For many years, the Hawken Rifle had the reputation of being “The Mountain Man’s Choice.” That’s largely thanks to the classic 1972 movie Jeremiah Johnson (the first movie I saw in a theater).
The origin of the 1970s popular culture Hawken craze.
At the opening, the narrator explains that Johnson sought a .50 caliber Hawken Rifle before heading alone into the Rocky Mountains.
“He settled for a .30, but damn, it was a genuine Hawken, and you couldn’t go no better.”
The .50 Hawken is imbued with an almost magical quality, like an Ulfberht sword. Later he finds the frozen corpse of a mountain man named Hatchet Jack, with a note attached:
“I, Hatchet Jack, bein’ of sound mind and broke legs do hereby leaveth my bear rifle to whatever finds it. Lord hope it be a white man. It is a good rifle and kilt the bear that kilt me. Anyway, I am dead. Yours truly, Hatchet Jack.”
Hatchet Jack — Hawken donor.
The rifle is a .50 caliber Hawken. Jeremiah has found his Ulfberht.
Mythologically resonant, no question. Historical? Every self-respecting mountain man carried a .50 caliber Hawken, right? Well, no. The Hawken brothers’ shop in St. Louis, Missouri, was but one small player in the heyday of the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade, 1820-40, when the standard rifle was a full-stock flintlock, not the classic half-stock percussion-lock Hawken style. Early Hawkens were full-stock flinters, too.
Many of the great ones like Jim Bridger and Kit Carson did end up with a half-stock percussion Hawken, but that was after the glory days of the Fur Trade, in the 1840s. The classic Hawken was a mid-19th Century phenomenon; what you might properly call a Plains Rifle. They were usually of bigger caliber than a .50, too — .53 to .56 caliber being common. Big medicine for big animals, from buffalo to elk to grizzly. They were heavy — 10 pounds or more — thanks to a beefy stock and a thick-walled octagonal barrel usually around 32 inches long.
Today, a standard hunting rifle is going to weigh in at a little over 6 pounds, a little over 7 with a scope, and a “mountain rifle” is expected to come in at 6.5 with glass. A 10-pound rifle would be considered excessively heavy, but that was everyday carry in the 1840s-’70s.
Jake Hawken died early, so it was Sam who really developed the classic Hawken we know today. And in 1864, Sam sold his shop and all of his stock to one John Phillip Gemmer. J.P. Gemmer continued to make the Hawken style rifle right through the 1860s and the heavy muzzleloaders remained in demand as a hunting rifle all the way to the 1880s, though they were being supplanted by breechloaders starting in the 1870s.
A Gemmer half-stock plains rifle.
Gemmer bridged the era of the muzzleloader and the era of the breechloader, making interesting hybrid custom guns using Hawken parts and stocks, built around actions such as the Sharps falling block, the Remington Rolling Block, the Springfield Trapdoor and the Spenser repeating action.
Gemmer Trapdoor.
There is something appealing to me about these somewhat odd guns. They’re like a firearms missing link, and they’re aesthetically pleasing. I particularly like the Gemmer Sharps.
Gemmer Sharps (reproduction).
Old Liver-Eating Johnson (whom Jeremiah Johnson was very loosely based upon) apparently carried a Gemmer Sharps, one of his many rifles. (His Hawken and a big ol’ Sheffield knife are on display in the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. The .56 caliber, 7-groove S. Hawken-stamped rifle was made in the 1860s, at about the time Gemmer took over).
The legend of Liver-Eating Johnson is something I’ll take up in another post. For now, suffice it to say that he never actually ate a human liver — but he did carry a mighty Ulfberht Hawken Rifle.
In the end, placed in its proper era, the Hawken Rifle deserves the talismanic respect accorded it. It was a bad ass rifle, wielded by badass men. Waugh!
deuce says
“Jeremiah Johnson (the first movie I saw in a theater).”
That explains a lot, Jim.
“The Hawken brothers’ shop in St. Louis, Missouri…”
Ol’ St. Lou really was the beating heart of the Western fur trade. Kinda what Frisco was to the Cali gold rush.
JimC says
Yep.
Brian H. says
Cool post. I’d hadn’t heard of those hybrid Gemmer’s before. I myself have toyed with the idea of one of those T.C. “Big Boar” (sic). Had one come through the shop I worked at in .56 cal. The woods hippie that bought it could not be deterred even though he knew very little of what he was getting into.
JimC says
That’s a whomper. Almost 300 grain round ball.
Matthew says
I’ll be interested to here about ol’ Liver Eating Johnson.
RLT says
My own half-stock is hanging in my office, waiting for muzzleloader season up here. She may talk me into taking her down early for regular rifle season, though. She’s heavy, no doubt, but toting her around the woods never feels like work. Nor does cleaning out the deer after she speaks. I call her Sweet Jane, although mostly to myself. Some folks look at you funny when you start anthropomorphizing your equipment. They’ve never hunted grizzly country with just a .54 and a hatchet.
Paul McNamee says
“A .54 & a Hatchet”
I think we have a candidate for the next Jim Cornelius song composition.
JimC says
I like that notion…
RLT says
As do I
wayne williams says
Beautiful guns! I love the hybrids. When folks try to be authentic they sometimes forget that in the 19th Century outdoorsmen weren’t averse to adding their own touches to a good design. In my low budget 20’s I satisfied my desire for a muzzle loader by building a .440 cap and ball rifle more or less in a Pennsylvania rifle design with a full forestock from an inexpensive CVA kit. I added a cap box from Dixie Gun Works to the stock, and a brass stamped acorn on each side of the forestock to dress it up. With a little extra stain, I candy striped the ramrod. When I started hunting with it I added a removable fully adjustable rear sight for better accuracy. Not an expensive rifle, or one you’ll find in a book, but it suits me and it’ll shine in the woods.
JimC says
That is Frontier Partisan to the core.
John M Roberts says
Raymond Thorp has much to answer for. Almost all of the “Liver Eatin'” Johnson legend originates with Thorp’s book “Crow Killer,” which is a rip-snortin’ yarn but almost entirely made up. Vardis Fisher’s “Mountain Man” was largely based on it and Milius’s screenplay was based on them both. John Johnston existed, but that’s about it.
JimC says
I’m grateful for the Vardis Fisher book though. Had a profound impact when I was a lad.
Bret Whitmore says
I was 12 when I saw ‘Jeremiah Johnson’ for the first time, it having just then left theaters to premier on T.V. There have been many fine films to touch on that era since (all in varying degrees of authenticity) but that ’72 film remains my favorite. Not only did it cause me a permanent and incurable case of black powder fever, but it sparked my lifelong passion for all things ‘frontiersman’, ‘trailblazer,’ and ‘mountain man’. It’s historical inaccuracies notwithstanding, it was enthralling enough to motivate a young Michigan woods-and-lakes kid to one day acquire my own smoke pole, and to visit, explore, hunt, and homestead on lands once trapped by notables of the ‘shining times’ of the western fur trade.
Among many fine guns I’ve owned over the years, ‘Old Bill’, a custom half-stock .54 cal. cap-lock, remains a long-trusted companion. Thanks to Uncle Sam having twice posted me to this area (during previous G.I. service on another kind of frontier), for almost 30 years now I’ve lived in the prairie flats east of the famed Black Hills of South Dakota. I’m barely a 10-minute drive into that ancient granite sanctuary itself, and but a short hour’s journey south along the bordering buttes to an undercut and weed-strewn oxbow of an oft-dry tributary known as ‘Beaver Creek’. The spot is not far from the ghost town of Buffalo Gap where many of my wife’s homesteader kin lie buried. Near that small ‘crick’ is where young Jed “Prayin’ ‘Diah” Smith and his party– following a fresh bison trail in 1823– entered the Black Hills for the first time en-route to the Yellowstone. According to local lore, while camped there Smith had his unfortunate encounter with the grizzly. He was spared some of the more grievous injuries of his colleague Hugh Glass, but Smith still ended up badly mauled with parts of his scalp and one ear requiring immediate attention to restore them to their proper locations on his head. Accounts recall that Smith, despite his pain and with the aid of a mirror, directed the suturing himself, clumsily carried out by his comrades there on the spot.
To most folks South Dakota is merely “flyover country” with little notable for the device-addicted set beyond a long, boring trek along I-90, Mt. Rushmore, the Badlands, and perhaps the Crazy Horse monument or a night of gambling in Deadwood. (All the better for those of us who live here by choice.) Among many other noteworthy sign-posts from history, it was here in this sparsely-populated state– home to the Sioux nation and stalwart cattleman families– where both Smith and Glass met their Ursus Arctos tormentors, the former along Beaver Creek in the Buffalo Gap, and the latter on the once-juniper-choked breaks of the Grand River near present-day Lemon, South Dakota.
JimC says
Welcome! My maternal grandmother was from SD; my grandfather ranched just across the line near Hettinger, ND. They moved to California during the Great Depression. My grandmother was glad; Grandpa always wanted to go back.
H. Dale Lilly [Polecat] says
Been shootin’ front loaders since early 1960s from Idaho to California, Texas. Colorado, Montana, New Mexico and now have landed in Oklahoma. I’m old .. [88] have a lot of tales. Just finished building another Hawken style rifle; am now working on a mountain pistol. Need to sell a few of my thirty some muzzle loaders before my bucket list is terminated … but I ain’t a gonna do it. Waugh.
Cecil Sink says
I hope you all don’t mind a semi ignorant fella tagging along on this thread. I came across a heavy barreled half stock percussion rifle in a pawnshop recently. Hand made stock, commercial percussion lock and brass patch box. Pewter forestock cap. Barrel is pinned not wedged. A brass plate has been soldered to the breech just at the lock (maybe a flint lock comversion?) Double set triggers. The lock functions but doesn’t hold on full or half cock. I can’t read the makers name on the lock plate. Any ideas?