The Hawken Rifle

The Hawken Rifle (short version)

The Hawken rifle was a muzzle loading rifle built by the Hawken brothers, and used on the prairies and in the Rocky Mountains of the United States during the early frontier days. It has become synonymous with the "plains rifle", "the buffalo gun", and the fur "trapper's gun". Developed in the 1820s, it was eventually displaced by breechloaders (such as the Sharps rifle) and lever-action rifles which flourished after the Civil War.

The Hawken "plains rifle" was made by Jacob and Samuel Hawken, in their St. Louis MO shop, which they ran from 1815 to 1858. Their shop continued to operate and sell rifles bearing the "Hawken" name under later owners William S. Hawken, William L. Watt, and J. P. Gemmer, until Gemmer closed down the business and retired in 1915.

Samuel and Jacob were trained by their father as rifle smiths on the east coast. They moved west and opened a business in St. Louis at the beginning of the Rocky Mountain fur trade. The brothers' claim to fame is the "plains rifles" produced by their shop. They produced what their customers needed in the west, a quality gun, light enough to carry all the time, capable of knocking down big targets at long range. They called their guns "Rocky Mountain Rifles," reflecting their customers: fur trappers, traders and explorers.

The earliest known record of a Hawken rifle dates to 1823 when one was made for Willaim Henry Ashley. The Hawkens did not mass-produce their rifles but rather made each one by hand, one at a time. A number of famous men were said to have owned Hawken rifles, including Auguste Lacome, Hugh Glass, Jim Bridger (this rifle was on loan to GRRW for several years), the same was true for the Kit Carson Hawken, the famous Mormon body guard Orrin Porter Rockwell carried a Hawken, Joseph Meek, Jedediah Strong Smith, and Theodore Roosevelt were just a few that depended on this maker's guns.



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By coincidence, I just finished reading "The Hawken Rifle" by Charles Hanson last night.  James Clyman also had a full stock Hawken which stayed in his family for many years.  It's been a while since I read Clyman's book, should probably reread it soon.