Michael Sells of Augusta in Bracken County, Kentucky, is one of the state’s best known Ohio River gunsmiths due to the significant number of his rifles that have survived along with historical documentation of his life and work.

A distinctive group of plain, low-cost rifles are known as secondary Lexington rifles. They are strongly related to the Lexington School in stock architecture but very plain and never signed. Many of these rifles are iron mounted and some made as “poor boy” rifles without a nose cap, rear ramrod pipe, or butt plate, yet all resemble Lexington rifles. Ongoing research into these rifles has helped identify who made them.

Balthasar Auer was Louisville’s premier maker of fine target rifles in the mid-1800s. He was trained in Switzerland and by 1859 was working in Louisville, Kentucky, His first guns were fine Schuetzen target rifles, but he learned to adapt to American preferences. In 1869 Auer moved down river to Owensboro in Daviess County, where his guns eventually lost their last Schuetzen details and became small caliber squirrel rifles.

Sketching original Tansel horns to document their artwork has been a passion of the author’s for over thirty years, with about 115 completed ink sketches. For horn collectors interested in the Tansel powder horn sketches, a recent horn’s sketching process was documented, and its steps toward completion are shown as the drawing slowly emerges.

The lives of a few noteworthy Kentucky gunsmiths are well documented, but no examples of their work exist to excite and educate collectors. John Maggard of Letcher County was one of those gunsmiths. Years of searching for a rifle by Maggard found only recollections about his work. Then in 2019 the needle in a haystack was finally found when an “unidentified” rifle sold in a small Colorado auction.

Hawken rifles of St. Louis were the preferred rifles of the western fur trade in the mid-1800s. Kentucky also contributed significantly to arming the western trade, despite its efforts being unrecognized by many historians. Louisville gunsmith Joseph Griffith made fine rifles, some of which looked and performed like the more famous Hawken rifles.

Three generations of the Asbill/Asbell family of Kentucky made rifles from 1806 until after 1900. Their work was well-made with good stock architecture but seldom decorated. Stock shape remained consistent across three generations of Asbill gunmakers, with later rifles appearing rather similar to earlier rifles and raising the question, can their guns be dated based on appearance?

The Barrens School covers about a dozen counties in south-central Kentucky along the Tennessee border. Recently a rifle by William Stephens of Butler County, Kentucky, bordering the Barrens School’s northern edge, sold at auction. The new rifle follows the pattern of Barrens School guns with its good quality but lack of decoration, thereby associating Butler County with the Barrens School of gunmaking.

Several of Kentucky better gunmakers were known well beyond Kentucky. Benjamin Mills of Harrodsburg was known for his target rifles, Jacob Rizer and David Weller of Bardstown for their decorated rifles, and the Settles of Barren and Green Counties for their hunting rifles. But Kentucky’s most widely known gunmaker was none of those. Instead, he was John Shell of Leslie County, a parttime gunsmith who late in life claimed to be the oldest living man in the world.

Under-hammer rifles from Kentucky were nonexistent… until a signed example recently sold at public auction. The gun was stamped on the barrel “G. A. Mayer” for gunsmith George A. Mayer of Henderson in Henderson County, Kentucky. No one had ever seen a Kentucky-made under-hammer rifle before, so the discovery was a major event for those who study and collect early Kentucky’ firearms.

William Kelsay worked as a gunsmith in Wayne County, Kentucky, from about 1816 until 1851. No William Kelsay rifle was known to collectors until 2019 when a signed rifle finally appeared at auction. The rifle was much finer than most southern Kentucky “hill county” guns that were utilitarian pieces, and it raised an intriguing question… was it too early to be the work of Kentucky’s William Kelsay? 

Moses Dickson was Louisville's best-known gunsmith from 1822 until his death in 1863. He was business-minded and over time expanded his gun shop into one of Louisville’s largest sporting goods stores. As sales increased, he began to import English firearms and related items to expand his product lines, in addition to his own guns which remained his premium products. A small box-lock pistol marked “M. Dickson” on one side and “Louisville” on the other provides an interesting example of an English import pistol sold by Moses Dickson in about 1830.  

Kentucky’s iconic, cast brass Lexington style patchbox was used on fine rifles from in/near Lexington. Its evolution is unclear, but evidence suggests the design was heavily the work of Bryan family gunsmiths from North Carolina who settled Bryan’s Station northeast of Lexington in 1779. Daniel Brian became Lexington’s most important early gunsmith and is thought to be the first gunsmith to use the Lexington style patchbox... which was rapidly copied by other local gunsmiths.

Tansel powder horn collectors prefer horns that are signed and dated with the original owner’s names, giving the horns an historical context. But at times unmarked Tansel horns can provide clues that allow much of its missing background to be reassembled. An exceptional Kentucky era Tansel horn from an old Iowa collection lacked a date, signature, and owner’s name… but it’s artwork offered clues about its history in Kentucky.

Old powder horns at times have odd features that do not fit the pattern of other local horns, raising the question, “Where did it really come from?” Answering that question offers educational opportunities for collectors. A different style horn showed up in central Kentucky recently with a well-turned, chip-carved butt plug that resembled plugs on fine York County, Pennsylvania, screw-tip horns. But it also had details that varied significantly from York County horns. Its provenance stated the horn was originally from Franklin County, Kentucky.

Kentucky’s Bardstown School of gunmaking in/around Nelson County was known for its highly decorated rifles. Gunsmith Jacob Rizer played a major role in the development of the Bardstown rifle, but his partner, David Weller, was working with Rizer when the Bardstown rifle’s distinctive patchbox appeared after 1815. Rizer was the master, but Weller was a close second in the quality of his work.

Bardstown rifles made in or near Nelson County were Kentucky’s most artistically decorated rifles. Pierced and engraved patchboxes, attractive inlay work, classic molding lines, and touches of carving elevated Bardstown guns above those from Kentucky’s other major gunmaking schools. At the heart of the Bardstown School was Jacob Rizer, the gunsmith most responsible for the Bardstown style.     

Most Tansel powder horns were carved by a single carver who made the plug, horn body, and decorative carving. But some collectors have wondered if more than one Tansel carver ever worked on the same horn. A recently discovered Tansel horn made in Indiana in the late 1830s had details that appear to be by two different carvers, brothers Stark and Timothy Tansel. The new horn is the first Tansel horn known to exhibit carving by two different Tansels.

There are less than a dozen Tansel cups known. Unlike the sturdier powder horns, a cup was fragile and prone to damage, causing a much higher attrition rate. A possible cup by Francis Tansel is described, and two later cups, one by Timothy Tansel dated “1841” and the other by Stark Tansel circa 1847, serve as good study pieces. The two cups have fascinating provenances that add to their historic relevance.

For years only one signed rifle by Kentucky gunsmith Henry Killen was known. He apprenticed under Jacob Rizer in Bardstown, Kentucky, from 1818 to 1825, then worked in Kentucky for two years before moving to Tennessee. His guns were “ghosts,” almost non-existent, with no Kentucky gun known. In 2019 a Killen “ghost” rifle finally appeared from his early years in Kentucky.