A newly discovered Sam Hawken Squirrel Rifle appears on forums
A recent forum post has Hawken fans wondering, is this a real S Hawken?
In a forum post on the American Longrifles forum, user Warbike shared this story,
Almost 30 years ago I bought an old house built in the 20s or 30s in the 4 corners of New Mexico.
I spent 2 weeks cleaning out a ton of belongings from the previous elderly lady that had lived there.
On day 10 I removed an old hatch from the outside of the house in the end wall and climbed into the attic with a full respirator on and after hours and hours of sifting thru old boxes of quilts and clothes I found this rifle wrapped up in a very old quilt.
Along with the rifle were two old powder horns {one was large and not completed and a smaller one that was complete} I also found a plier like device for making lead balls? a small brass tin full of lead balls and a large old spoon with a pouring indention off the side, possibly for pouring melted lead. The spoon has a corn cob handle that was burned from heat.
Caliber appears to be .38 or .40 caliber.
Consensus on the forums leads towards this being an authentic S Hawken rifle, likely built in the mid 1850s. It’s hard to say for certain though without analyzing the rifle in hand though. As always, a discovery like this is subject to change with hands-on investigation.
Wanting the opinion of a good friend, I sent a link to the forum post to my go-to Hawken expert, Bob Woodfill.
Ethan, Yes, looks to be a real S. Hawken rifle of the ‘squirrel rifle’ type and different from the heavier plains rifle. This rifle would be of a smaller caliber (.40?) and made for the local Missouri trade of squirrels, deer, occasional bear. It is stocked in brass and barrel stamp looks legit! Bob
Even with estimates that the Hawken Brothers could have made around 100 rifles per year, surviving originals are few and far between. An attic find like this would certainly be valuable if authentic. I imagine the original poster has been contacted quite a bit about the piece.