Steubenville being on the edge of Appalachia he may have sold drugs to the locals but also sold wholesale to all the tiny village doctors and pharmacists in the surrounding area.

Wikipedia says Stuebenville had a steel mil and a coal mine in 1846. So it was a "large" town. Probably had immigrants brought in by the mining and steel industries. I'll bet the locals considered them dangerous. A pharmacist needed a gun.

Does this qualify as thread drift?

Once again that is a beautifully preserved I frame. I have two fairly nice I frames but I would trade them both for that gun and that letter.