47 Gunsmith Shop

This log structure was located just inside the County line on the Old Hickory Lincolnton Highway. It served as an outbuilding next to the old Civil War hospital in the Dr. Eli Crowell estate. The gunsmith was required to be a master of tool making, iron working, and blacksmithing and the arts of fine relief sculpture and inlay. The earliest and most widely available guns in the Appalachian settlements were the muzzle-loaded flintlock long rifles, a dramatic development in arms. It had a barrel in which the bore had been rifled through a series of shallow spiral grooves that had been cut into the metal walls so the bullet spins giving it stability and accuracy. This was an improvement over the earlier Smooth bored muskets. It is thought that German immigrants who settled in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania area, were instrumental in introducing rifle making in this country. The American long rifle, so-called the “Kentucky rifle“, had the popular octagonal barrel used in the la