Category Archives: Resources

J.M. Davis

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John Monroe Davis
June 27, 1887 – Feb 7,1973

  • the largest privately-held collection of firearms in the world
  • 1917  J.M. and Addie Davis buy the  Mason Hotel in Claremore, OK
  • 1919, Mr. and Mrs. Davis built a home in Claremore and took over the management of the hotel
  • 1921 to 1923 mayor of Claremore
  • 1933 to 1943 mayor of Claremore
  • 1929 Mr. Davis’s collection had grown to 99 guns
  • 1930 purchased U.S. Bessette collection of 500 pieces
  • 1932 purchased the Smith collection at Vinita, Oklahoma of 1,500 guns
  • 1932 purchased the John Sallings collection of 500 pieces
  • World War II veterans would bring him war trophies
  • gunsmiths would bring in guns they had modified, sporterized, or completely invented
  • 1948 purchased the Merle Gill collection
    (Outlaw and Lawman guns, hanging nooses, and hand cuffs)
  • November, 1959 Addie Davis passed away (married 49 years)
  • July 1961, J.M. married Genevieve Breeden
  • 1965, Mr. Davis established a nonprofit foundation, the J.M. Davis Memorial Foundation, Inc
  •  Governor Henry Bellmon signed the legislation to establish the J.M. Davis Memorial Commission and appropriate funds to purchase the entire city block where the museum now stands
  • 1968, plans were approved for a 40,000 square foot J.M Davis museum building
  • June 27, 1969, Mr. Davis’ 82nd birthday, the museum was opened to the public
  • June 27, 1972, Mr. Davis’ 85th birthday, the city of Claremore honored him by renaming a street after him: J.M. Davis Boulevard
  • February 7th, 1973 J.M. Davis  passed away

Boone and Crockett Club

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Founded in 1887
Missoula, Montana

The oldest wildlife conservation organization in North America

 

  • 1887 Founded by Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell
  •  initiator of the first National Parks, including Yellowstone, Glacier, Denali and Grand Canyon
  • the initiator of the first legislation for wildlife
    – Timberland Reserve Bill
    – Yellowstone Protection Act
    – Lacey Act
    – Migratory Bird Treaty Act
    – Alaskan Game Laws
  • champion of the earliest science-based wildlife management efforts and legislation
    – the National Wildlife Refuge System Act
    – the creation of the Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units

Boone and Crockett Club
250 Station Drive
Missoula, Montana 59801

406.542.1888

boone-crockett.org

William E. Fairbairn

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February 28, 1885 –  June 20,1960

British Royal Marine and police officer

Eleanor Roosevelt

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October 11, 1884 – November 7, 1962

  • 1933 – 1945  First Lady of the United States
  • 1957 – New York CCW
  • she carried a pistol instead of Secret Service protection

“After the head of the Secret Service found I was not going to allow an agent to accompany me everywhere, he went one day to Louis Howe [FDR’s secretary], plunked a revolver down on the table and said ‘Well, all right, if Mrs. Roosevelt is going to drive around the country alone, at least ask her to carry this in the car.’”

Eleanor’s autobiography

“When Roosevelt defied death threats by the Ku Klux Klan to travel  to Tennessee in 1958 to attend a civil rights workshop, she and the woman who picked her up at the Nashville airport drove to the conference with ‘a loaded pistol on the front seat between them.’”

her biographer Allida Black

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

Eleanor Roosevelt, “You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys to a More Fulfilling Life”

Eric A. Sykes

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Feb 5, 1883 – May 12, 1945

work with William E. Fairbairn

  • 1907 arrived in Shanghai
  • 1919 met Fairbairn
  • 1923 worked for Remington and Colt as rep to China & Japan Trading Co
  • 1926 worked for Shanghai Municipal Police
  • 1937 Head of SMP Snipers
  • 1939 joined the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS – MI6)
  • 1940 resigned from the Shanghai Municipal Police and returned to Britain
  • 1942 Shooting to Live, published

Ithaca Gun Company

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established  in 1883
in Ithaca, New York

  • firearms based on expired patents owned by Remington Arms
  • also purchased patents from other firearm designers
  • 1883 established the original Ithaca Gun Company
    – original factory was located in the Fall Creek
    – nearby waterfall supplied the main source of energy
  • 1895 Emil Flues invented a double barrel shotgun with only three moving parts per barrel
  • 1907 Ithaca bought the patent and upgraded the design
    – became the best selling American double of all time
    – Ithaca drove Remington out of the double gun market
  • World War II produced the M1911 pistol
  • Korean War produced the M3 Grease Gun
  • 1967 was sold to Jerry Baldritch & Assoc
  • December 1978 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
  • September 1985 filed bankruptcy a second time
  • 1987 new owners Ithaca Acquisition, Inc.
    – moved to King Ferry, New York
  • 1989, Remington purchased the Mag-10 shotgun
    – they produced as the SP-10
  •  2002 and 2004 moved 6,000 tons of lead-contaminated material
    – with cost of $4.8 million
  • 2005 moved to larger facilities in Auburn, NY
  • 2005 sold all assets, trademarks, and manufacturing rights to the Marshalls from Upper Sandusky, Ohio
  • All prints, programs, and processing were converted to CNC
  • March 2006 original factory was condemned only the smokestack remains
    – lead  Superfund remediation effort
  • June 2007 Dave Dlubak purchased the company
  • 2015 more clean up necessary
  • Annie Oakley used an Ithaca Flues model in her competition and exhibition shooting
  •  John Philip Sousa – the Sousa Grade, a shotgun in his honor

 

 

Ithaca Gun Company
420 N. Warpole Street
Upper Sandusky, OH 43351

419-294-4113

ithacagun.com

 

Elizabeth “Plinky” Toepperwein

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January 23, 1882
New Haven, Connecticut

  • 1882 Elizabeth Servaty born in New Haven
  • 1902 employee at the Winchester factory in New Haven
  •  met Adolph (Ad) Toepperwein
    – Americanized as the “Topperweins”
    – he was  sales rep and exhibition shooter for the Winchester
  • 1903 They married
  • 1904 son Lawrence  was born
  • Ad gave Elizabeth her first shooting lessons and discovered that she was a “natural.”
  • After shooting a tin can, which made a “plinking” sound. Elizabeth exclaimed, “I plinked it”
    – first to coin this phrase?
  • Ad and Plinky performed for forty years
  • first woman in the United States to qualify as a national marksman with the military rifle
  •  first woman to break 100 straight targets at trapshooting
    –  she repeated this more than 200 times
    – often with a twelve-gauge Winchester model 97 pump
  • held the world endurance trapshooting record of 1,952 of 2,000 targets in five hours and twenty minutes
  • 1940 son Lawrence died at the age of thirty-six
  • 1943  last tour
  • January 27, 1945 “Plinky” Toepperwein died
  • 1969 inducted into the Trapshooting Hall of Fame in Vandalia, Ohio

Annie Oakley once said to Plinky, “Mrs. Top . . . you’re the greatest shot I’ve ever seen.”

 

 

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fto43

Hercules Powder Company

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formed in 1882
Santa Cruz, California
Wilmington, Delaware

  • 1874 special formulation of dynamite was patented
    – by J.W. Willard
    – superintendent of the California Powder Works
    – “Hercules powder”
  • 1877 California Powder Works manufacturers Hercules powder
  • 1877 J.W. Willard moved to Cleveland, Ohio
  • 1882 – 1904 Hercules Powder Company
    – California Powder Works & DuPont and Laflin & Rand Powder Company
  • 1890  first smokeless powder manufactured in the United States
  • 1897 Sharpshooter
    – a flake powder
    – introduced by Laflin & Rand
    –  to replace black powder in .45-70
  • 1898 Bullseye
    – introduced by Laflin & Rand
    –  rapid combustion in short-barreled handguns
  • 1900 Unique 
    – introduced by Laflin & Rand
    – designed for shotguns
    – can be used in handguns
  • 1911  Sherman Antitrust Act ordered a breakup of the explosives and gunpowder manufacturing
    – Atlas Powder Company = explosives manufacturing
    – Hercules Powder Company = gunpowder
  • 1912 incorporated as the Hercules Powder Company
    – following the breakup of the Du Pont explosives monopoly
  • major producers of smokeless powder
  • 1932 Red Dot
    – for light and standard shotgun loads (12, 16, and 20 g )
    – can be used in handguns
  •  1940, the Kenvil, New Jersey plant explosion
    – twenty-five tons of explosives
  • 1965 Green Dot
    – for medium & standard shotgun loads (12, 16, and 20 g )
    – can be used in handguns
  • 1966 changed name to Hercules, Inc
  • 1972 Blue Dot
    – for magnum shotgun loads (10, 12, 16 g )
    – can be used in magnum handguns
  • 1995 sold to Alliant Techsystems Inc (ATK)
    –  “Bullseye”, “2400”, “Reloder”, “Unique”, and “Red Dot”
    – Radford, Virginia.
  • 2008 sold to the Ashland Corporation and dissolved.

 

 

Karl Frederick

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Feb 2, 1881 – Feb 11, 1963

  • 1920 competed in Summer Olympics
    – won the gold medal in the individual free pistol event
    – won two gold medals as member of the American team in the team 50 metre free pistol competition
  • 1934 – 1935 President of the National Rifle Association
  • 1934 – testified during hearings on the National Firearms Act

 

“I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons. I seldom carry one. I have when I felt it was desirable to do so for my own protection. I know that applies in most of the instances where guns are used effectively in self-defense or in places of business and in the home. I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses

“I believe in regulatory methods. I think that makes it desirable that any such regulations imposed should not impose undue hardships on the law-abiding citizens and that they should not obstruct him in the right of self-defense, but that they should be directed exclusively, so far as possible, to suppressing the criminal use, or punishing the criminal use of weapons.”