Just as the Colt revolver and the Winchester rifle are icons of the post-Civil War West, one gun symbolizes the era of the fur trade.
The rifle was the primary weapon for sustenance and defense with the early trappers and explorers in the American West. Although specific firearms makers are seldom mentioned in accounts left by these frontiersmen, we do know they initially carried the delicately fashioned, eastern flintlocks. Guns like the graceful, brass-fitted, Kentucky long rifle (44 to 46 inches in length) style with slender curly maple stocks and bore sizes of around .40 to .45 caliber, or the slightly heavier and simpler, unadorned (or iron-mounted) walnut-stocked .45 to .50 caliber southern or Tennessee rifles were the norm. It wasn’t long though, before they discovered that these smaller caliber guns were inadequate for the big game encountered in the far West, especially for longer-range shooting which was common in the Western mountains and plains. Gradually, these long rifles were modified by shortening and strengthening with a thicker stock, stronger lock, reboring the barrel or replacing it with a shorter, heavier one of .50 or greater caliber.
In the burgeoning Western fur trade, the most convenient jumping off locale for these trans-Missouri River traders was St. Louis, which had become the center of all business involved with the frontier. A number of gunsmiths were prospering there, largely through the Indian trade, and by modifying and repairing eastern guns to meet the demands of the rugged mountains. One of them, Jacob “Jake” Hawken, a gunsmith who arrived in St. Louis in 1807, eventually opened his own shop on Main Street in 1815 and by 1819 was evidently partnered with gunsmith James Lakenan. By 1825, with the death of Lakenan, Jake’s younger brother Samuel had joined up with him, resulting in the J. & S. Hawken partnership, which lasted for the next 24 years.
The timing and location was perfect for them, since their partnering coincided with the beginnings of the Santa Fe trading and the founding of the major fur companies Ashley & Henry Fur Company, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, the American Fur Company and others. Initially the brothers kept busy working on individual customers’ rifles. They’d shorten and strengthen their older longrifles to suit hard usage in the West. Ultimately, the brothers began supplying their own unique big-game rifles to the large outfits, as well as individual “free” trappers. Although these “Hawkins” (as they were referred to in several written accounts of the period) were not necessarily better than other rifles of the era, their ruggedness, uniform workmanship and performance soon earned the brothers a reputation as makers of fine “mountain rifles.” The Hawken rifle became the hands-down favorite of frontiersmen like Christopher “Kit” Carson, Jim Bridger, James P. Beckwourth, Jedediah Smith, Hugh Glass and many other mountain men, scouts and traders of the early West.
