A Southern Rifle by Cherokee Gunsmith James Vann ©

Discovery: A southern-style longrifle was recently offered for sale by a Missouri dealer in antique firearms. The gun was full-stocked in faded curly maple with iron mountings but lacked any inlay work or decoration. Stock architecture was good despite the rifle’s large size with a 48-1/8” long swamped barrel of .50 caliber bore and weight of about 10-1/2 pounds. The gun resembled a typical southern mountain rifle, perhaps from Tennessee, but with several subtle differences in its iron mountings and stocking. Its most important detail was a silver barrel plate with several hard-to-read letters engraved on it. When an image of the letters was enlarged and the heavy tarnish partially wiped off the silver plate, the letters became readable; the name on the barrel plate was "J VANN," an unknown name to the author… but not for long.

Figure No.1: A silver barrel plate on the top of the barrel near the breech has the heavily worn name “J VANN” engraved in block letters. The only listed American gunmaker with the last name of Vann was James Vann [1766-1809], a famous late 1700s/early 1800s chief in the Cherokee Nation of northern Georgia, and the style of the rifle was correct for a gun from that area.

James Vann: The most comprehensive reference on southern guns is the four-volume set of books, “Notes on Southern Long Rifles,” by Jerry Noble, but there is no “Vann” listing. Additional research found the “J VANN” name in Jim Whisker’s more recent book, “Gunsmiths and Allied Tradesmen of Tennessee,” but no source was provided. The man was James Vann, an early gunsmith [ca.1780] in Sullivan County, Tennessee, and later in Georgia. Vann’s mother was a Cherokee woman named Wah-Li and his father a Scot named either James or Clement Vann. The father and several Vann brothers were fur traders who left South Carolina to live among the “Upper Towns” Cherokee of eastern Tennessee. James apparently learned the trade of gunsmith, married, and moved to northern Georgia by/before 1790 where he was still among the Upper Town Cherokee. The Cherokee were a matrilineal society and James was raised primarily by his mother and therefore accepted as a Cherokee. He was an intelligent man who learned skills quickly, including reading and writing. Those skills later helped him to become a powerful chief in the Cherokee Nation due to his ability to read documents and work with local and national government officials. He parlayed his abilities into great wealth while also working to help assimilate the Cherokee into white culture. At the peak of his career, he built [in 1804] one of the grandest plantation houses in Georgia named Diamond Hill, where he owned over 400 acres of land and 100 slaves. He had a blacksmith shop on his plantation where he or his slaves could do gunsmithing work when the need arose. Unfortunately, as James accumulated wealth and power among the Cherokee, he also made enemies and began drinking heavily. In 1808, probably due to drinking, he got involved in a duel with his brother-in-law, whom he killed. A year later in 1809 he was killed by an unknown assailant, thought to be a relative avenging the death of the brother-in-law.

Figure No.2: The James Vann plantation house, Diamond Hill, as it appeared in the late 1800s. The house and several smaller planation structures were restored and today are part of the Chief Vann House State Historic Site at Chatsworth in Murray County, located in northern Georgia. The site recalls the early efforts by Chief James Vann to help the Cherokee Nation assimilate into the white culture. Son Joseph continued James’ work, but the effort proved futile when government policy forced relocation of the Cherokee to Oklahoma in the 1830s in what became known as the “Trail of Tears” for the Cherokee due to the many hardships and deaths suffered along the way.

Figure No.3: The “J VANN” rifle is a large gun with a 48-1/8 inches long barrel, .50 caliber bore, and weight of about 10-1/2 pounds. It has iron furniture in southern fashion and resembles a Tennessee rifle, but the side facings around the lock are narrower, the guard has a longer rear extension, and the butt has a less severe angle or pointed “toe” at the base of the butt plate. The rear spur on the guard also differs from the normal Tennesse style spur, as shown in Figure No.5.

Figure No.4: The reverse of the James Vann rifle shows its faded curly maple stock with clean, triangular butt lines. The gun was made as a single bolt late flintlock in the 1830s as verified by a vent pick hole in the butt’s toe. The brass piece above the trigger guard is a modern repair.

Figure No.5: The Vann rifle’s iron guard has a longer than normal rear extension [with its attachment screw missing at the end], and just behind the extension is a vent pick hole indicating the rifle was originally a flintlock. Note the guard’s rear spur that is highly flattened and widened into a thin, almost “spoon bowl” shaped spur. The later style, mid-1830s oval-shaped cheekpiece can also be seen in this view.

James had several wives in Cherokee fashion, and his favorite son was Joseph Vann by his third wife, Peggy Scott Vann. Joseph inherited James’ planation and most of his wealth and also became a major chief in the Cherokee nation and very wealthy man. The financial success of the father and son was due to their literacy, i.e., ability to read and write in English, rare among the Cherokee, that allowed them to work with the Georgia and U.S. Governments on Native American issues and subsidies… and to take advantage of potentially lucrative situations such as the building of the first federal highway through their area. Son Joseph was a good businessman and became one of the richest men in America in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. But even his great wealth and influence couldn’t prevent the eventual loss of his plantation by land-hungry speculators who used a loophole in Georgia law to confiscate the property. He was forced to move his family, belongings, livestock and slaves to Oklahoma in the 1830s as the U.S. Government implemented its Indian removal policy, forcing the Cherokee [and other tribes] to move to reservations in Oklahoma in the infamous “Trail of Tears” where many lost their lives during the arduous forced migration.  

The “J VANN” Rifle: The large, well-stocked gun is an attractive southern-style rifle. The stock’s only decoration is a single lower butt and forestock molding line. Despite its percussion lock, a deep vent pick hole in the butt's bottom edge indicates it was an early 1830s single bolt flintlock that was later converted to percussion ignition. The use of barrel pins rather than flat wedges to attach the barrel to the stock supports an 1830s dating, and a small silver barrel inlay about mid-way between the front and rear sights indicates a Cherokee influence in the gun. The engraving on the inlay, perhaps unique to American longrifles, has been identified as a Cherokee "tree of life" symbol by several American firearms historians. The Cherokee were known to work with silver, and the small “Tree of Life” image on the inlay strongly suggests a Cherokee presence in the rifle’s creation.

Figure No.6: This small silver barrel inlay is located forward on the barrel, about halfway between the rear sight and the muzzle. It is a rare inlay with its intriguing engraved pattern in the shape of the Cherokee’s “Tree of Life” symbol.

Figure No.7: The Vann rifle’s Cherokee “Tree of Life” symbol is more easily seen when enlarged and rotated with the barrel pointing upward. The symbol is a tree with a trunk and many branches, and two wavy lines running downward that represent water or a stream.

Conflicting Dates: The “J VANN” rifle was stocked at about the time of the removal of the Cherokee from Georgia in the 1830s. But that date conflicts with the possible working dates of James Vann, who died in 1809. An examination of the rifle helps explain the dating discrepancy and offers two plausible explanations:

1.      The rifle may have been made as a flintlock by James Vann on his plantation sometime before his death in 1809. The barrel’s large size and caliber suggest it may have been an early barrel made around 1800. It could have been his personal rifle, or perhaps it was made for a local Cherokee tribal member based on the “Tree of Life” symbol on the barrel. If the rifle was made around 1800, then just prior to the removal of the Cherokee to Oklahoma, the gun was restocked with the later style thinner butt and used barrel pins instead of the earlier flat wedges to attach the stock to the barrel. Such an alteration makes sense since the old, large bore rifle may have not been needed in northern Georgia by the 1830s when most of the large game had been killed off, but a large bore gun would be needed in the new, unsettled Oklahoma reservation area where larger and more dangerous animals would again be encountered.

 2.      The rifle may have been made in the mid-1830s by a local gunsmith, or perhaps on the Joseph Vann plantation where James Vann’s old blacksmith/gunsmith shop was still in use by trained slaves to meet plantation needs for firearms and firearm repairs. If the gun was made in the 1830s, it must have been about the time Joseph Vann realized he may be forced to move west with the rest of the Cherokee Nation and would need a large bore gun for the new, untamed wilderness in Oklahoma. It was common practice in the south for rifles to be marked on the barrel with either the maker’s name, or at times with the maker’s and owner’s names, and sometimes with just the owner’s name. If the gun was made in the 1830s as a late flintlock for the upcoming move to Oklahoma, then the name “J VANN” on the barrel would refer to the first owner of the rifle, Joseph Vann, and its details would better fit the timeframe.

Ongoing research suggests the second explanation is more plausible. During James Vann’s early years round 1800, he was still living with the Cherokee Nation and active in raids against white encroachment. His early lifestyle would seem to prohibit him from doing laborious work such as gunsmithing. However, the intriguing “Tree of Life” symbol on the barrel strongly suggests a Cherokee presence in the rifle’s manufacture. It may have been made with Cherokee labor in the old blacksmith shop on the Vann plantation in the early 1830a. We do know the owner was most likely Joseph Vann due to the stocking of the gun and [apparently] his name on the barrel. Perhaps future research will shed more light on the significance of this fascinating old rifle with Cherokee symbolism on its barrel… and more securely place it in the historic life of Joseph Vann.

Figure No.8: This image is reportedly that of Cherokee Chief James Vann, born in 1766 and died in 1809. His Cherokee name was Ti-Ka-Lo-Hi, but he was often referred to as “Crazy Chief Vann,” perhaps due to his later instability due to alcohol abuse.