In a message dated 12/31/2003 9:08:19 AM Eastern Standard Time, [log in to unmask] writes:
Would anyone be able to tell me what type of firearm might be typically
found on an upstate NY family farm around 1800 - 1810? I'm assuming most
such farming households would have included some sort of guns.
Thank you for your assistance,
Susan D. Wagenheim, MD
aspiring writer of historical fiction
A more complicated question than you may think.
Certainly it would be a flintlock (or some variant) as the percussion system was still years in the future.
Ethnic, financial and geographic questions could influence choice of arm to a great degree. Are you thinking of a third generation Dutchman who owns and rents land to tenants or one of the tenants themselves?
The land owner may have a family piece, perhaps a Hudson Valley Long Fowler. If a somewhat wealthy fellow with "fashionable" pretensions he may have had a newer arm in the English style made or imported.
A military arm, such as a Brown Bess style Committee of Safety musket or a French arm, may have been given a man in lieu of pay on leaving service after the revolution. Such an arm could still be serviceable and would make sense in the hands of a less wealthy individual.
A newly arrived emigre from Pennsylvania may have a fowler, or perhaps a rifle, in a regional style from there. A New Englander could have a different style arm.
Some references:
Lindsay, Merrill; THE NEW ENGLAND GUN
Moller, George; AMERICAN MILITARY SHOULDER ARMS Volume I
In Moller see the Hudson Valley Long Fowlers and the English style fowler made (after the revolution I would bet) by New York gunsmith Watkeys.
Should get you started.
Kevin Richard-Morrow
Schuyler's Company, New York Provincials, 1759 (recreated)