20ga DHE 24"

[Bruce Day]

How about a change of pace?

This is the little gun John Dunkle likes. He shoots it well.

I wrote an article about it in the Parker Pages several years ago. It was ordered in 1910 by Mr Howard of Halifax, Nova Scotia for his fiancee' in Red Springs, North Carolina and had to be delivered before Christmas or no sale. The gun is 5 3/4lbs, rounded on the toe, 14" LOP so she was not tiny. IC and Mod. She married him and went to Halifax and used the gun into her 80's. Ron Granger, a British Columbia PGCA member and collector, then acquired it and then I got it from Ron about 6-7 years ago. The gun had not been messed with. The Titanic barrels were mostly silver and blotchy, so I had them refinished and new wood finish top coats rubbed in to cover bare places. The ejectors were gummed up but Rem Action Cleaner solved that. Other than that, the gun is as it was made.

In my research, I found that the area around Red Springs NC was home to Royalists before the Revolutionary War, many of whom fled to the Canadian Maritimes when the war ended yet maintained family ties. The Howard family was known in shipping circles in Halifax, so perhaps that is the connection.

The records do not show that many D grade 20/24" were made and show no others with either a half pistol or a checkered butt, so this is likely a unique gun. I don't think there are many Parkers known to be made for a woman; this and the Annie Oakley guns come to mind.