A “Slightly Different” Bardstown Rifle by Benjamin Davenport ©
Overview: Bardstown School rifles are Kentucky’s most highly decorated guns with large, pierced patchboxes, silver inlays, touches of carving, and well engraved metal surfaces. The best-known guns were made during the Rizer & Weller partnership days between 1815 and 1826 when gunsmiths Jacob Rizer and David Weller worked together in Bardstown. Both men continued to make fine rifles after 1825, including those marked “J & M Rizer” when Jacob’s younger brother, Matthias Rizer, worked with him from about 1835 to 1838. Other decorated Bardstown guns by William Lutes, Henry Killen, Evan Brown, and Samuel Matthis are known, but the list of accomplished makers is short. In June of 2022 a previously unknown Bardstown rifle sold at auction signed “B. A. Davenport.” The gun had a different style patchbox but typical Bardstown engraving, molding lines, chip carving on the back of the butt, and Bardstown side-plate. It was an important discovery. Benjamin A. Davenport was a documented gunsmith in Marion County just east of Nelson County, Kentucky, who trained under David Weller at Bardstown, but no fully decorated Bardstown rifle by him was previously known. The rifle proved Davenport was a significant Bardstown gunsmith and verified the presence of the Bardstown School in Marion County.
Figure No.1: The Davenport rifle carries a clear barrel signature, “B. A. Davenport,” verifying the rifle as his work and proving that fully developed Bardstown guns were made in Marion County, Kentucky.
Benjamin A. Davenport: He was born in 1811 in Virginia. His father died while Benjamin was a boy, and his mother joined other relatives moving to Hardin County, Kentucky, in 1823 to start a new life. Benjamin was apprenticed at age 15 in 1826 to gunsmith David Weller of Elizabethtown in Hardin County, soon after Weller’s arrival from Bardstown. When his apprenticeship ended in 1832, Benjamin moved to Lebanon in nearby Marion County, where he married Nancy Blain, raised a family, and worked as a gunsmith for many years.
The Davenport Rifle: Davenport’s rifle was made as a late single bolt flintlock about 1832-1834, as verified by a vent pick hole in the butt’s toe and a loosely fitting replacement percussion lock. The attractive patchbox has seven piercings with engraved patterns showing the influence of mentor David Weller. However, its shape strays from the typical Bardstown style. The side-leaves resemble those on late Rizer & Weller partnership rifles, but the finial’s tip has a small, four-petal flower with lobed tips similar to finials on earlier Maryland and Virginia rifles. When comparisons are made, the patchbox resembles several patchboxes on rifles by Simon Lauck of Virginia. The Virginia-influenced patchbox is unexpected on a Bardstown rifle, but Benjamin was originally from Virginia, grew up with Virginia rifles, and his family probably carried Virginia rifles to Kentucky when they migrated in 1826. His early exposure to Virginia rifles undoubtedly gave his Bardstown patchbox its Virginia flavor.
Many Bardstown details are present on the Davenport rifle. Patchbox engraving has the Bardstown “scrolled vine” on the lid with typical serpentine borders and simple heads on the engraved scroll endings. Bardstown ridges are present on either side of the 5-segment hinge and a single molding line runs across the lower butt and forestock. The cheekpiece is moved forward with a single incised line at its base in David Weller’s [Davenport’s mentor] later style. The late single-bolt side plate mimics Bardstown guns from the same late flintlock era in its shape and engraved patterns. Another important detail, found only on Kentucky’s guns from the Bardstown School, is the “swag & tassel” incised border along the butt plate’s vertical edge on the back side. That detail helps mark the rifle as a Bardstown gun.
Figure No.2: The Davenport rifle’s patchbox has side-leaves related to circa 1825 Bardstown side-leaves, but the finial differs with its small, four-petal flower with lobed tips. The pattern was taken from earlier patchboxes on Simon Lauck rifles from Virginia, where Davenport’s family was from. The family probably carried Virginia rifles out to Kentucky in their 1826 migration.
Figure No.3: The reverse of the Davenport rifle shows its Bardstown style side plate, a [very] small step-down in the butt plate return, single line lower butt and cheekpiece moldings. and more importantly, the “trademark” Bardstown “swag & Tassel” incised border along the butt plate’s vertical edge. The long, wavy line emerging from the border is an added detail that matches Davenport’s forestock molding termination at the rear ramrod pipe.
Figure No.4: The Davenport rifle’s side plate is strongly Bardstown in style. This form was used on late flint, single bolt rifles with its “Kentucky horns” on either side of the lock bolt and wavy borders with another wavy line running through the middle of the plate.
The Davenport rifle has a typical Bardstown barrel 43-13/16” long, lightly swamped, with a .36 caliber bore. However, it has the more universal 7-groove rifling instead of the 6-groove rifling used in the Rizer & Weller shop. The forestock molding line is terminated at the rear ramrod pipe by a large, wavy line instead of the normal Bardstown opposed volutes with a small “emerging leaf” in-between. However, wavy line terminations were used by several other gunmakers in central Kentucky, so the style was not foreign to the area. A final important detail is the signature on the barrel, “B. A. Davenport.” It documents the gun as the work of Benjamin A. Davenport of Marion County, Kentucky.
Figure No.5: Termination of the forestock molding differs from the “standard” Bardstown termination, but it mimics Davenport’s added wavy line emerging from the “swag & tassel” border along the rear butt plate edge. Like his variant patchbox, Davenport incorporated his own ideas into the Bardstown style in his area outside of Nelson County.
Post Script: In late 2022 a second Davenport rifle sold at auction. It was a circa 1840-1845 percussion rifle without patchbox or inlay work and stocked in faded curly maple. The straight, uncut barrel was 46” long with a .32 caliber bore and 7-groove rifling. The gun was a Kentucky “working rifle” with one important detail, a barrel signature that read “B. & W. Davenport.” William Davenport was born in Kentucky in 1821, well before Benjamin and his mother arrived in 1826. William was probably a cousin whose family moved to Kentucky at an earlier date and perhaps encouraged later Davenports to make the trip from Virginia. The barrel signature suggests the younger William [a documented Kentucky gunsmith in nearby Green County, Kentucky] was a relative of, and trained by, Benjamin Davenport in Marion County, and worked with him as a partner for a few years before moving on to Green County by/before 1850.
Figure No.6: The “B. & W. Davenport” rifle is a Kentucky “working rifle,” functional but plain. The later style double-spur guard suggests a date of 1840-1845. The gun has slim, clean lines with the triangular butt typical of Kentucky guns of that era. The joint signature shows that Benjamin and William were related and worked together in the early-to-mid 1840s.
Figure No.7: The script signature on the “B. & W. Davenport” rifle compares favorably with the signature on the earlier “B. Davenport” rifle, indicating Benjamin Davenport was one of the makers of this later Kentucky “working rifle.”