Here you go, Andrew - Arnold's 1775 invasion of Quebec + The Battle of Long Island

[Bob Smalser]

Yes, indeed. I do think that it is very worthwhile to undertake this sort of research... I hope that you will publish the whole article.

Gunmaker Peter Newhard (Newhardt) (Neihardt) (1743-1813)
And
The Moll-Newhard-Kuntz Triangle of Old Northampton County Gunmaking, including some Rupp-Schreckengost Family Relationships


Factors in the evolution of a regional craft style once had faces and names. Here are a few of them from the point of view of a family member.



N.C. Wyeth, The Capture of Alice

It was December, 1755 on the Pennsylvania frontier, early in the French and Indian War, and Delaware Indians prodded by the Iroquois and the French were attacking and burning outlying farms and settlements. In a scene reminiscent of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, 32-year-old German immigrant Johannes Sensinger and his 14-year-old brother Nicholas were killed on their Lehigh Township homestead when they stood and fought to cover the successful escape of eight family members to safety with distant neighbors. The group included Johannes’ wife Magdalena and four children under five years old, one a newborn. Others on the frontier didn’t fare as well. Eleven Moravian missionaries to the Delaware were slain at Lehighton 20 miles to the north, with an additional Moravian woman dying in captivity. Up and down the Appalachians, between three and six thousand settlers were killed or captured by Native American allies to France or later Britain between 1755 and 1780, and over twice that number made refugees. The terror of these conflicts would impact family members for a generation and more, including gunmakers Andreas Albrecht, Peter Newhard, John Moll, David Kuntz, Jacob Kuntz and their immediate descendants. The last major incident in the Susquehanna-Lehigh area of Pennsylvania was the destruction of Wilkes Barre by Seneca Indians allied to the British in 1778, with over 300 scalps taken and hundreds of homes burned. A pivotal incident in the Allentown area occurred in October, 1763. Twenty three people were murdered and scalped, thirteen of them young children, after local friendly Lenape Delawares went on a ten-mile rampage after being robbed while staying at a local tavern. Gunmaker John Moll relocated to Allentown just months after the 1763 incident, probably because of the increased demand for weapons there, which may also have been the impetus for a 19-year-old farmer named Peter Newhard to take up gunmaking. Further, were the origins of John Moll’s and Jacob Kuntz’s use of Indian head decorations on rifles the whimsical depictions currently described in contemporary references? Or were the emotions darker? The Sensingers had been family members to Moll’s daughter-in-law and Kuntz’s wife. (Kastens Vol IV pp158-60, Klein pp25-28, Mickley, LDS Genealogical Library, Stroh pp11-12, Fischer pp419-425, PAGCA, Silver, Chapter 1 and pp239-241.)

In 1775 when danger again threatened frontier settlements, a nephew of the slain Sensinger men, 16-year-old Philip Newhard (1759-1827), would be one of the first to enlist in Captain Matthew Smith’s Company of Colonel William Thompson’s Rifle Battalion. Philip’s parents and six older siblings, ages three through eleven, had been made refugees by the massacres of 1755, and their farm had been completely destroyed. Matthew Smith was a well-known Indian fighter with a reputation for brutality equal to his adversaries. Philip walked over 90 miles to Harrisburg to enlist, and his thoughts along the way weren’t of the Redcoats and Hessians we think of when pondering the Revolutionary War, but of their tribal allies ravaging his parents’ homestead a second time. These frontiersmen weren’t militia, but one of the first regular units in George Washington’s new Continental Army, answering the call for “six companies of expert riflemen to be raised in Pennsylvania” after the Battles of Lexington and Concord. As men were eager to join, Pennsylvania soon formed nine companies instead of the six requested, and the unit quickly grew into a regiment. Philip’s company would serve as scouts for Colonel Benedict Arnold’s invasion force while attached to Captain Daniel Morgan’s Riflemen during the Quebec Campaign. Morgan would go on to become the teamster-turned-Brigadier who made Tarleton and Cornwallis look like amateurs at The Battle of Cowpens. (Note 1) William Thompson would soon be promoted to Brigadier, and succeeded by his Lieutenant Colonel, Edward Hand. Hand was a physician as well as a soldier who later distinguished himself as a combat commander at the battles of Long Island and Trenton, and would become Adjutant General of the Army at the Siege of Yorktown. Matthew Smith rose to the rank of Colonel during the war, then resigned his commission to serve as Pennsylvania’s Lieutenant Governor. Seasoned by hard service and the example of first-rate leaders, young Philip would survive the war to become a prosperous farmer in Allen Township near Kreidersville. He and his wife Maria Rockel produced nine children and 43 grandchildren. (Kastens Vol IV pp162-76, Henry JJ, LDS Genealogical Library, PA Archives Series 5 Vol II, Silver Chapter 1)

Uniforms of the Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment

A few months later Thompson’s Battalion evolved into the Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment, and Philip’s cousin Christopher Neuhart (1729-1776) enlisted as a Private in Captain Henry Shade’s Company raised from men living in Northampton County. A widower with a thirteen-year-old daughter, Christopher’s 69-year-old father-in-law had been murdered, stripped and scalped by Indians in Plainfield Township the year before. Christopher was killed in action during the Battle of Long Island that same year, probably while covering the withdrawal of General John Sullivan’s 1500-man Division from the high ground north of the village of Flatbush, now part of Brooklyn Borough. This was a delaying action which devolved into desperate hand-to-hand fighting between Sullivan’s small delaying force against 5000 Hessians under Lieutenant General Philip von Heister of Kassel. Sullivan’s Division reached Brooklyn Heights as planned, but Sullivan himself was captured along with Christopher’s regimental commander, Colonel Samuel Miles, commander of the delaying force. When word reached Christopher’s family that he had been killed, all four of his younger brothers enlisted in the Northampton County Militia. Courage breeds. (Adams, Kastens, Vol IV pp14-16, Klein pp18-25, the LDS Genealogical Library and PA Archives 5 Vol II, Vol VIII)

A Delaying Force of Riflemen Makes a Stand
American rifles weren’t built to mount bayonets, putting riflemen at a distinct disadvantage in close encounters with line infantry armed with the shorter-range muskets that were.

What Philip and Christopher had in common besides kinship is they were probably using rifles made by their cousin Peter Newhard during those battles. Rifle Regiment soldiers were required to own their own rifle and accoutrements, the rifle had to be well-made to meet the required marksmanship standard, and the relationships between the three families were close. Specifically recruited from frontier communities, riflemen served as scouts, snipers, couriers, hunters and skirmishers rather than line infantry, had to pass a skill test to enlist, and the regiment’s published marksmanship standard was consistent shot placement inside of seven inches at 250 yards, a feat impossible with smooth-bore military muskets and the common trade guns of the period. To meet the standards required early in the war, Christopher and young Philip had to have been skilled woodsmen and marksmen as well as farmers, and had to own first-rate rifles. Enlistments were for a one-year term of service. (Kastens Vol IV pp111-195, Stroh pp13-21, and Valuska)

[Bob Smalser]

Morgan’s Riflemen, the detachment Philip’s company served under during the Quebec Campaign

Within only three weeks of forming, Thompson’s Rifle Battalion marched by company from Pennsylvania to Boston to join General Washington’s siege there, arriving between July 25th and August 18th, 1775. The Lexington and Concord battles had occurred the previous April, and Bunker Hill in June.

“Rumor reached Boston about a peculiar kind of a musket called a ‘rifle’ which was carried by these new Continental soldiers from the South. In August, Washington held a review of his troops on the Cambridge Common…. There were over a thousand riflemen there…spare, rangy men with the independent manner of the western wilderness. Uncouth they were in their fringed hunting shirts; their breech-clouts and snug-fitting buckskin leggings; wearing moccasins instead of shoes. There they stood, their gunstocks resting on the ground, one hand around the longest barrel anyone in Cambridge had ever seen.”

“A sergeant, far out in the Common, was just finishing supervising the setting of a row of poles, each averaging seven inches in diameter, into holes previously dug for this purpose. He then paced away from the poles….The sergeant stopped at two hundred and fifty paces and the men with the hunting shirts walked out to where he stood. Then they moved out into a rough line of companies… The crowd watched them uproarious, it was an amusing game….No gun ever dreamed of could carry two hundred and fifty paces. The riflemen aimed, and… the shots hit the poles; they were destroyed before the firing stopped.”

“If there is a record of what the generals in Boston said when the British spies got back, it has not been found. We know that Howe (British Major General William Howe) wrote home later about the ‘terrible guns of the rebels.’ We are told that Howe presently offered a reward for the capture of a rifleman with gun.” (Bolton, Klein pp7-15, Sawyer, Stroh pp19-20)

There were unintended consequences of Washington’s demonstration of the skills of his frontier riflemen, however. Between the sunburn incurred on the march to Boston, the fringed hunting shirts, breechclouts, leggings and moccasins, combined with the presence of a few Mohican militiamen from western Massachusetts in the siege force, initial British reports were that the rebels sniping at their sentries so effectively from great distances were Washington’s tribal allies. When these reports reached British Commander-in-Chief General Thomas Gage, he stated “the rebels…have brought down all the savages they could against us”, and in consequence “opened the door” for British use of Indian allies in the fighting ahead. This would have disastrous consequences later for families on the frontier. (Silver, pp242-3.)

The Grave of Peter Newhard’s Father

The fathers of Philip, Christopher and Peter had immigrated together to Philadelphia from what is now the German state of Rhineland Palatinate on the border with France, as part of a large exodus from that region. The land was still ravaged from a century of intermittent warfare and the disorganization that followed. The population was crowding with refugees from war in Germany and religious persecution in Switzerland. Minor noble landowners driven off by warfare had returned, and were reimposing tithes, rents and forced labor on villagers who had become accustomed to managing their own affairs. With population increases, agriculture practices intensified, soils were becoming overworked, and the regional tradition of partible inheritances meant landholdings were becoming too small to support a family. The most eager to leave were those possessing ambition combined with poor prospects in a society still hidebound by feudalism and guilds - often the youngest sons of youngest sons. North America wasn’t the only option. Russia and Hungary offered free transportation and attractive subsidies to German settlers, where America did not. What drew German villagers to America was clear title to land in large parcels. In America, individual farmers often owned more land than an entire village of farmers shared with noble landowners in the Palatinate. Partible inheritances also meant that emigrants kept in close touch with their home villages to eventually recover those inheritances, and the paths and pitfalls to fulfilling dreams of land ownership in America quickly became well known. As a consequence, the Newhard family’s organization for travel and actions upon arrival weren’t happenstance. (Fischer pp419, Fogelman pp15-28 and Kastens Vol IV pp1,13,111,156,179)

Common Regional Origin
1) Sensinger Family: Rosenwiller, Alsace
2) Newhard Family: Rumbach, Palatinate (Note 2)
3) Kuntz Family: Niederbronn, Alsace
4) Schmalzhaf (author’s) Family: Bonfeld, Kraichgau
5) Moll Family: Weisenheim am Sand, Palatinate
7) Schreckengost Family: Bad Berleberg, Westphalia

The fathers of Philip, Christopher and Peter were sufficiently close that passenger lists and later court records describe them as brothers, when they were not. Christopher’s father was the oldest and at 38 years of age, would become the patriarch of the Lehigh Valley Newhards. His family accompanied him, including young Christopher. Peter’s father was 24, was a second cousin, and was also accompanied by his young family, including a toddler named Elizabeth who later in life would become the mother of gunmaker David Kuntz (1764-1834). Philip’s father was a half brother and at 21 years, was single. There was also a hidden nephew traveling as a member of the oldest Newhard’s family. Besides personal baggage, they were burdened with many of the tools and implements they would need to establish farmsteads, as they knew from correspondence from America that such items were more expensive to acquire in Philadelphia than in Germany. Their journey began in May, 1737 on a riverboat traveling down the Rhine River through over twenty customs checkpoints to Rotterdam, followed by a long wait at the port and a longer sea voyage through Cowes, England on the northern passage to North America in crowded, often miserable conditions. At least two Newhard children are thought to have died during the voyage. (Kastens Vol IV pp1,13,111,156,179, Kuhns, Henry M and the LDS Genealogical Library)

Henry Mayer’s 1738 contract for three years of indentured servitude to pay for his transportation expenses, signed with an X.

Arriving in late September, the three oldest Newhards swore allegiance to the King of England to acquire settlement rights on the frontier the following spring. All had avoided being sold by the ship’s captain into indentured servitude because they couldn’t pay their expenses. Christopher’s father squatted on open land for a time so as to avoid the nominal purchase price and taxes, probably because redeeming the entire extended family upon arrival had cost more than planned. Both indentured servitude and homesteading without permission were common, and were reasons why some individuals are so poorly documented in archived records. The sound planning and leadership of Christopher’s father and his Swiss wife Maria Fraudhueger were critical to the early success of all four Newhard families, and the debt to them would extend for at least another generation. The land they settled was “on the forks of the Delaware” at the junction of the Lehigh and Delaware Rivers that the sons of English Quaker William Penn had purchased from local Lenape tribes just a few years earlier, and had encouraged German Pietists to settle because of their reputation for hardiness, productivity, and resulting ability to pay. Then it was called the Bucks County frontier, but in 1752 it would become part of Northampton County and in 1812 Lehigh County. The Penns primarily sought profits, as the proceeds and taxes from land transactions went to their personal real estate enterprise. Pennsylvania was a private colony with the Penns as proprietors. Christopher and Peter’s fathers became neighbors in the Coplay Creek – Laury’s area of North Whitehall Township along the Lehigh River, and Philip’s father homesteaded 15 miles deeper into the wilderness near the Jordan Valley, in Heidelberg Township. The men cleared and farmed homesteads, raised their families, and were members of the Reformed congregations of Egypt and Heidelberg. Philip’s father relocated his family to 200 acres in the Bethlehem area after the Indian attacks of 1755, and Christopher’s father later relocated to 250 acres of better land on Jordan’s Creek closer to Allentown. By the time of the Quebec Campaign, Peter, who was born on the new homestead at Laury’s, was 32 years old and probably well established in his trade. (Gabel p24, Kastens Vol IV pp1,13,111,156,179, Gensey, Henry M, and the LDS Genealogical Library)

Peter’s Cousin Lydia Nyhart with Husband Philipp Schmalzhaf, the Author’s Great Grandparents

Note the laid, dry-stone wall and hand-split chestnut clapboards on their Wyoming County farmhouse. Like their pioneer forbearers a century earlier, they were hard-working, self-reliant, resourceful and tough. Lydia bore 13 children.

[Bob Smalser]

The spelling of the name was more erratic than most for a number of reasons. In the Palatinate dialect of German the name is pronounced NYE’-HARDT, yet most often spelled “Neuhart” in Germany and “Newhart” here. This is a large and well-documented family, today comprising over 50,000 members (including US entertainer Bob Newhart), and all spellings of the name are usually found to be related. They were Pietists, pledging themselves to a traditional, Godly life. They named their children after a relatively few number of saints, a confusing practice in a large clan having a common surname. Hence middle names often became the spoken name, which also became confusing when interchanging oral with written records, so changing the surname spelling became an additional device for differentiating individual families. While historians prefer the spelling used by the individual, there are many instances of Newharts, including Peter, using two or more surname spellings during their lifetimes, especially if they relocated near other Newharts or vice versa. Historian Dennis Kastens authored a 5-volume history of the family stretching back through German burghers and Frankish nobility to antiquity through marriage to the Ostertag, von Windstein and Hohenstauffen families of Germany. Peter Newhard was a tradesman and farmer, but was also a distant descendant of kings, saints and popes from throughout Europe. (Kastens Vol I and Kastens Newhart Nobility)

Lockplate Marked Peter Newhard
Photo courtesy Bruce Miller

Peter Newhard (1743-1813) became a noted rifle maker in Northampton County, Pennsylvania from the 1760’s until his death. Where he learned the trade isn’t recorded, but considering the language and cultural preferences of known local gunmakers, the most likely possibilities are Andreas Albrecht or with the father-son pairing of William and Johannes Moll. There is also the lesser possibility that Peter was self-taught. Pietist culture was insular, German remained the only language spoken by the majority, and a German boy apprenticing in an “English” household would have been unlikely. (Note 3) Most German immigrants had a second trade other than farming, and Peter’s father Michael was a weaver. However Michael was only 24 when he acquired 84 acres of wilderness to homestead, which soon grew to 200 acres, and between land clearing and farming, he was kept busy year-round during Peter’s apprenticeship years. By 1768 he only had 70 acres in cultivation, the remainder still in woodlands, and Peter was the second son of six sons and five daughters who survived to adulthood. Accordingly, Michael had plenty of labor but a number of dependents to feed and clothe, and probably could afford to indulge a son who wanted to pursue goals other than growing crops and pulling tree stumps, in return for a future source of scarce hard currency for the family. (Kastens Vol IV p111-112 and the LDS Genealogical Library)

The Moravian Community at Christian Springs

Moravian Andreas Albrecht (1718-1802) was possibly Peter’s master, as the Moravian community at Christian Springs was only 11 miles from the Newhard’s farm and in 1757 expanded their small gunmaking enterprise with a formal program of teaching riflemaking to youngsters. This expansion after twelve Moravian missionaries were brutally slain by Indians only two years before was no coincidence. The realities of external threats drove even the pacifist Moravians into preparations to defend themselves and their neighbors as well as to hunt game with those rifles. In the 1750’s, Pennsylvania consisted largely of primeval forests where elk, bison and wolves still thrived. Wilderness rifles had to be tailored to match the needs of the users and efficient to manufacture as well as to use, areas where their ability to organize, document and pass on knowledge and skills made significant contributions. (Moravian Historical Society)

An Early German Jaeger Rifle

The shorter, heavier-caliber rifles from which Pennsylvania rifles evolved. This Gottschaulk rifle was converted from the original flintlock to percussion ignition later in its life. Photo courtesy of Dr Fred Garner.

The austere and occasionally deadly conditions on the frontier required accuracy, light weight, ease of repair, and most of all, economy of use. Gunpowder and lead were commodities to be carefully conserved. Rifled barrels with cloth-patched balls were more efficient than smooth-bored guns because in addition to the increased accuracy of the spinning ball, they provided higher velocities per unit of powder because of the better gas seal, which in turn allowed for smaller bores that conserved both lead and powder. Barrel length added velocity and precision by providing the powder more time to burn and by increasing the distance between the front and rear sights, thus lessening the impact of minor errors in sight alignment. Accuracy was also aided by triggers having two positions, one with a normal-weight pull for short-range use under normal conditions, and one with a light or “hair” set for the best possible accuracy in making long-range shots under quiet conditions. Barrels hammer-welded from soft iron bars wrapped around rod-shaped mandrels were relatively easy to ream and rifle using the minimum number of scarce hardened steel cutters, and when the rifling wore out could be reamed to a larger caliber and rifled a second or even a third time. The tradeoffs were that each rifle required its own bullet mold that precluded the sharing of rifle balls, they were slower to load than smooth-bores by a factor of three, but in turn had three times the economy and six times the effective range. That rifles originating in a small area of Germany as shorter, larger-bored weapons evolved as uniformly as they did into more specialized and efficient weapons up and down a thousand miles of primitive Appalachian frontier, remains a tribute to hundreds of unknown gunmakers capable of seeing a need, and meeting it with efficiency and economy. (McRory)

A Flintlock Long Rifle Marked P. Newhardt
Photograph courtesy of Rock Island Auction Company

Moravians immigrated to Northampton County in 1740 and 1741 in groups sufficiently large they would have required some initial help to successfully overwinter on the frontier. They still considered themselves part of the Lutheran denomination, and German Protestant churches generally cooperated well with each other in frontier communities, the different denominations even sharing buildings. Moravians were evangelicals who later opened their schools to non-Moravian children on a cash tuition basis, and their boarding school at Nazareth would become well known for that practice. Peter’s father by 1740 had log buildings up and a small crop in, and his land was on the route from Philadelphia to the Moravian holdings, so a connection was likely. At Christian Springs Peter would have also come in contact with gunmaker Christian Oerter (1747-1777), who later took over as master there. Working strongly against the possibility of non-Moravian boys studying under Albrecht or Oerter in the late 1750’s is that Moravian activities were generally well-documented, yet no such apprenticeship records exist. Moravian “pay schools” open to outsiders didn’t come into being until almost three decades later, and during the period Peter was learning a trade, Moravian society remained relatively closed. Further, the Moravians needed cash more than labor, and in the late 1750’s cash was scarce among subsistence farmers like the Newhards. (Moravian Historical Society, Kettenburg)

[Bob Smalser]

Rifling Machine
The reamed barrel blank was clamped to its cradle, and a single cutter mounted on the far end of the rod was pulled through the barrel, guided by the spirals hand-carved into the wooden rifling guide. Several passes were required to cut a groove, and grooves were cut one at a time.

Stronger candidates for Peter’s masters are the father-son pairing of William Moll (about 1712-1780) and Johannes (John I) Moll (before 1746-1794). John Moll I would become one of the most significant gunmakers of Old Northampton County not only because of his skills, but because he was one of the few outside of the Moravian communes who pursued the trade as a full-time occupation instead of a seasonal adjunct to farming like Peter Newhard. This kept the Molls poor but prolific, with relatively large numbers of rifles surviving. His father William was also a rifle maker and could have taught his son John and Peter together. As the records aren’t clear on birth dates and locations, if John was significantly more experienced, he could also have taught Peter without the involvement of his father.

“The father of John Moll I, whose name was William, was also a gunsmith, and plied his trade as early as 1747. His great grandson William has an heirloom descended from him, a device for cutting threads on screws, neatly made of iron, and bearing in plainly legible characters the inscription ‘April 10, 1747 – W.M.’ “ (Mathews and Hungerford p123-4, from what was probably a live interview of gunmaker William Henry Moll, 1829-1889.)

While none of William Moll’s work survives, and some students of the period doubt he ever existed, he left what may have been a rifling machine to his gunsmith descendants, so there is little doubt about his trade.(Note 4) Not much else is known about William Moll, except that he died in Northampton County leaving assets to be distributed, his son John Moll I sold Berks County land and a “smith” shop in 1763 then appeared on Allentown tax rolls for the first time as a gunmaker in 1764 (Note 5), and Moll genealogists believe they came from the branch of the Moll family who had immigrated in 1731 and settled in the Montgomery and Berks County areas. Not known is when the Molls first met the Newhards, but Peter and John were of the same generation (Note 6), and as both families were Calvinist, they were likely members of the same or adjacent Reformed congregations. (Note 7) In the next generation, John Moll’s son John Moll II (1773-1834) would marry Peter’s niece, so the family relationship was close and longstanding. Whether by coincidence or design, John Moll’s arrival in Allentown was only months after the colonial assembly approved funds for the raising of a large defense force after the Indian incidents of October 1763. Regardless of what prompted John Moll’s relocation, the increased demand for weapons was immediate and well-funded, and he may have sought outside labor to assist. Nineteen-year-old farmer Peter Newhard, from a family long on land and short on cash, could have been one of those assistants. Later, John Moll I’s Allentown gunshop was swamped with wartime work at a time when he, Peter and other local gunsmiths also had militia duties between 1775 and 1781. As Philadelphia was about to fall to the British in September 1777, Congress moved federal armory operations to Lancaster, Harrisburg and Allentown. The archived reports from the “Allentown Factory” (Note 8) show it to be a large operation – “300 muskets will be ready by”…“800 muskets on hand”… “12,000 stands of arms” - are impressive quantities even today, especially in a town with only 54 buildings and a population of 300, two-thirds of them children. The factory undoubtedly used as many skilled workers and subcontractors as it could find, including militiamen Moll, Peter Newhard, and probably also the joinery shop just blocks away owned by a fellow militiaman, Peter Newhard’s younger brother George “Jacob” Neuhard (1752-1835). That may be the explanation for the references in old gun collector’s handbooks to “Allentown gunsmith Jacob Newhardt producing rifles circa 1770-1779”, because besides the armory work, if he were provided with locks and barrels, Jacob could easily have built and signed several rifles in his lifetime. (Kastens Vol IV Moll Family Section pp11-59, pp111, 113, 246, 248, PA Archives Series 5 Vol II, Vol VIII, Kettenburg, Sipple and Brent Wade Moll)

Lenape Delaware Women

Last, Peter could have been almost entirely self-taught, as some students of the period report that his work is sufficiently different from that of Andreas Albrecht, John Moll and others to be somewhat unique. (Kettenburg) Having a rifle to copy, and with critical parts like the rifled barrel, matching bullet mold and lock available for purchase then in Philadelphia along with sheet and cast brass, it is entirely possible a talented youngster with common woodworking tools and files could assemble rifles, progressing in sophistication with each project, and eventually manufacturing many of his own parts from raw materials. Working against that possibility is cost. In the late 1750’s there wasn’t much cash around for buying expensive rifle parts to train a boy of unknown potential. A traditional apprenticeship agreement where a boy between (roughly) ages 12 and 19 traded his labor for upkeep and training was much more likely. Younger boys lack the attention span to be productive, and young men beyond their teen years would be too well-established and productive to easily spare from the farming operations they grew up in. Moreover, I wonder if comparison of artifacts as a device to determine master-apprentice relationships isn’t overemphasized. The values these Pennsylvania Germans considered fundamental largely haven’t changed. I served the 1950’s equivalent of a trade apprenticeship within my family, plans and patterns I use today for parts and tools obtained from my immediate forbearers were hardly unique, but were once shared with dozens and even hundreds of other tradesmen, and I couldn’t wait to strike out on my own and implement my own ideas rather than continue to copy my father and uncles.

There are also no formal records of who Peter taught gunmaking to. As he eventually farmed 345 acres of land at Laury’s Station in addition to his gunmaking trade and did it with only one son who survived to adulthood (Note 9), he had a need for considerable outside labor. That Peter married relatively young and quickly amassed property speak to the prosperity and skills of both he and his father, making him an attractive choice for parents arranging apprenticeships for their sons, especially later in life when his prosperity increased along with the eligibility of his five daughters. His first wife died in childbirth, and his second wife embraced the surviving daughter from Peter’s first marriage and had six children of her own. Family notes tell us that during the Revolutionary War, Peter was kept busy making guns, but he also served in the militia. Northampton County Militia rosters of May, 1778 show a Peter Neihart in Captain John Morritz’s 4th Company of the 2d Battalion, a company that fought at the Battle of Brandywine the previous September. Brothers Peter and Jacob and John Moll probably spent their militia drill and active-service days working on guns rather than serving as line infantry, regardless of the presence of a local armory. Militiamen initially supplied their own firelocks, and it would be a foolish company commander indeed to have skilled gunsmiths performing close-order drill when he also had 150 finicky, farmer-owned flintlocks of various makes, vintages and conditions to bet his men's lives on, not to mention all his government-owned equipment. Last, patriotism and resolve weren’t in short supply among these early Pennsylvania Germans. Peter’s 63-year-old father Michael also served as a Private in the 1st Battalion of the Pennsylvania Militia during the war. (Gabel p25, Kastens Vol IV p111, the LDS Genealogical Library and PA Archives Series 5 Vol II, Vol VIII p48)

[Bob Smalser]

Peter must have had several apprentices before his nephew Conrad Newhard (1783-1853), and with so much acreage to farm, their duties likely included more than just gunmaking. Conrad was raised near Peter in Whitehall Township, and later moved to Lehigh Township where tax records state he prospered as a farmer and gunsmith. As his son Jonas (1805-1885) was exclusively a farmer and we don’t have any signed rifles to examine, it isn’t clear how large a role gunsmithing played in Conrad’s life. There was also John George Kuntz (1734-1766), from a village in Alsace only twenty miles from Rumbach. He married Peter’s older sister Elizabeth in the Newhard family church at Egypt in 1755, and died at the young age of 32 after a long illness, leaving his 125-acre Berks County farm to Elizabeth. With eight children, no husband, and the oldest son (of four sons) only age eight, Elizabeth needed help. John George had at least three brothers farming small holdings, but they were further out in less developed areas that weren’t yet prosperous. It’s likely that as soon as her younger children reached school age, Elizabeth sent them to live with her better-off relatives to ease the family’s burden. Who else but her brother Peter could have taken in her third son David Kuntz (1764-1834) at such an early (and unproductive) age and train him to a level where he would eventually become one of the best known gunmakers of the region? David didn’t reach normal apprenticeship age until the war, and if Peter collaborated on wartime weapons work would have also come under the influence of Peter Newhard’s brother Jacob, John Moll, and perhaps Herman Rupp (1756-1831), who is thought to have apprenticed under Moll during the period. Also of note is that there were at least three intermarriages between the Rupps and the Schreckengost family, who later produced some of the best-known gunmakers of Western Pennsylvania. (Kastens Vol IV pp111, 114, Kettenburg and the LDS Genealogical Library)

After the war, David’s younger cousin Jacob Kuntz (1780-1876) also grew up near Peter in Whitehall Township, and the families attended Egypt Reformed Church together. Peter was 51 when Jacob reached apprentice age, and as by then David was working some distance away in Berks County at the time, Peter or the Molls (John I and II) become logical choices for Jacob’s teachers. Further, when Jacob moved to Philadelphia at age 30, he took Peter’s niece Mary with him as his wife. Mary was the daughter of Allentown cabinetmaker and occasional gunmaker Jacob Neuhard mentioned in a previous paragraph, and marriage in Pietist culture means Kuntz was close to the family for a number of years, probably as either Moll’s or Peter’s apprentice. Kuntz could have even apprenticed under Jacob, making both furniture and guns, and changed to guns exclusively upon his move to Philadelphia. Further, if Jacob apprenticed so successfully with the Molls or the Newhards, where else would his younger brother Peter Kuntz (1782-unk) apprentice? At the beginning of the Golden Age of Gunmaking from 1755 to 1820, Peter Newhard’s sister, daughter, and niece all married Kuntz men, and his younger cousin married John Moll II. They shared identical German origins, an insular, Pietist culture, the hardships of creating prosperous farms and shops from primeval forests, danger from Indian attacks and war, and a love of craftsmanship. The results were often exceptional. This Jacob Kuntz flintlock in New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (below) is thought to have been made before Kuntz relocated to Philadelphia in 1810, and was donated by Wilfrid Wood in 1942. (Kastens Vol IV pp111-114, the LDS Genealogical Library and the MMA Collection Database)

The Jacob Kuntz Flintlock in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City
Photographs courtesy of the MMA Collection Database

Nor does the story end with Peter Newhard. His nephew and apprentice Conrad Newhard prospered as a gunsmith in Lehigh Township, the Kuntz brothers continued to handcraft rifles until the advent of reliable metallic cartridges, and his younger cousin Elizabeth Newhard married Allentown gunmaker John Moll II (1773-1834). Together with the senior John Moll, Elizabeth and John II founded a line of gunsmiths that included…

…son John Moll III (1796-1883) of Allentown…
…nephew James Moll (1804-1870) of Allentown…
…sons Peter Moll (1799-1879) and David Moll (1807-1853 of Hellertown…
…son Nathan Moll (1814-1892) of Bucks County and later Ohio and Iowa…
…grandson Reuben Moll (1834-unk) of Hellertown and later Missouri…
…grandson Samuel Moll (1838-1915) of Bucks County and later Ohio and Iowa…
…grandsons William Henry Moll (1825-1889) and Josiah Daniel Moll (1838-1873)of Allentown…
…grandsons William Moll (1836-1877) and Edwin Moll (1838-1900) of Hellertown…
…grandsons Peter Moll II (1847-1883) and John Jacob Moll (1849-1909) of Hellertown…
…grandsons Thomas Moll (1852-unk) and David Moll Jr (1849-1926) of Hellertown…
…grandson-in-lawGeorge Lee (1825-1889) of Hellertown (Note 10).
…and great grandson Henry Thomas Moll (1860-1913) of Allentown (Note 11).

A Later Moll Percussion Long Rifle
Photograph courtesy of the Rock Island Auction Company

That their rifles share the characteristics of style and detail now variously referred to as the “Allentown, Lehigh or Northampton School” of gunmaking is no surprise to those of us researching the family. The family relationships between the Newhard, Kuntz and Moll gunmakers were overwhelmingly deep, and spanned seven generations before the age of metallic cartridges and mass production.


With special thanks to Ron Gabel, Eric Kettenburg, Dr Fred Garner, Bruce Miller, and Dave Madary for their generous contributions…

… Bob Smalser, Christmas 2010, for his grandchildren.
- Third cousin to Peter and Jacob Newhard, five generations removed.
- Second cousin to John III, Peter, David and Nathan Moll, four generations removed.
- Third cousin to William Henry and John Jacob Moll, three generations removed.
- Fourth cousin to David Kuntz and Conrad Newhard, four generations removed.
- In-law to William Moll, John Moll I and II, Jacob Kuntz, Peter Kuntz, and George Lee.

[Lew Barrett]

My goodness! Epic research that in itself will take some research to absorb! Kudos, Bob!

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

+1

Would have been here sooner but I got detained with business.

I gladly hand over any claim to being this place's resident historian that I might have once claimed with my Hong Kong postings (which are now hosted here: http://gwulo.com/ )

[Hoofangler]

Great post, thanks. For more on Arnold et al, the battles, boats, and some great info on Lake Champlain check out 'Sails and Steam in the Mountains' by Russell Bellico.

[Bob Smalser]

Note 1: Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton was the commander of British forces on the ground, and Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis wasn’t present at the Battle of Cowpens. Cornwallis’ error was selecting Tarleton to command the brigade. “Tarleton with a few remaining horsemen rode back into the fight, but after clashing with Washington’s men, he too retreated from the field. He was stopped by Lieutenant Colonel William Washington (George Washington’s cousin), who attacked him with his saber, calling out, "Where now is the boasting Tarleton?”. A British officer rode up to strike Washington but was shot off his horse by Washington's black orderly. Tarleton then shot Washington's horse from under him and fled, abandoning his men and ending the battle. The Battle of Cowpens had lasted one hour. Against an 1150-man British brigade, Morgan's brigade inflicted 110 killed and took 712 prisoners, which included 200 wounded. The forces lost constituted the cream of Cornwallis' army - an 86% casualty rate.” (Wikipedia)

Note 2: Several references on Peter’s father Michael Newhard (1713-1793) list his (and other family members’) origin as Zweibruecken, Germany. In fact like most of the Neuharts, he was from the village of Rumbach which was 32 miles to the southeast, but administratively part of the (then) Duchy of Zweibruecken. Michael probably told people he was from Zweibruecken like I list Seabeck as my residence when I live much closer to Camp Union. Seabeck is on state maps and Camp Union isn’t.

Note 3: Many Pennsylvania Germans didn’t give up German as the household language until the First World War, one of the reasons families established here since the 1730’s still had descendants marrying freshly-immigrated Germans as late as the early1900’s. My great grandmother Lydia’s family had been Americans for four generations, yet she married Philipp Schmalzhaf who immigrated in 1852. In turn her sixth son, my grandfather, married Helena Betzold who had immigrated in 1886.

Note 4: The signed, heirloom tool William Moll left to his gunsmith descendants for “cutting threads” could have been a number of tools ranging from a common screw plate (called a die today), to a large reamer, to a rifling machine. Whatever it was, it was sufficiently large and valuable to merit initials and date of completion, a factor in favor of a more complicated device than a mere screw plate. Of greater importance to the issue of William Moll’s existence (some students of the period claim he is a figure of myth) is that Mathews and Hungerford passage was taken from either direct correspondence with, or more likely, a live interview with great grandson and gunsmith William Henry Moll, who was alive at the time the book was published, undoubtedly knew exactly what the tool was and accordingly, what William Moll did for a living. The younger Moll already had nine noted gunsmiths in his lineage, neither he nor his interviewer would have motivation to fabricate another, and he clearly told his interviewer that William Moll was a gunsmith. Further, the Mathews narrative reads like the interviewer actually saw the device but didn’t pursue with Moll a more precise description of what it was. Recent research by Dave Madary shows gunsmith John Moll as occupying land adjacent to other people’s Berks County land warrants, but without a land warrant of his own. (Note 5) This could mean the warrants pertaining to him and his father William were lost, but it more likely means they were poor squatters homesteading illegally, a common condition on the frontier, especially between the years 1718-1732, when William Penn died and proprietorship of the colony was contested. All homesteaders arriving in those years began as squatters, and the Molls are thought to have arrived in 1731 (Silver pp7-8.).

Note 5: Sources conflict here. Family member Dennis Kastens studies the archives and states the 1764 tax rolls list a married person (or widower) named Moll rather than single gunmaker John Moll I, who was first listed in 1772. Family member Brent Wade Moll studies the same archives and states the 1764 Moll was described as a gunsmith. Some serious students don’t believe much gunmaking was occurring in the Lehigh Valley outside the Moravian enclaves in the early 1760’s, which favors Kasten’s version. I’ve used Moll’s version because it coincides with a John Moll’s Sep 1763 sale of his Berks County land and gunsmith shop a few months before appearing in Allentown in 1764. This was land either he or his father perhaps acquired ca 1750, the date a John Moll appears on neighboring land warrants (Berks County courthouse in the Recorder of Deeds Office for Rockland Twp). The October 1763 Indian incident mentioned in the first paragraph also supports the Moll version, because the result was an urgent request for arms and ammunition, which were described in short supply, and subsequently 24,000 pounds quickly appropriated by the Colonial Assembly for raising and equipping an 800-man local defense force. Local gunmakers and merchants selling guns were clearly busy and well-funded commencing in 1764, albeit with workaday muskets or trade-gun types rather than the works of art most likely to survive. Further, Joseph Mickley also mentions Abraham Rinker (1741-1820) as the Lieutenant of the existing local volunteer defense company in October 1763. Rinker was the older brother of Lydia Rinker (1749-unk) who married John Moll I in 1772. Moll couldn’t have married into the Rinker family without a close, longstanding relationship that probably began with Moll servicing Rinker’s defense company with weaponry in 1764.

Note 6: The date found for John Moll I’s birth (born about 1746) is based on how he described himself in his lifetime, not on formal birth or baptismal records, and probably because he died at a young age, some contemporary accounts portray him as being considerably older than Peter Newhard (born 1743). While much is possible in the absence of formal records, in the culture and frontier environment he was born in it is unlikely his father William Moll would have been younger than 22 or 23 at his birth, and more likely much older. Hence if he was older than he told people, it is highly unlikely it would be by more than a few years, with 10-12 years the extreme limit. Peter Newhard and John Moll were contemporaries. As his son John was such an important figure in gunmaking and so little exists on the father and their origins, there is also speculation that William Moll never existed except as a family legend, that his son was a runaway apprentice trying to mask his identity, and other improbable tales. See Note 4 for my rationale that William existed, and why he and his son John were so poorly documented.

Note 7: Simon Sipple writes that the first Reformed congregation in the Allentown area was established in Egypt in 1734. This is the church Peter Newhard’s family originally attended after they had immigrated in 1737. The Allentown (then called Northampton Town) Mount Zion Reformed congregation was founded in 1762 and a log church constructed. This is the church where John Moll I married Lydia Rinker in 1772. At the time of Moll’s 1764 appearance in Allentown, the two congregations shared pastors, and undoubtedly the Egypt congregation assisted with the establishment of the Allentown church only seven miles distant. Further, in 1780 a Peter Newhard is listed as a trustee at Mt Zion, but it isn’t clear whether that was gunsmith Peter (1746-1813) or his cousin, farmer Peter (1750-1836), although the surname spelling and distances favor gunsmith Peter.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Bob's point about indentured servitude to clear the costs of the passage is absolutely "spot on" and is something that is very generally overlooked. Avoiding it was certainly the right thing to do since the life expectancy of indentured servants in the New World was very poor - since the servitude was for a term of years the buyer had no financial interest in the survival of his asset beyond that point.

[paladin]

Very fine, Bob. I enjoyed this.
A slight thread drift, Pennsylvania was a hotbed of rifle making activity in the mid 1700's, several "schools" flourished around Reading and Lancaster county. Christian Oerter from Nazareth, Pa. and Johannes Goss in Lancaster were two fine prolific rifle makers. I have an original Christian Oerter and almost had a Goss.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I sense a parallel of sorts between the development of the long rifle by German Protestant immigrants in the New World and the development of the long case clock by Dutch Protestant immigrants in England a century earlier. Similar sorts of communities, although the clock makers were urban and the rifle makers were rural.

[Bob Smalser]

Note 8: The Kettenburg Pages is the best reference for studying the “Allentown Factory”, the temporary armory established after British forces forced the evacuation of arms-making and repair facilities from Philadelphia, combining original, unedited archival records with commentary. Existing archives mention that 16 workers accompanied the evacuated arms and equipment, and from personal experience with modern prepositioned equipment stocks, my (and Kasten’s) view is that the quantities involved were vastly too large for only 16 workers, and that every qualified gunsmith and joiner in the Allentown area were employed along with their workshops at one time or another to repair and maintain these relatively fragile flintlocks.

Note 9: Peter Newhardt Junior (1786-1789) died young, and Michael Newhardt (1800-1853) was born too late to have been trained as a gunsmith by his father, who died in 1813 at age 69.

Note 10: John Jacob Moll (1849-1909) was the last Moll practicing gunsmithing in Hellertown, repairing guns up until the early 1900’s. In 1870 the business was valued at $8000 and was being run by William (1836-1877) and Edwin (1838-1900) with the sons of David Moll (1807-1853) listed as apprentices. These were Thomas (1852-unk) and David Jr (1849-1926). When William Moll died in 1877, the firm transferred to Edwin and David Jr and gradually reverted to groceries, hardware and dry goods. (Brent Wade Moll, LDS Genealogical Library.)

Note 11: Henry Thomas Moll (1860-1913), son of William Henry Moll (1825-1889), is the last Moll gunsmith in Allentown. The 1880 Federal Census lists him as a single gunsmith living with his parents and grandparents at their North 7th Street shop. By the 1900 census he is married with two children, living separately, and working for a bottling plant, first as a bottler in 1900 then as a teamster in 1910. Brent Wade Moll reports that after the 1884 sale of the large Moll gunshop on 7th Street in Allentown upon the 1883 death of his grandfather John Moll III, Thomas Henry carried on the gunsmith trade at a small shop at 606 Hamilton Street until 1889, while his father William Henry went to work for the M.C. Ebbeke Company as a clerk until his death. . (Brent Wade Moll, LDS Genealogical Library.)

Note 12: Rupp-Schreckengost intermarriages include Susanna Oury (1791-1844), daughter of Catharina Christina Rupp (1749-1825), and Benjamin Schreckengost (1788-1868). Also Jacob Simon Rupp (1822-1902), a first cousin to Hermann Rupp, and Mary Ann Schreckengost (1829-1904). Also Christine Ferringer (1800-1893), who was the granddaughter of Herman Rupp’s sister Maria Clara Rupp (1750-1798), and John Jacob Schreckengost (1793-1893).

References:

Abstract of Graves of Revolutionary War Patriots.

Adams, Charles Francis. “The Battle of Long Island,” American Historical Review Vol. 1, No. 4 (Jul., 1896),

Ancestry Family Trees, Ancestry.com, The Latter Day Saints Genealogical Library, 193 S. Mountain Way, Oren, Utah 64058.

Aurand, A. Monroe, Early Life of the Pennsylvania Germans, Forgotten Books.Org, first published in 1945.

Bolton, Charles K., The Private Soldier Under Washington, Knowles Boston 1902.

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania , Report of the Commission to Locate the Site of the Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg: Clarence M. Busch, State Printer of Pennsylvania, 1896.

Dillin, Captain G.W., The Kentucky Rifle 6th Edition, George Shumway Publisher, York, Penna, 1975.

Fischer, David Hackett, Albion’s Seed, New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Fogelman, Aaron Spencer, Hopeful Journeys: German Immigration, Settlement and Political Culture in Colonial America 1717-1775, University of Philadelphia Press, Philadelphia, 1996.

Gabel, Ronald G., Peter Neihart (1743-1813) Gunsmith of Whitehall Township, Lehigh County Pennsylvania, The Hearthstone, Emmaus PA, 1971.

Gensey, Karen L. (2004). Whitehall, Pennsylvania: The Golden Strip of the Lehigh Valley. Kutztown Publishing Company.

Heffner, Earl S. Junior, The Moll Gunsmiths, School of the Ozarks Press, Missouri.

Henry, John Joseph, An Accurate and Interesting Account of the Hardships and Sufferings of that Band of Heroes who traversed the wilderness in the Campaign Against Quebec in 1775, Lancaster, William Greer Printer, 1812.

Henry, Michael S. (1860), History of the Lehigh Valley, Easton, Pennsylvania: Bixler & Company.

History of Northampton County Pennsylvania, Illustrated, Philadelphia and Reading: Peter Fritts, 1877

Kastens, Dennis Allen, Neuhart Chronicle Series Volumes I-IV and the volume titled Neuhart Nobility, Published 1980-1997, Kastens Publications, St Louis Missouri.

Kettenburg, Eric, Notes on the Lehigh Valley School of Riflemaking, Cherrytreefamily.com and The Eric and Erin Kettenburg Pages: http://web.mac.com/kettenburgs/Site/Home.html, and further discussion here: http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/...topic=13303.45.

Klein, Frederick Shriver, Fighting the Battles, Lancaster Historical Society, Lancaster PA, 1975.

Kuhns, Oscar, The German and Swiss Settlements of Colonial Pennsylvania, a Study of the So-Called “Pennsylvania Dutch”, New York, The Aurand Press, 1901 and 1914.

Mathews, Alfred and Hungerford, Austin, History of the Counties of Lehigh and Carbon, Philadelphia, Everts and Richards, 1884. http://search.ancestry.com/Browse/Bo...id=&gskw=&cr=1

McCrory, R.H., Lock Stock and Barrel – Antique Gun Repair, Pioneer Press, Union City Tennessee, 1966

Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection Database, New York, New York. http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Ar...collID=4&dd1=4

Mickley, Joseph J., Ancestry.com. Brief account of murders by the Indians, and the cause thereof, in Northampton County, Penn'a., October 8th, 1763 [database on-line]. Provo, UT: The Generations Network, Inc., 2005. Original data:,. Brief account of murders by the Indians, and the cause thereof, in Northampton County, Penn'a., October 8th, 1763. unknown: unknown, 1875.

Moll, Brent Wade, The Moll Family in Pennsylvania, http://www.angelfire.com/pa5/mollpa/

Moravian Historical Society, 214 East Center Street Nazareth, Pennsylvania 18064, http://www.moravianhistoricalsociety.org/index.html

Pennsylvania Antique Gun Collectors Association, Articles of the Month, PAGCA, PO Box 2, Ft Washington PA 19934.

PA Archives 5th Series Volume II, Colonel William Thompsons Rifle Battalion, and Vol III, Northampton County Militia.

PA Archives 35 Egypt Reformed Church, Lehigh County Pennsylvania .

Roberts, Charles Rhoads; Rev. John Baer Stoudt, Rev. Thomas H. Krick, William J. Dietrich (1914). History of Lehigh County Pennsylvania and a Genealogical and Biographical Records of its Families, Lehigh Valley Publishing Company.

Sawyer, Charles Winthrop, Firearms in American History, Boston, 1920.

Sipple, Simon,. History of Zion Reformed Church, Allentown, Pennsylvania, 1762-1937. unknown: unknown, c1937. Ancestry.com. History of Zion Reformed Church, Allentown, Pennsylvania, 1762-1937 [database on-line]. Provo, UT: The Generations Network, Inc., 2005.

A Short History of the Regiment First Continental Regiment of Foot.org.

Shumway, George, Rifles of Colonial America

Silver, Peter Rhoads, Our Savage Neighbors, WW Norton and Company, New York, 2008.

St Andrews Galley Passenger List 26 Sep 1737.

Stroh, Oscar H., Thompson’s Battalion and/or The First Continental Regiment, Graphic Services, Harrisburg, PA Sep 1975.

US Federal Census 1790, 1810.

Valuska, David L., German-Americans in the War for Independence, The Continental Line Newsletter, Spring 2006, Continentalline.org.

The Colors of the Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment

[Bob Smalser]

Christian Oerter from Nazareth, Pa. and Johannes Goss in Lancaster were two fine prolific rifle makers. I have an original Christian Oerter and almost had a Goss.

As Oerter died of tuberculosis at age 30, you have an extremely rare piece. Moravian master gunmaker Andreas Albrecht was brought over from Hesse to set up the Christian Springs gunmaking shop in 1751, but after training Oerter, he left to set up his own shop and Oerter became the master at Christian Springs at age 19. (Moravian Historical Society)

An original Christian Oerter rifle, converted to percussion later in its life:

[Ed Harrow]

Very interesting - thank you for that.

[paladin]

The silver wire inlay in my rifle is not as "elaborate" as some. I have had 3 museums after the rifle for years. Someone may get it yet, I haven't decided.

[troutman]

The Philadelphia inquirer shows a Kentucky rifle up for auction. Estimates 15 to 20k. I just finished Bloody Mohawk, black dome press, about the French and Indian and revolutionary wars in and around NY's Mohawk Valley. Just great. Incredibly savage warfare. Leaves you with no sympathy for the native Americans. Capturing an exceptionally tall patriot and hacking off his legs. I drove up to Toronto to visit my son and his lovely Canadian wife and passed the Joseph Brant museum. A hundred miles south hes a butcher and there's a museum in his honor in Canada. Having hiked in ny the thing that amazes me is the great expanses they could cover on foot, so fast. It's hard to square up the Native Americans living in actual towns and houses and scalping a woman or child. Brant was presented at court and commanded a hoard who gleefully slaughtered women and children. The ny frontier was on it's own while Washington had other priorities. There are a lot of ghosts in ny west of albany.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Thanks, Bob, I was thinking of picking up "Albion's Seed" out of family interest - I will do so now.

[Bob Triggs]

Re: Benedict Arnold;
One of my ancestors was an oarsman on his escape boat when he was trying to get away from General George Washington.

[Bob Smalser]

... Incredibly savage warfare. Leaves you with no sympathy for the native Americans.

Dovetailing perfectly into gunsmith Johannes Moll's 1764 move from Berks County to Allentown is this graphic account of a few dozen Whitehall citizens murdered and scalped on Oct 8, 1763….most of them women and children. Moll was one of the most famous makers of these rifles in the country.

“Brief account of murders by the Indians, and the cause thereof, in Northampton County, Penn'a., October 8th, 1763”
http://search.ancestry.com/Browse/Bo...id=&gskw=&cr=1

Page 30 is a description of how poorly armed the citizenry was and an urgent request for 50 guns, 100lbs of powder, and 400lbs of lead. Followed by a letter from Governor Hamilton the Assembly that on 22 Oct 1763 passed a bill appropriating 24,000 pounds for raising a defense force of 800 men.

The effects of these terror incidents lasted a generation and more. Whitehall and Allentown (and the entire Lehigh Valley and beyond) were up to their eyeballs trying to arm themselves by 1764. Anybody who could sell or make guns was likely very busy. And well-funded.

Also note that Abraham Rincker is the Lieutenant of the local Whitehall defense company. Abraham was the brother of Johannes Moll’s bride-to-be, and the mother of gunsmith John Moll II. More “who-begat-who” stuff that’s important. That's probably how she met Johannes.