C. F. Wheal's Parker

[Wayne Owens]

After receiving a Parker letter describing my newest Parker, I decided to search this website for any information related to the gun. I found another thread which mentioned the person who ordered the gun, C.F. Wheal, as a Parker professional shooter. I thought this would be of interest to the membership and have attached several photos of the gun along with a copy of the letter.

[Wayne Owens]

Here are additional photos of the gun.

[greg conomos]

Neat gun. Those seem like pretty light trigger pulls.

[Dean Romig]

Awesome piece of wood on your CH!!

I wonder if Mr. Wheal ever shot with or against Harvey H. Brown, champion pigeon shooter of the day (see section on Harvey H. Brown in Shooting Flying and the American Experience by Ed Muderlak, Esq.) who lived on "Millionaire's Row" Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, OH.


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[Wayne Owens]

Dean,
I bet those two guns were side by side at the range. That is neat!

[Gary Carmichael Sr]

great find! very nice gun, Gary

[Bill Murphy]

The Brown gun was probably built for a Parker pro shooter as the Wheal gun was. The deep discount is a clue. Wheal also was shooting a high grade ten gauge top lever gun in the ten gauge era. Wheal's ten gauge is consecutively numbered to Parker pro William Perry's C grade Bernard gun. Wheal's pigeon gun was a Grade 5 and both Perry's and Wheal's gun had 33" barrels. Perry's C Grade was also pictured in Muderlak's book. Dean, do you own Brown's gun? Oddly, the Perry gun was built just before the advent of the hammerless Parker. Parker Brothers built Perry a hammerless gun, wanted him to shoot it, and the C grade top lever gun never got used and is in mint condition today. Wheal also owned a 16 gauge graded Parker which hit the market not too many years ago. One of our members owned it until recently.

[Bill Murphy]

Mr. C.E. Morgantharp was a director of a gun club in Cleveland and probably was the person who received the gun for Wheal.

[Wayne Owens]

Another interesting part of the gun's history is that I found a trap shooter from Cincinnati named Morganthaler. I think this is who ordered the Vulcan barrels in 1908. He was listed in Forest and Stream, volume 76, March 4, 1911 competing at a live pigeon shoot in Kentucky. The article stated that live pigeon shooting was forbidden in Ohio but still legal in Kentucky.