The Gilston Dueling Pistols’ Tragic History ©

Overview: The finest known set of Kentucky pistols is the Gilston duelers, made in 1821 near Lexington, Kentucky, by gunsmiths James and Samuel Gilston. The pistols’ original owner was prominent Kentucky attorney John U. Waring, one of the most feared and hated men in Kentucky in the early 1800s. Waring made his fortune by finding and exploiting loopholes and errors in early land entries, often in bounty land warrants filed by veterans of the War of 1812. He was ruthless in his pursuit of land, both for himself and his clients, and was just as ruthless in his political views and animosity toward those who opposed him. Between 1821 when the Gilston duelers were acquired and his untimely death in 1845, Waring fought numerous duels with pistols or Bowie knives [at which he was also proficient] and boasted of killing eight men and wounding others… although he was also wounded. The Gilston duelers played a role in several of Waring’s deadly affairs, but it was the killing of rival attorney Samuel Q. Richardson in Kentucky’s state capitol on Sunday afternoon, February 8, 1835, that brought him the most notoriety and harkened his eventual downfall.   

Pistols’ History: A letter of provenance written in 1955 by the last Waring relative to own the pistols provided the date and location of their manufacture along with the line of ownership. John Upshaw Waring gave or bequeathed the pistols to Judge Patrick Upshaw Major of Frankfort, Kentucky, a nephew, who passed them to Lieutenant Commander S. I. M. Major. Commander Major’s widow, Agnes Major, sold them out of the family in 1955 to antique arms dealer “Red” Jackson of Dallas, Texas; they have since passed through several advanced collectors and currently reside in the author’s collection of early Kentucky firearms. The nearly identical pistols are stocked in curly maple with finely checkered grips, hooked breeches, and lightly swamped barrels with .52 caliber bores. Mountings are darkened iron [as expected on a dueler] with attractively engraved surfaces. The nose-caps and ramrod tips are dark horn, an up-scale detail borrowed from fine English guns. Locks were originally flint but later converted to percussion. An important detail on each pistol is the silver inlay on the barrel’s rear oblique flat near the breech, engraved in fine script “J & S Gilston” to identify its makers.

Figure No.1: Both Gilston pistols are signed “J & S Gilston” on a silver plate on the barrel’s rear oblique flat. Moving the signature plate off the top barrel flat reduced the risk of glare on the sighting plane along the top of the barrel.

Figure No.2: The Gilston dueling pistols are well-made with finely checkered grips, curly maple half-stocks, and darkened iron furniture that was appropriate for a dueler to reduce glint and glare from metal surfaces. The locks appear hand-made with thicker than normal plates and have been converted from flintlock to percussion ignition, probably in the mid-1830s.

Figure No.3: The reverse of the Gilston pistols shows their quality and simplicity, both required for successful dueling. The dark horn nose cap and ramrod tip, along with a well-engraved guard, indicate a good quality pistol, while the restricted use of silver [small wedge inlay, lock bolt washer and thumb piece] was essential to minimize possible glare from the pistol’s surfaces that could hindered sighting.

The Samuel Q. Richardson Shooting: Attorney Samuel Q. Richardson often opposed Waring in his land-related lawsuits, and an animosity slowly developed between the two men. Waring had married one of Richardson’s nieces, but the marriage eventually failed and Waring partially blamed Richardson for meddling. Perhaps the last straw was a severe beating Waring suffered at the hands of thugs after a heated trial where Richardson was the opposing counsel; Waring thought Richardson had a hand in arranging the beating. Waring challenged Richardson to duels on several occasions, but Richardson always denied him, saying Waring was not a gentleman and therefore unworthy of dueling. Waring’s hatred for Richardson grew until it finally boiled over. On Sunday afternoon, February 8th, 1835, while both men were in Frankfort, the state capitol, Waring confronted Richardson on the steps of the Mansion House Hotel and drew a small pistol. Nearby spectators immediately separated the two men before the situation escalated, and both men then went inside to their hotel rooms. Waring was seething. After entering his room, he retrieved one of his large bore Gilston pistols, loaded it with a lethal double-ball charge, then waited for Richardson to leave the hotel. When Richardson emerged, Waring again confronted him on the steps of the Mansion House, heated words were exchanged, and Waring shot Richardson at point-blank range in the rib cage. Richardson was unarmed when shot and died the following day. Waring was arrested and charged with murder. He was incarcerated for over two years and endured three trials in which juries failed to reach a verdict. At his fourth trial, Waring was finally acquitted after convincing the jury that Richardson, despite being unarmed, had posed a grave threat to him. The indictment against Waring described both the actual killing and the murder weapon in great detail. The pistol Waring used had “the value of $20.00” and was “loaded and charged with gun powder and with two leaden bullets weighing half an ounce each.” Those descriptions are significant; the $20 value established the murder weapon as an expensive pistol such as a dueler, and the “half an ounce” lead balls when converted to their corresponding caliber were .52 caliber, the same caliber as the Gilston duelers.

Waring had been able to talk his way out of a murder charge, but he couldn’t talk his way out of the animosity and hatred many people felt toward him from his years of aggressive and mean-spirited legal actions and the trail of dead bodies he left behind. In the summer of 1845 while at Versailles in Woodford County, Kentucky, an unknown assailant shot Waring in the head from a second-floor window as he crossed the street below, killing him almost instantly and much to the relief of those who knew him or had dealing with him in the past. The shooter was never apprehended [or even looked for] despite local suspicions that it was a young man who recently lost a close relative to Waring’s wrath and disappeared after the shooting.

Rifled vs. Smooth Bore Duelers: The bores of the Gilston pistols pose a question: why were they rifled when most [but not all] duelers had smooth bores? The probable reason is self-evident. The owner, John U. Waring, was by nature aggressive, confrontational, and quick to challenge anyone who opposed him. He lacked many of the qualities of a gentleman, relished the dueling fields, and had a harsher personality than most of his peers. He did not duel to settle differences honorably; rather, he dueled to destroy or eliminate his adversaries… and was known to boast about it. His pistols were made to kill men, not wound them. In the end, the old adage, “Live by the sword, die by the sword.,” once again reared its ugly head with Waring’s untimely death. Waring left a stain on Kentucky history, but his pistols have survived to remind us, or perhaps warn us, of the grief and pain that can be caused by self-aggrandizing public figures who believe they are entitled and above the law.

Figure #4: The muzzle of a Gilston pistol clearly shows its large .52 caliber bore with seven-groove rifling. Most dueling pistols had smooth bores, made to shoot less accurately and wound rather than kill the opponent. But Waring’s pistols were made for the most accurate shooting possible, so he could destroy his adversaries.