American Rifle - Alexander Rose [250]
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78. N. C. Wilson, Treasure Express: Epic Days of the Wells Fargo (New York: Macmillan, 1936), pp. 112–13.
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79. Quoted in Garavaglia and Worman, Firearms of American West, p. 2:122.
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80. Stanley, My Early Travels and Adventures in America and Asia, pp. 144–45.
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81. There is some debate on the exact numbers. Some commentators have declared the number of Spencers as high as 230,000. I have used those given in C. Fuller, The Rifled Musket (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Co., 1958), p. 1, and confirmed by Edwards, Civil War Guns, p. 144, but see also A. M. Beck’s detailed “Spencer’s Repeaters in the Civil War” (1998), online at www.rarewinchesters.com/articles/art_spencercivilwar.shtml.
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82. Williamson, Winchester, p. 58; Houze, Winchester, p. 69. Uncharacteristically for the arms business, the ending of Spencer’s story was a happy one. During the war Spencer had continued to dabble with his beloved machines and in 1862, finding Ripley immovable, had turned his attention to developing a horseless carriage consisting of a steam engine, boiler, and steering wheel grafted onto a buggy. Spencer claimed he could keep pace with racehorses at the track—though the puffing contraption terrified them—but bad roads severely impeded the vehicle’s speed and he returned to firearms. In the 1870s he invented an automatic screw machine, which he patented in September 1873 and licensed to Pratt & Whitney for a great deal of money. Bored again, he and Sylvester Roper developed a pump-action shotgun in 1882 and established the new Spencer Arms Company. Though lauded in Europe, sales were slack and the company went bust, taking much of Spencer’s wealth with it. He then (again) invented an improved screw machine in 1891 and remade his fortune. He continued to work until the week of his death in January 1922, aged eighty-nine and with forty-two patents to his name. Two years before he met the great celestial mechanic, Spencer took up aviation, and made more than twenty flights. See Spencer’s entry in American National Biography; his obituary in New York Times, January 15, 1922; and Patent no. 143,306, September 30, 1863, available at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Web site, www.uspto.gov.
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83. Williamson, Winchester, p. 474. Winchester was ruthless toward competitors. According to Houze, Winchester, p. 63, in 1865 “he learned that Isaac Hartshorn, the India Rubber magnate, was filing a patent suit against the Burnside Rifle Company, a manufacturer of the Spencer Repeating Rifle, the Henry Rifle’s chief rival, Winchester secretly purchased Hartshorn’s patent while the suit was still in progress. With pure Machiavellian foresight, Winchester knew that if the matter was decided in Hartshorn’s favor, Winchester could then, by proxy, dictate the terms of settlement. After Hartshorn’s claim was determined to be valid in 1866,Winchester requested payment of damages to be made in machinery, thus forcing the Burnside Company out of the firearms business.”
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84. Ibid., pp. 22–25, 14; J. G. Bilby, A Revolution in Arms: A History of the First Repeating Rifles (Yardley, Pa.: Westholme, 2006), p. 224.
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85. Garavaglia and Worman, Firearms of American West, pp. 2:123–29; Houze, Winchester, p. 46; Williamson, Winchester, pp. 47–50.
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86. An enduring mystery was exactly how they had acquired all these weapons, since, upon inquiry, no one claimed responsibility for any arms transfers. The Army and Navy Journal, remarking upon this strange and universal silence in the aftermath of a massacre, published an ironic editorial advising the Winchester company to “prosecute the Indians for infringement of their patent.” After all, since “the agency people and the traders solemnly affirm that they don’t furnish them,” it could only be inferred that the Indians