X1L 



RECREA TION. 



the >CUSK£T or ELijAH HILUKCTH 4 ofDracuT,MASS. 



BROWN BESS. 



Chicago, 111. 

 Editor Recreation. 



The statue of the minute-men on Concord, 

 Mass., battle ground, bears the following 

 inscription : 



" By the rude bridge that 



Arched the flood, 

 Their flag to April's • 



Breeze unfurled, 

 Here once the embattled 



Farmers stood, 

 And fired the shot heard 



Round the world." 



The great great grandfather of the writer, 

 Private Elijah Hiidreth, of Dracut, — now 

 Lowell, Mass. — carried this flint lock musket and 

 powder horn, April 19, 1775. 



The stone shown in the cut marks the spot 

 where the minute men formed to confront the 

 British troops. The independence of Massa- 

 chusetts Bay Colony was practically achieved, 

 April 19, 1775, though it waited to be declared, 

 with that of her sister states, on the 4th of July, 

 1776. 



The Revolutionary war began with a shot from 

 "Brown Bess," at Concord, Lexington. Our 

 second war with England, 1812-15, ended witha 

 shot from this flint look over at Dartmoor prison. 



Between the introduction of the flint lock in 

 1630 and the percussion lock in 1839, there was 

 not any improvement made in the arm. 



It was used when Charles II. of England was 

 born . Cromwell fought the Royalists with it at 

 Naseby, in 1645. When the newly created 

 colonists of Massachusetts Bay, in New England, 

 befriended Massasoit, sachem of the Wampano- 

 ags, and when, forty-five years later, or in 1675, 

 they fought and killed his son, Philip, of Mount 

 Hope, the Colonists were armed with the flint 

 lock musket. The Dutch used it against the 

 Mohawks in 1640, and good Peter Stuyvesant 

 defeated the Algonquins with it in New 

 Netherland in 1665. During King William's 

 war, 1689, Queen Anne's war, 1701, and 

 King George's war following, Brown 

 Bess figured in the hands of Massa- 

 chusetts troops under Sir William Phipps, at 



Port Royal. The flint lock was the arm of reli- 

 ance during the wars of the Spanish Succession 

 and of the Austrian Succession. Nova Scotia 

 and Cape Breton were added to the English Do- 

 main. Sir William Pepperell's followers used the 

 flint lock. Governor Oglethorpe fought the 

 Spaniards in Georgia with it in 1739. The 

 French used it against the Iroquois and the out- 

 break of the French and Indian war in 1754 

 found the flint lock on both sides, just as in 1835, 

 our Black Hawk war against the Sacs, Foxes, Win- 

 nebagos, Seminoles and Cherokees did. Marl- 

 borough used Brown Bess at Blenheim, in 

 1704. Wellington used it at Waterloo in 1815, 

 and Generals Scott and Gaines used it during 

 Andrew Jackson's presidency. 



It is remarkable that of the more modern battles 

 of Europe in which great numbers of men have 

 been engaged, — battles in which were used rifled 

 cannon and small arms, — none afforded greatly 

 less percentages of casualties than those of earlier 

 battles in which smooth-bore cannon and muskets 

 were the sole weapons of fire. 



Old Brown Bess and the smooth-bore guns 

 inflicted proportionately more injury to life and 

 limb than occurred in the battles later in the cen- 

 tury, with all the appliances of improved arma- 



ments - Philip Reade, 



Captain, U. S. A. 



New Glasgow, N. S. 

 Editor Recreation. 



The breeding of English pheasants has been 

 quite a success. Strange to say these birds, 

 which have been cast into our forests, have 

 braved the frosts and snows of this northern 

 latitude, successfully raised their young, and 

 provided for themselves as though they were 

 indigenous to the country. 



O. A. Pritchard. 



Editor Recreation. 



By the test of merit Recreation deserves to 

 succeed. I will warmly advise all my friends, 

 who are interested in gun and rod, to subscribe 

 for the cleanest, brightest and most readable 

 magazine published. 



John Borland. 



