The Indespensable Smoothbore         Before I get into the meat of the subject at hand I have a few observations I would like to share. I am an avid watcher of the Antiques Roadshow on Public TV. A week after writing the last two articles (one week after each) items came to light that duplicated what I wrote about, powder horns and shooting pouches. A week after the article on powder horns a gentleman showed the appraisers a powder horn that had been in his family since the French and Indian war. A very nice horn, long with a gentle curve to it, patented in that nice yellow cast you see on old horns. It had been scrimshawed by its original owner and he obviously had some artistic talent as the figures on the horn were not the crude stuff seen on most horns. After looking it over and describing at length the scenes scrimshawed into it the appraiser asked the owner what he thought it might be worth. The man was flabbergasted to hear it was appraised at 25,000$. So was I. The fact the lineage of it was known and verifiable added tremendously to its value.         The week following the publishing of the article on hunting pouches a beautiful pouch called a "Bandolier Bag" showed up at the road Show. It is called a bandolier bag because it had a strap that was wide like a bandolier. It was determined to be Chippewa Tribe made, the Chippewa being woodland Indians it was beaded over 100 % of the surface, strap and all with typical woodland Indian motifs. A very beautiful item. The appraiser put it into the 3rd quarter of the 1800's, so it was about 125 yrs old. I forget the exact figure they put on its value but it was quite high. It was a pleasure to see both these items of the past.         Now to the meat of this article. Smoothbores were a staple of the frontier and especially the fur trade era, which actually started in the New York area when the Dutch held New York City, then called New Amsterdam. So called trade guns of Dutch manufacture were sold and used by the Dutch, the Indians being their customers for these smoothbore guns. They were flintlocks and the yrs were the late 1600's.         After the English threw the Dutch out they took over the fur trade and brought their own type of smoothbore trade guns for trade. Only they were very frugal with their arming of the Indians, which of course ticked off the Indians in that area because the French in Canada armed their tribes almost from the beginning of their occupation of Canada. This caused a lot of problems for the Iriquois and the New England tribes who were raided regularly by lesser tribes from the north. Not until the English started to sell guns to these New York and New England tribes were they able to hold their own against the Canadian and northern New England tribes such as the Northern Abanaki, Huron and Ottawa. The guns they sold to the Indians and anyone else that needed one were smoothbores called trade guns. The early English trade guns were generally long in the barrel, 42 and 44 inches the norm. The stock were always walnut and were flintlocks of course. They had rear sights at that time which most later ones did not. Many discerning shooters had rear sights added to their smoothbores as they used them like muskets with patched round balls as well as shot for birds. Back then they did not shoot flying birds, they snuck up and shot them on the water. Food was the name of the game, not sport. The locks on these early guns had no bridle for the frizzen, they were held in place by just a shoulder screw. Bridles appeared on frizzens in the early 1800's. These smoothbore trade guns changed over time into a standard pattern more or less, I say more or less as some were made under contract in Belgium, some in England and some in America. The generally had formed metal butt plates and trigger guards and the butt plates were nailed on with square nails until the early 1800's. with the screw holding the tang of the barrel running up from in front of the trigger guard to the tang. This changed to the more modern type with the screw running down to the trigger plate also in the early 1800's. Fancier types of trade guns with cast brass trigger guards and butt plates were used as gifts to Indian leaders and were referred to as "chiefs grade".         Other types of smoothbores called "fowling pieces" were imported and made here. These were the true shotguns of their day. They ranged in quality about the same as trade guns up to very ornate and expensively made quality English single and double barrel guns. Many of these fowling pieces were available to the fur trappers of the Rocky Mountain era in St Louis and at rendezvous'. And of course they were available throughout the fur trade era.         When the French held Canada they of course had their own trade guns for sale ranging in quality from terrible to fantastic. Many of the French arsenals used second rate parts for their trade guns. One manufacturer would never do that and they were the famous Tulle Arsenal. Their quality was of the highest order and the Indians would always demand to have them. The Indians were no fools, they recognized the difference and demanded the best. The better quality French fowling pieces were very expensive and only the more affluent citizens of Canada could afford them. French gunsmithing was on a par with the best in Europe and commanded high prices.         As stated earlier in this article the Mountain Men of the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade had good selections of shotguns available to them and they used them in quantity. The advantage of a smoothbore was that it could be loaded with shot or ball and could be loaded much faster than a rifle especially the second shot, which usually was a plain unpatched ball. A favorite load for smoothbores was the "buck and ball" load, which consisted of a round ball with 3-4 buckshot over it. In a get down and dirty fight it could be a nasty load, sure to hit something with authority. Of course, up until the 1830's the flintlock was the only type available. Caplocks began showing up in the mountains in the early 1830's. but were not common out west until the 1850's. Until next time, Keep your Powder Dry. Bill Oikle