President Harrison AH

[Bruce Day]

Every once in a while, it is fun to remember past matters and guns. People may remember the wonderful article by Ed Muderlak and records research done by Mark Conrad when they found mention of an important AH grade 12ga Parker presented to President Benjamin Harrison. The gun had a rib inscription Presented to Pres Benj. Harrison and a presidential seal. At that point the whereabouts of the gun was unknown.

After the Muderlak/Conrad article was published in the Parker Pages, I received a call from an elderly hunting partner whose first words were that the gun was owned by a name descendent of Pres Harrison's brother and that Harrison had been my friend's hunting partner, had since passed away and was now owned by the son, and the gun was still actively used in hunting quail.

Well the rest of the story is that Pres Harrison gave the gun to his brother J Scott Harrison, it passed to son Ridge Harrison and then passed to J Scott Harrison the grandson. Pres Harrison had a grip cap made " Presented to J Scott Harrison by Benjamin Harrison 1891".

BUT, the original damascus barrels that had the rib inscription and presidential seal, one of them burst while quail hunting, the gun was sent back to Parker, who replaced them with plain Titanic barrels without preserving the rib or seal. And then later the gun was "restored" ( grrrrrr)
by Simmons here in Kansas City and you can see that Simmons buffed the A grade engraving and BLUED the action. And installed a new stock with a white line recoil pad.

On the best side, the gun is still family owned, who is very much aware of the heritage and kept in a safe. I was once asked what it would take to truly restore the gun to original specifications, and of course it was a high amount, it could be done, and there are craftsmen who could do it.

So, photos were given to me, they are not the best, showing the Pres Harrison gun as it is now, and here they are:

[StubTwist]

A history nut like me, this is an amazing story. Too bad about the top rib with the Presidential Seal. It only leaves us to the imagination what it may have looked like. I bet it was flawless.

Thanks Bruce for sharing.