Parker Museum

[B. Dudley]

Dave,

This brings up an interesting thing. I knew that I had read somewhere that the Parker built repeaters were put into service and that they did make an impact. I dug through the books that I have and found that it was in Peter Johnsons book that he mentions this. He goes on to say that Parker made two different designs of repeating rifles. One in 1860 and the other in 1864. He said that the repeater in 1860 was issued to the North Kentucky Malitia and that their use actually drove the confederates to petition Lincoln for their removal from service. His description of this gun was that it was .50 cal and the operation sounds like the Tripplet & Scott, but it never mentions the name. He only descibes the second design in 1864 as being a simply a .55 cal breech loading rifle that was produced for the US government.

No doubt, Johnson's book is somewhat inaccurate on some points throughout. But I thought I would just mention it. I knew I had heard that about some sort of outcry concerning the use of Parker build repeaters at some time by the Kentucky malitia.

[Autumn Daze]

Brian, Thanks for that additional info. These are indeed the guns Johnson was talking about. Don't forget though that there were a few repeating rifles making their way on the scene by 1864. Most notably was the Spencer Repeating rifle. Interestingly enough the Tripplet and Scotts were chambered for the 56-50 Spencer cartridge.