral escutcheon to top of wrist, incised lines to forearm, an engraved hunter's star to cheekrest, and wrigglework engravings to both brass sideplate and toeplate. The other documented Douglass rifles (such as the one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's arms collection) appear to be profusely mounted with silver fittings overall. Includes a wood ramrod, most likely replaced at some point.

This rifle is attributed to Joseph Douglass Jr. (1819-1890) of Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, and was most likely made sometime around 1840-1850. As mentioned, his rifles are typically adorned with many silver fittings and are sometimes seen with "Pannepacker" marked barrels. One Joseph Douglass rifle that was sold by Rock Island in 2017 can be seen with a "W. Pannepacker" barrel. This is perhaps why we see a similar patchbox style on this rifle as to a Samuel Pannebecker rifle documented in Kindig's Thoughts. Samuel Pannebecker, was known to have worked in Lancaster County, and is from a well known family of barrel makers. According to Kindig, other documented rifles signed "Pannepacker, Pennypacker, and Pannebecker" are all believed to have spawned from this same Berks County family. A very strong possibility considering there were at least eight known barrel makers in the Pannebecker family from the late 1700's to 1880 who advertised and sold "superior" barrels to various locales, according to the Kentucky Rifle Foundation.