Produced by Greg Weeks, La Monte H. P. Yarroll, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. A CATALOGUE _of_ EARLY PENNSYLVANIA _and other_ FIREARMS _and_ EDGED WEAPONS _at_ "RESTLESS OAKS" McELHATTAN, PA. [Illustration] _Collected by_ HENRY W. SHOEMAKER Lieut. Col., Res., U. S. A. _Compiled by_ H. BEAM PIPER, _of Altoona, Pa._ * * * * * [Illustration: THE LAST OF THE PENNSYLVANIA WAYSIDE GUNSMITHS BUSLER BROTHERS, CLINTON COUNTY, PA. (Frontispiece)] _"Aerataeque Micant Peltae, Micat Aereus Ensis."_ --VIRGIL, Aen. VIII, 743 DEDICATED TO THE PENNSYLVANIA FOLK-LORE SOCIETY, BY THE COMPILER CONTENTS PAGE THE SHOEMAKER COLLECTION OF EARLY PENNSYLVANIA AND OTHER FIREARMS AND EDGED WEAPONS. RIFLES, MUSKETS AND OTHER SHOULDER WEAPONS. 1 PISTOLS AND REVOLVERS. 12 THE SETH NELSON GROUP OF EARLY PENNSYLVANIA HUNTING EQUIPMENT. 19 EDGED WEAPONS, POLEARMS, CLUBS, ETC. 23 ACCESSORIES, ETC. 31 A PARTIAL CATALOGUE OF THE PIPER COLLECTION. (ALTOONA, PA.) 38 [Illustration] INTRODUCTION For years this writer's aim was to visualize the armed Pennsylvanian of earlier days; how he went forth to fight his Indian foe, to slay the bison, moose, elk and smaller game, and on his expeditions to the fields of love: where his firearms and edged weapons originated. To create the living man his arms must be secured, and gradually the present collection was assembled. And he lived again, dark, grim, bearded, the spirit of lofty pines and hemlocks among which he spent his days, always plotting to kill something. Many of the arms, if they could speak, what tales of war, the chase, and love adventure they could tell! The Pennsylvania woodsman was filled with the romance of slaughter, a heritage of mingled Continental origins, Huguenot, Spanish, Portuguese, Swiss, Waldensian, Levantine, with the strains of Ulster Scot, Alsatian, Palatine, Hollander and Moravian, cooling cross currents in his veins. No wonder that the women of this blended race were the most darkly beautiful in the world, and a group of the curious edged weapons they carried to destroy men who annoyed them might well be the subject of another separate collection. But the arms stacked in silent panoply, or the daggers, dirks and powder flasks, would not suffice to give the collection the answer to the questions it involved. Along with a group of daring Alpinists to "Restless Oaks" came H. Beam Piper, of Altoona, Pa., a modern master-of-arms, who patiently set to work to describe the collection from its oldest to its newest examples. As the results of his intelligent energy and research the following catalogue has been prepared which gives us the