The role of St. Louis and the Missouri River outfitting towns of Independence and St. Joseph in supplying the Oregon and California-bound emigrants of the 1840s and ’50s is well established. Less frequently discussed are the handful of other “jumping off” points where locals attempted to share in the lucrative trade in Western goods, including firearms. The career of James M. Keller, an obscure gunsmith practicing his craft in Liberty, Missouri, cross-river from Independence, offers an interesting insight into the options available to arms-seek-ing overlanders.

Keller came to Liberty in Clay County from Kentucky in 1841,1 the same year the first formally organized caravan (the Bidwell-Bartleson party) headed out across the Plains. 2 Liberty was well placed to take advantage of Oregon and California fever. The town’s steamboat landing was regularly visited by packets carrying Western travelers upstream from St. Louis.3 The first emigrant’s guide to Oregon (P.L. Edwards’ Sketch of the Oregon Territory: or, Emigrant’s Guide) was printed in Liberty in 1842, one year after Keller’s arrival.

While very little is known of Keller’s career apart from some scant detail in Missouri population and industrial cen-sus records and the occasional mention in the Liberty Weekly Tribune, two half-stock percussion Plains rifles, likely intended for use in the Far West, survive as artifacts of his and Liberty’s role in supporting Western migration. The Keller guns suggest that overland travelers had options for obtaining appropri-ate firearms apart from the merchants and gunsmiths of St. Louis or those in the better-known Missouri River ports like Independence.

Arming the Overland Emigrant:James M. Keller and the Western Missouri

Gun Trade of the 1840s and 50s

GUNS FOR THE TRAIL WESTby Ellis S.

Turner

I acquired the first Keller gun in 2007 from a dealer in upstate New York whom, I later learned, purchased it from a small auction house in Maine. Attempts to persuade the auctioneer to allow me to discuss provenance with the con-signer were not met with success. Hence, the gun’s history is unknown. The 13 pound, .50 caliber rifle has clearly seen extremely hard frontier-type use, having been broken and repaired with a brass plate at the wrist. An engraved Joseph Golcher pointed-tail percussion lock fits snuggly into the early repair. The wood in front of the lock has recently been replaced and the brass triggerguard also shows signs of repair. A new ramrod pipe has been welded onto the 397⁄8" octago-nal barrel’s rib. The gun has double set triggers and a pewter forend cap. There is no patch box and the stock has no inlays or decoration. “J. M. Keller” is clearly stamped onto the barrel (which measures 11⁄8" across flats) and “Jesse Pannabecker” is stamped onto the bottom of the barrel near the breech, indi-cating that it is the product of the well-known Pennsylvania

barrel-making family. The barrel is pinned rather than keyed to the

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GUNS FOR THE TRAIL WEST

www.gunandswordcollector.com June 2010 MAN AT ARMS 15

stock and its origins (like the Golcher lock) under-score the role of Pennsylvania in supplying Western gunsmiths. In fact, an advertisement placed by Keller in the Liberty Weekly Tribune for May 7, 1852 advised potential customers that he had “just returned from Philadelphia with a large stock of Guns, Pistols and Shooting Apparatus…” Perhaps the lock and barrel were among the items he brought home to his shop.

Strangely enough, I became aware of the second Keller gun on the eve of this article’s publication. I had telephoned a collector in Denver, Colorado to discuss a firearm I understood he had once owned that is now in my collection. Our interests turned out to be quite similar and so our conversation turned to early 19th century western guns. He informed me that he had recently acquired a Missouri rifle from an estate in western Wyoming. The maker, he noncha-

lantly mentioned, was a man by the name of J.M. Keller! Needless to say, I was stunned, having failed in earlier attempts at locating any extant Keller-marked firearms for my article (see Post Script below). While the gentleman wishes to remain anonymous, he kindly agreed to

bring his gun to the Spring 2009 Colorado Gun Collector’s Show to be photographed. Although I have never personally examined this other Keller rifle, the owner provided

the following description in a handwritten letter:

Half-stock Plains Rifle. Stamped “J M Keller” on barrel. Back action lock

stamped “A W Spies.” Barrel has a drum & nipple, 34¾" x 1¼", .64 caliber, and has 1 wedge without plates. Stock is a fruitwood with a

“square cheekpiece;” Scroll triggerguard with a spur, and a 2 piece patchbox. All hardware is handmade (forged) iron. Very heavy classic plains rifle.

Following receipt of the letter, I confirmed that the under-side of the barrel is unmarked. The man was, however, unable to provide me with the precise weight of the gun.

Firearms for the Overland TrailsEmigrants preparing to cross the Plains and Rockies for

Oregon and California in the mid to late 1840s were easily able to obtain information on the types of wagons, pack ani-mals, goods, supplies and firearms they would need for a peril-ous four-month journey. Guidebooks such as The Emigrant’s Guide to Oregon and California (1845) by Lansford Hastings, Route Across the Rocky Mountains (1846) by Overton Johnson and William H. Winter, and Joel Palmer’s Journal of Travels over the Rocky Mountains (1847) were a common means by which travelers received advice on proper outfit for the over-land route.4 However, emigrants were never counseled by guidebooks on where or from whom they should acquire guns or any other supplies before departing for points west.

While firearms are always mentioned in guidebooks, rec-ommendations are characteristically vague and non-specific. Authors were certainly emphatic about the importance of carrying guns, and their comments help us to understand an emigrant’s mindset as he prepared to leave civilization behind. Johnson and Winter state “Every male person who is of suf-ficient age to bear arms should be provided with a gun.”5 Palmer agrees that all males must be armed “with at least one rifle gun,” adding that a shotgun is also a good idea.6 Hastings simply advises that emigrants should “equip themselves with a

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good gun,” adding that:

...it might be advisable, also, for each to provide himself with a holster of good pistols… If pistols are taken, an additional supply of ammunition should, also, be taken; for, it almost necessarily fol-lows, that the more firearms you have, the more ammunition you will require, whether assailed by Indians, or assailing the buffalo.7

Both Hastings and Johnson & Winter agree on the amount

of ammunition that should be carried — 5 pounds of pow-der and 20 of lead.8 However, Hastings characterizes those numbers as minimal, while Johnson & Winter feel that they represent “an abundant supply.” The latter go on to warn, “Emigrants generally supply themselves over-abundantly with these articles.”9 This would seem good advice considering that accidental discharge of firearms was the second most common cause of death on the Oregon Trail.10

It is interesting to note that Johnson and Winter’s descrip-tion of the proper firearms fits very closely with our modern understanding of the type of rifle carried West:

The kind of guns which are preferable for such a trip, are large and strong rifles: their balls should not be less than one fiftieth of a pound, and they would be better if they were larger. The stock, which is very liable to be broken, should be made uncommonly strong at the britch, and all parts of the piece which are liable to wear or break, should be effectually tried before leaving the settle-ments.11

Virtually every man joining a wagon train with his family at the Missouri River would have likely already owned fire-arms. The majority of Oregon-bound emigrants originated in the farming states of the Mississippi Valley12 where rifles and shotguns were necessary staples of everyday life. California Argonauts who elected the overland route (as opposed to those leaving eastern seaports for Panama or Cape Horn) hailed primarily from the agrarian Mississippi and Ohio Valleys13 and no doubt also owned guns for hunting and self-defense. Whether either group possessed the kinds of arms suitable for the Plains and the Far West is another matter, and this may have prompted purchases in St. Louis or on the upper Missouri where heavy, large-bore rifles were easily obtained.14

Making the Purchase: St. Louis vs. the Upper Missouri River Towns

That many travelers were interested in pur-chasing arms while passing through St. Louis for points West is abundantly clear from the number of businesses catering to them. Hanson lists 15 different gunsmiths or dealers work-ing in St. Louis in 1842, some of them well known to us today — Hawken, Hellinghaus and Reno Beauvais.15 Victor Paul’s Missouri Gunsmiths to 1900 lists 149 St. Louis shops engaged in arms manufacture and/or sales during the 1840s and 1850s.16 The 1850 Missouri industrial census figures reported by Paul further confirm the prominence of St. Louis in the period.17 With a whopping $8,000 in “Guns & Pistols,” T.J. Albright earned his reputation as one of the largest importers and manufacturers catering to Western fortune seekers. His shop alone accounted for just under 30% of the total production value ($27,000) reported on the industrial cen-sus for the entire state of Missouri.

The question of what role the more remote outfit-ters and gunsmiths in the western Missouri jumping off counties of Jackson, Buchanan, Platte and Clay may have played in selling arms to Oregon or California pio-neers is not totally clear. Paul’s study indicates that Jackson County had 11 gunsmiths, 6 of whom were located in Independence.18 The 6 (K.D. and William Hockensmith; William and John McCoy; and Abram and George Renick), were father and son or broth-ers working together. Thus, only 3 businesses were involved in the making of firearms in 1840s/50s Independence, the preeminent western Missouri outfitting town. Buchanan County, home to St. Joseph, had 7 gunsmiths or dealers. Six are listed by Paul as working in St. Jo: Carlos Gove, Wilson Duncan, Francis A. Beauvais, A. Kemp, J.F. Ireland and Lewis A. Ely.19 Gove and Duncan worked together. Platte County, nestled along the Missouri River between Jackson and Buchanan, had 7 smiths.20 Four (John Kessler, Isaac F. Posegate, Oliver P. Secor and John M. Street) worked

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in Weston and 2 worked in Parkville (brothers John and William B. Howell). Both Weston and Parkville, located on the river between Independence and St. Joseph, were then minor outfitting posts similar to Liberty. 21

With the exception of Carlos Gove, virtually none of these Missouri River gun makers is well known to us today, and Gove’s fame came later in his career in Colorado.22 This may be a reflection of the fact that few samples of their work survive. However, their relative anonymity could also support the case that most emigrants purchased guns earlier in their movement up the Missouri, when tempted by the well-adver-tised gunsmiths and gun importers of St. Louis.

Liberty, Missouri and the Emigrant Arms TradeIt seems even less likely that an emigrant would have

decided to purchase firearms at Liberty in Clay County, where James Keller practiced his trade. The Hastings, Johnson & Winter, and Palmer guidebooks are typical of their genre in recommending its neighbor, Independence, as the place to start a journey West.23 Located across the river, approximately 10 miles north of Missouri’s most famous outfitting town, Liberty was simply not on an emigrant’s radar screen, though the village did attempt to wage battle against its competitors by placing notices with headlines such as “To Emigrants,” in the Liberty Weekly Tribune. These advertisements touted the advantages of doing business in Liberty over St. Joseph and Independence.24

But in the 1840s, Liberty had only two gunsmiths, Keller and William Turner, fewer than any other of the jumping off counties with which it sought to compete. According to the 1850 population census, the 23-year-old Turner lived with the Kellers and was likely one of 2 employees listed by Keller on the industrial census in the same year.25 A traveler looking to buy a heavy half stock suitable for Oregon or California had but one place to go inside Clay County in the ’40s, a

fact that, on its surface, seems to confirm a relatively minor role for Liberty in arming the emigrant.26 The only other gunsmith to set up shop in Clay County before 1860

was Moses Dickson, formerly of Louisville, who went into business in late 1853.27

James Keller told the industrial census taker in 1850 that his “Annual product” was $1,000 worth of “Guns.” While no quantity is indicated, if we assume Keller charged $15 per gun, he would have produced a little over 60 per year. Considering that some west-ern Missouri gunsmiths charged even higher prices, Keller and Turner may have turned out even fewer arms.28 This said, among the 6 gunsmiths in Jackson, Buchanan, Platte and Clay counties

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who participated in the 1850 industrial census, Keller had the second highest “Annual product” after Gove, who reported $3,500 in “guns, pistols, &c.”

Other western Missouri makers did not even come close.29 Hockensmith and Renick of Independence reported $120 and $500 worth of guns, respectively, while St. Jo’s Kemp listed $400. Such numbers call into question just how important Keller and Liberty actually were in supporting western emigration.

When Gove’s and Keller’s numbers are taken into consideration, it appears that a relatively significant market did exist in western Missouri for those emigrants who waited to make purchases as they neared the edge of the Plains. In fact, Gove’s $3,500 “Annual product” places him second among all Missouri gunsmiths to Albright of St. Louis in the 1850 industrial census.30 In addition, river town merchants also sold arms to emigrants, likely importing them from St. Louis or Pennsylvania.31 Advertisements in the Liberty Weekly Tribune show that some Liberty merchants, most prominently J. Purley and Reed & Evans, competed in the sale of guns during the

1850s. Keller’s 1852 notice in the Weekly Tribune offering Philadelphia guns for sale demonstrates that he eventually became a middleman selling the products of others. Liberty gunsmith Moses Dickson did the same later in the decade.32 This diversification in the gunsmith trade was likely in response to an increased demand for firearms on the upper Missouri, and Liberty was situated to take advantage.

Nevertheless, firearms were probably less frequently sought in Independence, St. Joseph or Liberty than items such as foodstuffs, medicines, clothing, wagons and livestock.33 Purchasers of firearms along the Missouri River frontier were likely those who recognized late in the game that their trusty longrifle was too delicate or light in caliber for service in the West. Gove’s and Keller’s inventories, taken with the advertis-ing of local merchants, suggest that such eleventh-hour con-cerns might have happened with some regularity.

The Decline of Overland EmigrationThe 1850s appear to have been a time of flux and change

in the career of James Keller. A notice entitled “New Gun

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Smith Shop” in the Liberty Weekly Tribune for December 16, 1853, announced that a “Turner & Dixson” had opened a compet-ing business on the public square in Liberty. That this was Keller’s associate, William Turner, and Moses Dickson, seems likely.34 Slightly over 2 years later, in January of 1856, the Tribune ran an ad signed by an Ovid H. Corbin mentioning that he had purchased the “house formerly occupied by J.M. Keller as a Gunsmith shop” and was now selling wagons and farm implements there.35 By 1860, Keller had moved approximately 8 miles east of Liberty to Missouri City, situated directly on the banks of the wide Missouri. He had apparently not moved closer to the river to better hawk his wares to passing emigrants. The 1860 population census for Clay County lists his occupation as “Farmer.”36

Liberty, Missouri and J.M. Keller were clearly poised to achieve success from their lesser-known position near the start of the Oregon and California trails. Keller was in the right place at the right time and it appears that he turned out (or at least had on hand) a relatively substantial number of arms,

especially for a western Missouri gunsmith. But Keller’s fame and fortune were simply not to be. Between 1841–1856, while he sat at his workbench in Liberty, a massive overland emigra-tion to the Pacific had commenced, peaked and fell. By the mid-1850s, with the lure of Oregon long since dimmed and the rush for gold in California essentially over, James M. Keller decided to beat his gun barrels into ploughshares.

Post Script In prelude to the publication of this article, I was asked

by the editor if I could supply some photographs of the arms produced by the western Missouri gunsmiths referenced in the

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text. Off the top of my head, I knew of only two other extant examples apart from the two Keller guns that are the subject of this article: a heavy half-stock Plains rifle made by J.F. Ireland of St. Joseph that is in my per-sonal collection, and a rifle by Abram and George Renick of Independence, Missouri pictured in Jim Gordon’s fabulous three-volume set on western firearms. A call to Jim in New Mexico turned up but one other piece in his entire, massive collection — an ultra-rare Carlos Gove St. Joseph rifle. While Jim does own arms produced by Moses Dickson, they are from his earlier days in Louisville.

The obscurity of early 19th century western Missouri firearms was confirmed by subsequent enquiries. Jim Hanson at the Museum of the Fur Trade told me that he had never seen guns by any of the sixteen Upper Missouri makers that I mentioned in the article. David Kennedy confirmed that the Cody Firearms Museum possessed no such arms. Curators at the Kansas City Museum, the Pony Express National Museum in St. Jo and the St. Joseph Museum confessed that they had nothing in their collections by any of these “local” gunsmiths.

All of this begs the question: How many guns from Independence, St. Joseph, Weston, Parkville and Liberty, Missouri makers survived the trek west? Might these artifacts of the Oregon and California trails lie languishing in some collections with their owners unaware of their historical significance?

It is hoped that this piece will bring those arms that did make it across the Plains and Rockies into the light of day. Readers who discover that they own west-ern Missouri guns by the makers discussed in this article are encouraged to contact me through Man at Arms.

Endnotes1An article in the Liberty Weekly Tribune (Sept. 2, 1870) profiling

long-time citizens of Clay County contains a brief autobiographical statement from Keller confirming the date of his arrival in Missouri.

HeKeller says that he was born in Jessamine County, Kentucky in October 1808 and first came to Clay County in 1841. Marriage records show that Keller and Elizabeth Dillingham wed in Madison County, Kentucky in 1838. Their eldest daughter, Mary E., is listed in the 1850 population census for Clay County as 11 years of age and her birthplace is recorded as Kentucky, thereby establishing that the Kellers were still in the bluegrass state in 1839. Another daughter, Pauline, is listed as 9 years old and born in Missouri, thus placing the Keller’s in the state by 1841. The 1850 census also confirms Keller’s occupation as “Gunsmith.” Digital copies of the Liberty Weekly Tribune may be found on the Historic Missouri

Newspaper Project Web site: http://newspapers.umsystem.edu/archive/Skins/Missouri/navigator.asp?skin=Missouri&BP=OK All quotations or facts attributed to the Tribune may be found there.

The Keller’s marriage records were obtained from “Marriage Records of Madison County, Kentucky,” at (http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cramsey/madco_k.html and the 1850 census records at (http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mackley/Mo1850Jpegs/Clay50/ClayP689.jpg).

2John D. Unruh, Jr., The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840–1860 (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1979) 110.

3Numerous advertisements for competing Missouri River packets fill the pages of the Liberty Weekly Tribune in the 1850s. An ad promoting the “Passenger Packet Clara” in the April 15, 1853 edition is typical in offering scheduled stops between St. Louis and St. Joseph, including Liberty.

4Ellis Turner, “In the Trail of the Buffalo: A Descriptive Bibliography of the Oregon, California and Texas Guidebook, 1814-1860,” Diss. George Washington University, 1980. It must be pointed out that Hastings’ guide recklessly promoted a poorly researched cut off from the Oregon Trail into California, one that ultimately led the Donner Party to their deaths. Nevertheless, the information Hastings presented on firearms is moderate and certainly not inconsistent with the conventional wisdom offered to overland travelers.

5Overton Johnson and William H. Winter, Route Across the Rocky Mountains, 1846; (n.p.: Readex Microprint Corp., 1966) 144.

6Joel Palmer, Journal of Travels over the Rocky Mountains, 1847; (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1966) 143.

7Lansford W. Hastings, The Emigrant’s Guide to Oregon and California, 1845; (New York: Da Capo, 1969) 143.

8Hastings 143 and Johnson & Winter 145.9Johnson & Winter 145.10Unruh 410.11Johnson & Winter 144.12Ray Allen Billington, Westward Expansion, A History of the American Frontier (NY: Macmillan, 1974)

445.13Walton Bean, California, An Interpretive History (New York: McGraw Hill, 1978) 94.14Interestingly, I found few advertisements in the Liberty Weekly Tribune of the 1840s and 50s aimed at

Oregon emigrants. Many ads placed by merchants during the late 1840s and 1850s do reference California in the headline.

15Charles E. Hanson, Jr., The Plains Rifle (Highland Park, NJ: Gun Room Press, 1960) 53.16Victor A. Paul, Missouri Gunsmiths to 1900 (Washington, MO: Obscure Place Publishing, 1999).

Paul’s study is essentially an alphabetically arranged encyclopedia of Missouri gunsmiths. Hence, subsequent citations of statistical, biographical or geographical information found in Paul do not include page numbers.

17All information cited from the 1850 industrial census is derived from Paul.18These figures include gunsmiths operating for any period of years from 1840 until 1860. The same is

true for those in Buchanan, Platte and Clay counties. 19Paul states that Beauvais was not a gunsmith and that his business was a branch of his better-known

brother Reno’s St. Louis store. 20Paul. 21Unruh 73. 22It is known that Gove worked in Council Bluffs, Iowa during two different periods of time with a

hiatus in St. Joseph. However, Paul’s listing on Gove suggests confusion over exactly when he was in Missouri. He lists Gove’s tenure in Council Bluffs as “1840–1852?” and 1854–1862. Yet, while he places Gove in St. Jo between 1852–1854, he has him participating in the Buchannan County (St. Jo) industrial census for 1850.

23Writers also championed St. Joseph and Council Bluffs although Independence seemed to have the edge over its competitors as the starting point most often referenced on maps and tables of the overland route.

24A December 7, 1849 ad bragged that Liberty “offers inducements for outfitting for California, over the plains, as any town in Upper Missouri” and that their merchants will “furnish [goods] low as they can be procured in Independence, Weston or St. Joseph.”

25http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mackley/Mo1850Jpegs/Clay50/ClayP689.jpg Oddly, Paul’s listing for William Kendrick, a gunsmith in Neosho, Missouri, places Turner with him on the 1850 population census. Turner’s own listing in Paul makes no mention of Kendrick and instead associates him with Keller on the 1850 census.

26While Liberty only had 1 gunsmith shop, the Liberty Weekly Tribune published a list of local “Business Houses” in its March 2, 1849 edition. This included 8 dry goods stores, 4 blacksmiths and 4 “carriage and waggon manufactories,” an indication that the community possessed a number of other types of merchants useful to emigrants.

27Paul first places Moses Dickson in Clay County through the 1860 census. However, he appears as a gunsmith in the pages of the Liberty Tribune as early as December, 1853. Frank Sellers’ American Gunsmiths (1st ed., p.82) curiously lists Dickson in Louisville, Kentucky (doing business as “Dickson & Gilmore”) between 1848-1860. Perhaps Dickson’s partner, James J. Gilmore, simply retained the company name after Moses left for Clay County.

28Numbers reported on the 1850 industrial census by Hockensmith of Independence establish his price for a gun at around $20. John Van Horn, a Jackson County gunsmith whose exact location is not indicated charged $18.75. An article in the Liberty Weekly Tribune on May 30, 1846 mentions that Keller donated a gun valued at $25 to a company of Clay County Mexican War volunteers.

29Gunsmiths in those same 4 counties who participated in the industrial census, but were not indicated by Paul to have worked in a Missouri River outfitting town, were not counted. John Van Horn of Jackson County listed a $900 “Annual product” on the industrial census, but we do not know where he practiced his trade.

30Gove’s figures are even more impressive when considering that the well-known shop of Hawken reported “Rifles” and “Shot Guns” valued at only $2,700, according to Paul.

31Information on western Missouri merchant houses of the 1840/50s is scant and deserving of further research.

32On January 23, 1857 Dickson advertised in the Liberty Weekly Tribune that he had received a “NEW stock of superior GUNS….”

33An article addressed to emigrants in the December 7, 1849 edition of the Liberty Weekly Tribune brags about the abundance of “Corn, Beef, Pork, Dried fruit and other provisions” that can be found in Liberty and notes the presence of ”good Saddlers, Blacksmiths, Wagon-Makers, Shoemakers, and other Mechanics.” Interestingly there is no mention of firearms or a gunsmith. This offers some support for the theory that firearms were among the least sought after items in outfitting towns. Nevertheless, both of Clay County’s gunsmiths, Keller and Dickson, and retailers J. Purley and Reed & Evans, advertised their wares in the Liberty Weekly Tribune during the 1850s.

34On June 9, 1854, just under 6 months later, “Moses Dickson” (note correct spelling) published a notice that he had “purchased the interest of Mr. Turner in the Gunsmithing business.”

35Liberty Weekly Tribune, January 11, 1856.36http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mackley/Mo1860Jpegs/Clay_60/Clay_P086.jpg

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