A Southern Pistol by Kentucky Gunsmith Pleasant Wilson ©
Foreword: Southern pistols are rare, and those from Kentucky even more so. Confiscation of southern firearms during and immediately after the Civil War was a major factor, but the rural nature of much of the south was a second factor. Less populated areas relied more heavily on rifles for hunting and recreation, creating a much stronger demand for rifles than pistols. However, a few pistols were made, probably for self-protection when the need arose. Recently, a fresh southern pistol was found with details that support an attribution to gunsmith Pleasant Wilson of Clay County, Kentucky, deep within Kentucky’s southeastern “hill-country.” Most hill-country guns were plain working rifles, and pistols were almost nonexistent. Pleasant Wilson was one of the region’s best gunmakers. His rifles were stocked in curly maple with small, unique patchboxes and touches of silver. If any of Kentucky’s hill-county gunsmiths could make a good pistol, it was Pleasant Wilson.
Figure No.1: Kentucky gunsmith Pleasant Wilson probably made this small, heavily used pistol with a curly maple stock, gracefully shaped butt/grip, and Wilson’s typical small, oval silver inlays with center pin attachment and trigger with small rectangular tab on its back edge. Barrel: 4.25" in length, 0.81” across flats, .43 caliber bore.
Figure No.2: The Wilson pistol lacks a forestock wedge; the barrel is held in place by a tang screw and the inserted ramrod. A silver nose cap and small, oval grip inlay are present, along with an oval lock bolt washer. Note the curving grain in the grip that prevented the crack from dislodging the lower section of the butt. The diminutive pistol measures 7.75 inches in total length.
Pleasant Wilson: He was born March 29, 1795, in Stokes County, North Carolina, to parents Phillip and Rebecca Connally Wilson. While still a boy, his family moved to Clay County, Kentucky, where he was trained as a gunsmith, became a journeyman in 1816, and married Leah York. While in Clay Couty, Wilson made distinctive rifles that were long and slender with triangular butts with a North Carolina influence. He mounted most of his guns in iron, and his better rifles had small round or octagon patchboxes that hinged on the bottom or side. His best guns had small silver inlays along the forestock, at the wrist, and behind the cheekpiece. Engraving was usually wriggle-style, but effective in highlighting his inlay work. In addition to superb stock architecture and small, unique patchboxes, Wilson’s rifles had two additional “trademark” details: 1) an extended tang that ran down to the comb and terminated in a spade-shaped finial; 2) a guard without a front extension; instead, the tang bolt ran through an extended trigger plate and threaded into the guard’s bow as it curved back around to meet the trigger plate.
Figure No.3: This is Pleasant Wilson’s finest known rifle, mounted in iron with his small side-hinged patchbox and unique guard that stops at the front end of the bow, where the tang bolt screws into it. Note the small, rectangular tab on the front trigger, and how the trigger angles forward below the tab. One of Wilson’s small, oval inlays is also visible.
Figure No.4: The reverse of the fine Pleasant Wilson rifle has his typical small oval inlays and lock bolt washer. Also note the stock’s superior grain pattern that curves downward through the wrist, strengthening that area of the stock that was most prone to breakage. Wilson always used a flattened cheekpiece with two incised lines.
Pleasant Wilson’s work, once seen, is easily recognizable for its superb stock architecture and unique mountings. He worked in Clay County until 1847, then moved to Platte Purchase [Missouri] and from there to Ray County, Missouri. In Missouri, he continued to work as a gunsmith with his son, gunsmith Phillip Wilson. Wilson died on February 28, 1886, and was buried beside his wife in Antioch Cemetery in Ray County.
The Pistol: At first glance, the little curly maple stocked pistol looks a bit rough due to a hard life. But after getting past the oil stains, large crack in the grip and missing wood under the percussion side lug, the gun begins to grow on you. Several unique details are present. The back-action lock has a small cut-out in the tail to better fit the diminutive stock as seen in Figure No.1; the iron guard has a “southern” style front and rear extension with slender points at both ends as seen in Figure No.5; there are three small, oval coin silver inlays, one on either side of the grip and a slightly larger one for a wrist inlay, all mounted with a single center pin. The lock bolt washer is also a small oval, the shape favored by Wilson, and the well-shaped nose cap appears to be cast silver, matching the smaller inlays in Figures Nos.2 & 3. Almost unnoticeable is the absence of a forestock wedge to hold the barrel in place; rather, the tang screw along with the inserted ramrod keep the barrel from shifting… somewhat reminiscent of Wilson’s “very different” method of securing the guard’s front end with the tang bolt on his rifles.
Figure No.5: The Wilson pistol has a southern feel with its iron guard with three-pronged front extension and lozenge rear extension. The original mounting screws have low-domed, rounded heads, different from the often-seen flat headed screws used on many externally fastened guards.
Two of the pistol’s identifying details are its trigger with a small, almost rectangular flange on the back edge, and the graceful stock architecture with an extended, curving grip of slender proportions, both common to Wilson’s work. Front and rear sights are present, with the rear sight set farther out than on many small pistols; it is dovetailed into the barrel rather than being an integral part of the breech or tang as was often the style on smaller pistols. A unique detail is the percussion side lug/drum that supports the nipple. While round in cross-section, its face is also rounded off at an angle that tips back toward the nipple. These “different” details on a southern pistol from southeastern Kentucky and/or northeastern Tennessee all strengthen the attribution to Pleasant Wilson.
Figure No.6: The Wilson pistol’s trigger has a small, almost rectangular tab on its rear edge, and the tip of the trigger bends slightly forward below the tab. Compare this trigger to the front trigger on the Wilson rifle in Figure No.3 for similarities.
Figure No.7: Another non-standard detail on the Wilson pistol is its side lug/drum for the percussion nipple. Note its curved face not seen on most guns with percussion side lugs/drums. The trident finial on the guard’s front extension is also visible in this view.
Attribution: The attribution to Pleasant Wilson is based in part on his use of unique details not found on other southern pistols, his use of bits of silver decoration in a cash-poor region where very few gunsmiths used silver [or any other decoration], and his exceptionally graceful and slender stock architecture, all present on this pistol. However, there are additional details that support the attribution:
1. Pleasant Wilson’s front trigger on his rifles often have a small, rectangular tab on the rear, similar to the trigger on this pistol.
2. His rifle stocks were slim and delicate; the pistol’s extended stock/grip is gracefully curved with a slim, somewhat delicate feel.
3. He used small, oval-shaped silver inlays with center pin attachment, and seldom used the more commonly seen lozenge-shaped inlays.
4. He used unique details not often found on other southern guns: no forestock wedge, an odd-shaped lock plate, southern style finial on the guard, and non-standard side lug/drum for the nipple.
5. He used an oval thumb inlay with center pin attachment on his rifles, similar to the thumb piece on the pistol. He also used center pin attachment on his forestock inlays as opposed to a pin at either end.
Wood Selection: A more subtle detail in the pistol’s attribution is the grain structure in the stock wood. Note how the illustrated Pleasant Wilson rifle in Figure No.3 is stocked with wood cut low on the tree where the grain began to curve outward near the roots. That curved grain runs through the rifle’s wrist area, strengthening it to reduce the risk of breakage at the stock’s weakest point. The pistol’s gracefully curved grip has a similar grain structure, with the grain curling down through the grip area. A normal curly maple stocked pistol would have suffered a clean break [into two pieces] at the point where this pistol’s stock is only cracked. The stock stayed together due to its stronger, curving grain pattern. Attention to grain flow in stock wood was used by Pleasant Wilson to elevate his work above that of his hill-country peers. Most hill-country gunsmiths seldom concerned themselves with such a “minor” detail.
Stocking: A related consideration is the pistol’s stock architecture. Most muzzle loading pistols of the flint and percussion eras had shorter butts/grips than the study pistol. It is the author’s opinion that the longer, more curved grip style was considered a higher quality detail in stocking a pistol. It required a taller stock blank, more care in wood selection due to greater risk of stock breakage with a longer grip, and more labor in stocking. While this opinion is unproven, a good example of extended butt stocks on superior pistols can be found in the work of Phillip Creamer, an early gunsmith of Maryland and Illinois. He was a master gunsmith who made high-quality rifles and pistols with surviving examples of both. His pistols had the longer, more curved butts similar to Pleasant Wilson’s pistol. If such pistol butts took more care to make and were primarily used on higher quality pistols, then our southern pistol was probably considered a higher quality pistol when made [for its area of manufacture], but very few hill-county gunsmiths were aware of such stocking… which suggests only one of the hill-country’s best gunmakers would have made it, pointing again toward Pleasant Wilson.
Conclusion: Despite no single defining detail, many small details combine to point toward Pleasant Wilson of Clay County, Kentucky, as the pistol’s maker. In contrast, no other hill-country gunsmith working in southeastern Kentucky or northeastern Tennessee [where this pistol was undoubtedly made] used the same range of details found in Pleasant Wilson’s work or matched the delicateness of his stocking. He was an exceptional gunsmith making superior guns in a backwoods region where plain, undecorated working rifles and very few pistols were the norm. Both by comparison to his known work, and by the lack of other area gunsmiths capable of similar work, this pistol can be reasonably attributed to Pleasant Wilson.