Can you identify this rifle?

massnee

massnee

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This rifle was discovered in the early seventies in my friend's (he is 85) grandmother's house in Temple, NH. He found it under the floorboards. Can anyone help me identify it?

The manufacturer of the rifle is "t ketland & Co"

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I'll show my ignorance and get the ball rolling. It is a percussion musket and looks a lot like it was patterned after an 1838/39 "Brown Bess" from England.

Nice find (whatever it really is)!

-Gary
 
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Thank you for the input. I did clean the rifle. It was in tough shape when my neighbor gave it to me. The stock is completely broken. What is interesting is the effort someone put into the rifle to make it functional. There are a number of nails and screws placed in the rifle just to keep the stock on. My neighbor told me that his grandfather, who owned the rifle, fought in the Civil War. There is a manufacture engraving…but I cannot see enough of the letters to read it.
 
There is a gun show in Manchester NH this weekend maybe someone might know alittle more history of this type of rifle.
 
Thomas Ketland, established in the early 18th century in Birmingham (apparently the gun maufacturing center of England in the 18th and 19th centuries), A/K/A Ketland & Co. London.

Looks like they produced "Brown Bess" (British Land Pattern Musket) flintlocks, then converted over to percussion muskets in the mid-1800s. Supplied to both the Confederate and the Union Armies in the Civil War.

That is quite a piece of history you have there, especially with what you know of the story of its past.

-Gary
 
It has been so long now I can't remember what I discovered. All I can remember was that it was a very old shotgun. [wink]
 
Having re-read my posts I realized I left out an interesting fact about the shotgun. This firearm belonged to my neighbor's grandfather. His grandfather was a Civil War veteran. The black powder shotgun dated back to around the Civil War.
 
massnee said:
Having re-read my posts I realized I left out an interesting fact about the shotgun. This firearm belonged to my neighbor's grandfather. His grandfather was a Civil War veteran. The black powder shotgun dated back to around the Civil War.
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I would leave it as is for conversation piece unless you give it to me as karma....LOL. The nails and such add character.
 
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