Tansel Powder Horns’ “Missing Link” ©
Overview: Powder horn collectors have assumed for years that the Tansel family of Scott County, Kentucky, and Marion and Hendricks Counties, Indiana, carved the beautiful, fish-mouthed powder horns with large federal eagles, dogs chasing deer, and large scalloped borders known as Tansel horns. Many horns are signed, initialed and/or dated, and the names and dates fit the known Tansel family history well. But there is a “missing link” in the Tansel story. Where is the proof that the Tansels really carved all those decorated horns? Is there any historic record that documents a Tansel family member carving a “Tansel style” powder horn? The answer is finally “yes,” such a record exists… along with a horn that closely matches the described “missing link” horn.
Background: The Tansel family including Francis Tansel, his wife Caty, and their children all moved from Kentucky to Indiana in 1829 when Francis’ son Timothy was 19 years old. The senior Tansels with oldest son John and the youngest children settled in western Marion County near the Hendricks County line, while sons Timothy and Stark, both of age, settled near-by in Hendricks County. Timothy purchased a small farm, married Martha Campbell, and raised a family; his first child was a son Alvarado born April 26, 1846. Timothy died in 1852, his wife remarried, and the new family moved west in 1858 to a farm near Rockport in Atchison County, Missouri. Alvarado farmed, served in the Civil War in the 1st Nebraska Calvary between 1864 and 1866, then returned home briefly before moving to Haddam in Washington County, Kansas. There he made a name for himself as the editor of the local Republican newspaper, real estate broker, and postmaster at Haddam for many years. He later moved to Oklahoma in 1902, where he was appointed postmaster at Sparks, Oklahoma, and died in 1917.
Like many other counties in the late 19th century, Washington County, Kansas, had its early pioneer history preserved in a county history book published in 1890. Many of the county’s prominent citizens were interviewed for their family histories and recollections of early days in the county; one of those citizens was Alvarado Tansel. He provided a brief record of his life, from his first days in Indiana to the 1880s. Buried within his story was a reference to his father, Timothy Tansel, making a decorated powder horn in 1845. Today that recollection published back in 1890 remains the only known reference to a Tansel family member carving a powder horn.
Figure No.1: The “James K. Polk” horn by Timothy Tansel looks like a “standard” Tansel horn of the mid-1840s… until the image of Polk is seen along with the lengthy inscription on the back of the horn gifting it to a man in Bedford County, Pennsylvania. Then, when the Alvarado Tansel reference to his father carving a similar horn is recalled, the horn quickly becomes more interesting.
Figure No.2: The reverse of the James K. Polk horn has an image of James K. Polk on a horse, part of an Indian (?) shooting a deer with bow & arrow, and the top edge of a lengthy “presentation” inscription. The scalloped border at the butt is missing the narrow border band that normally separates the scallops from the end, usually a sign the butt has been shortened. But… that same border band is also missing on the spout end, suggesting the original plug was a chimed horn plate with center staple, similar to the thinner replacement horn plug in the horn today.
Reference: The reference to Timothy Tansel carving a decorated horn is found in: Portrait and Biographical Album of Washington, Clay and Riley Counties, Kansas, Chapman Brothers Publishers, Chicago, 1890, p.177, “Alvarado Tansel.” The “horn-carving” section states:
The father of our subject [Alvarado Tansel], was Timothy Tansel, who was born in Scott County, Ky., in 1810. Tansel chose farming for his vocation, and cleared a tract of land in Hendricks, where he spent his last years, dying in 1852. He was a Whig, politically, and an active member of the Christian Church. In early manhood he designed and carved a powder horn, in 1845, with the name and picture of James K. Polk.
It cannot be overstated how important the above reference is to the study of Tansel powder horns. It is the only known reference to a Tansel family member carving a decorated powder horn. Collectors readily assume, with all the known horns with names, initials, and dates, that Tansel family members made them. But this is the only known reference that documents them as horn-carvers, taking it out of the realm of assumption and into the realm of fact.
Figure No.3: The name “James K. Polk” and date “1845” are found near the powder horn’s butt end. Also present is the top half of the James K. Polk figure with whip in hand riding a horse. These are the same figures and date described years later by Alvarado Tansel when he recalled his father, Timothy Tansel, carving a decorated powder horn.
The “James K. Polk” Powder Horn: Years ago at the Baltimore Antique Gun Show, Connecticut antique dealer Bill Guthman pulled the author aside and said he had a Tansel horn to show him. The horn was an Indiana era horn of average size and artwork, decorated with the standard Tansel eagle, deer and dogs, and scalloped border. But it also had the name “James K. Polk” with an image of Polk riding a horse. Above Polk was the date “1845.” At the time, the imagery did not seem special, but the back side of the horn had an inscription that quickly made it a unique item. The inscription had numerous misspellings, typical of Timothy Tansel’s work, but in corrected form it read:
“A Present From John Pendergast of Indiana to Huah Maines of Bedford County, Pennsylvania.”
Figure No.4: The inscription on the back of the “James K. Polk” horn uses rather imaginative spelling. Tim Tansel was listed as “illiterate” in the census, and he obviously struggled in copying a requested inscription. However, to his credit, he was able to communicate the sentiment reasonably well. The inscription is noteworthy because it shows the value placed on a Tansel horn in 1845, sufficient for someone to gift such a horn to a friend hundreds of miles away in Pennsylvania. The flat, chimed-in horn butt plug is visible in this view.
Mr. Guthman was not known to offer bargains, and the Polk horn was no exception. But a deal was made, and the horn changed hands. Years later, when the reference to Timothy Tansel carving a “James K. Polk” powder horn in 1845 was found, the horn became more meaningful. It may have been the horn described by Alvarado Tansel that his father carved back in 1845. The lengthy inscription, while not mentioned in the county history reference, may have been the reason the horn was remembered. It was a special horn, ordered by a local man as a gift for another man in distant Pennsylvania, creating a special and more difficult-to-carve horn that Timothy Tansel might have mentioned at the dinner table.
The “James K. Polk” Powder Horn: The horn measures 14-1/8” on the outside curve and 10-7/8” on the inside curve, about average in size, with mostly standard Tansel features. However, it has the James K. Polk connection and 1845 date, a lengthy inscription of gifting the horn to a man in Pennsylvania, and a variant “dog and deer” scene with the dog gripping the deer’s throat while a hunter shoots an arrow into the deer’s hindquarters. The butt plug is a flattened horn disc chimed into the horn’s base and having a small staple for strap attachment. Upon examination, the horn was probably originally plugged in that manner, but the first horn plug eventually warped and fell out. It was replaced by a thinner, later plug. The border scallops near the spout lack the normal small border between the scallops and outer edge, and the plug end lacks the same small border, suggesting the butt wasn’t shortened [despite its appearance] and originally had a chimed horn plug.
Figure No.5: The James K. Polk horn used a variation of the usual “dogs chasing deer” image. Here the dog has the deer in its jaws while the hunter shoots an arrow into the deer’s hindquarters. Action scenes enhance the interest in a Tansel horn, and this scene accomplishes that objective.
Summary: Timothy Tansel may have made other “James K. Polk” horns, but the study horn has a unique “gifting” inscription, making it an unusual horn that Timothy may have spent more time on, remembered better, and mentioned to other family members. Whether it is the horn in the reference is not the issue here. Rather, that issue is the fact that, in 1890, Alvarado Tansel, son of Timothy Tansel, recalled his father carving a decorated powder horn in 1845 and left a written record of it, which today remains the only documentation of a Tansel family member carving a decorated powder horn.