My great grandfather was born and raised in Barrington Passage, Nova Scotia. As a young man, he went to sea. He made a couple of voyages to Bermuda, for molasses, which the Nova Scotians distilled into rum. He then made a long voyage as a seaman on the whaling ship Athol, which went into the Pacific and hunted whales for three years. His diary of that voyage was published by the Nova Scotia Historical Society under the title "Following the Sea'. Later he got on with the Clyde line out of Halifax and rose to be captain of one of their ships, Cherokee. After retiring he lived with one of his sons in Westfield, NJ and died in 1916.
He had three long arms. I don't think he had any handguns. One is a Colt Lightning Magazine Rifle, on the medium frame, in 38-40 caliber. It was his deer rifle. It has a fancy wood buttstock, with pistol grip, which required Colt to make some changes in how the mainspring was mounted. The pistol grip was checkered and the grip plate was a 50 cent coin dated 1882. Since he was in Westfield he probably ordered the rifle from Colt's New York office, and when I tried to letter the gun they had no record of it. I think Colt has since regained some of the New York office's recored but I haven't relettered the rifle.
His duck gun was a W. W. Greener double with 30 inch barrels and I think bored full and full. It has thick barrels and must weigh 12 pounds. I can't imagine swinging that gun to follow a duck. It's damascus barreled, of course, and i don't shoot it although I remember my parents shooting it to familiarize themselves with it when I was a boy. They used high brass duck loads and the gun didn't come apart.
The third gun, which the family called the 'ladies rifle' was a Remington rolling block in 38 long rimfire. I don't have any photos of it. I have shot it with ammo from Navy Arms Co. The only indication of caliber was the number 38 stamped on the bottom flat of the octagon barrel, forward of the stock.
The irony is that my two children are stepchildren and have naturally little interest in family history or artifacts. I could donate them to the family archives, but I'd like them to be shot and appreciated so I will probably sell them to a collector I know who is familiar with their hsitory.
