(The flintlock musket that Norman Bilger retrieved from the trash has a story to tell)

An old musket, rusty, broken and with some of the upper wooden stock partially burned off was taking up space.  Like so many other things 'taking up space' it eventually found itself with the next load of trash in the bed of a truck and about to be taken to the dump.  But as the saying goes, 'one man's trash is another man's treasure' and that was the case here as it fortunately caught the eye of Norman Bilger of Sandusky, Ohio and was retrieved.

The musket found its way to Norman's home, but it's trials were not over.  A tornado which struck the area managed to take the roof off Norman's home, sending the musket flying over 500 feet into a nearby field.  Prior to this the musket had a flint clenched in the jaws of the cock but the flint was gone and a brass band holding the remaining stock to the barrel was broken and jammed out of position further down the barrel.  That was it's condition when Norman shown it to me on my first visit to his home.

From our discussions, Norman decided take it to several historians in the area who, after examining it, said they felt it was of the right period, but could tell little more from it.  While there were some markings, perhaps mis-leading us, there was no clear identifying gun makers marks.  So after a time, the musket eventually found itself at the home of Michael Lea, a Columbus based gunsmith, who formerly worked with the Ohio Historical Society to determine once and for all what the musket was and more importantly what it wasn't.

The hour long session was best likened to peeling an onion, uncovering one piece of information after another until a pretty clear picture emerged as to who made the musket and when.  Michael's initial impression as he rolled the musket over and over in his hands as he scrutinized it was basically re-affirmed by sessions' end and that being that the musket was of Belgian manufacture, most probably by the gun maker, Leige.

I gave Michael the liberty of taking the musket apart to see if he could find any additional markings he sought on the underside of the barrel, directly beneath the markings that can be seen on the top.  He was very careful as he preceded and he seemed to have that second sense of how these were put together, so nothing was damaged in the attempt.  After taking the musket apart and observing that the barrel sported a mounting bracket which was was attached to the trigger guard by a screw,  Michael felt confident that despite the lack of an identifiable gun makers mark that the gun maker was Leige.  He said that this method of attachment was used extensively by them, and that there was also a period when Leige briefly stopped marking it's guns and this musket appeared to be from that period.

So just what is a Belgian musket you might be asking? The Belgian gun makers were at that time producing cheaper copies of better known muskets such as the English Brown Bess, French Charleville or any other muskets that were popular at the time.  This musket is about as exact a copy of a 1777 French musket as one could possibly get when we compared it with detailed pictures in one of the references. Everything matched exactly, from the extra protruding lip on the frizzen, to help eliminate cuts from the knife like edge of the flint during the hurried closing over the pan (see photo at left), to the finger ridges on the trigger guard (see photo at right).  But there were three exceptions and that was first a choice of materials, second of construction and third of gun makers marking.  The original French musket used European oak instead of sycamore and the fixtures such as the trigger guards, butt plates, etc.  were made of blackened wrought iron instead of brass.  Sycamore was a cheaper wood, while brass fittings were easily sand cast instead of having to be forged and then filed down to shape as wrought iron would be. Secondly, upon examining the barrel, out in full view, there was rectangular column of metal protruding down at a right angle from the barrel through the wood stock and attached by a metal fillister screw to the trigger guard, this was only done by the Belgians.  Thirdly the lack of an easily discernable makers mark was a dead give away that it was not of French or English manufacture as they made sure their mark was plainly and unmistakably visible to anyone.

This makers mark is something worth commenting on further as it seemed he could not find one comparable to what appeared on this musket in any of his references.  He was expecting to see an oval or a triangle stamped on the underside of the barrel with the initials "L, E, G" for the "Leige" gun works of Belgium, but instead found the unusual mark as seen on the butt plate (see photo at right).  However, notations in one of his books stated that between 1810 and 1860, this company did not use either of these marks. This unusual mark he believes was used in place of their usual stamp.  So at a earliest, this musket might have seen action in the War of 1812, but Michael said his opinion was that it was later than that, sometime between 1830 and 1840.

To say the least, this was a bit of a disappointment as it was originally thought that this could have been the Revolutionary War musket of our own John George Adam Bilger as Norman had stated during my first visit that the gun had been in the family for a very long time.  It also sported a 'JB' or 'JP' stamped at the back end and top of the barrel, which we construed to have possibly been 'J'ohn 'B'ilger or 'P'ilger.  The musket's similarity to this 1777 French musket is probably what lead the earlier historians to place it in the Revolutionary War period.

In summation, the flintlock musket that Norman owns is a Belgian made copy of a 1777 French military musket made sometime between 1830 and 1840 by a Belgian gun maker named Leige. The stock is made of sycamore, the barrel wrought iron of .069 or .070 caliber.  I asked him about the value of the piece and possible refurbishment.  His comment was that the cost to bring it back to it's original condition, around $400.00, would give you a musket worth $250.00 if sold at market value and that, unfortunately,  was the simple reality of it.  Several final points, if the musket were ever to be repaired to it's original condition, it is missing a steel, not wooden ramrod and a third brass fitting that would have also served as the upper attachment point for the sling. That upper lug, (see photo at right) welded to the underside of the upper end of the barrel is indeed the attachment point for a bayonet.

I asked about measures to preserve the musket as is and he suggested wiping down the barrel and iron parts with turpentine using a burlap rag to remove excess rust and followed by a very light coating of oil.  For the wood stock he suggested using a wax used by bowling alleys to coat them called 'butchers wax' of which there are two liquid varieties, one orange and the other having a whitish tint. It is this whitish tinted variety which the Ohio Historical Society uses to protect it's guns.  If not that, he also suggested using shoe polish, the natural colored variety, which has no pigment.  However, he warned against ever using either varnish or epoxy as he says their use makes it virtually impossible from ever restoring the musket to it's previous condition.

Even though this musket may never have ushered any Hessian prisoners to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, it is an old piece and does accurately represent the type of musket John George Adam might have used at that time as many French muskets did end up in the hands of the colonial army and to a lesser extent, the militia of which John George Adam, George Ludwig and John Henry belonged.