Picked up a few items

[BBurkett]

I've been fortunate to pick up a few items recently, namely a Whitney Manton musket, another "blank plate" 1864 dated Whitney with a '61 sight in the '55 position and a letter Whitney wrote to a Gen Williams of Hartford telling him of 100 "imitation Enfields" available for sale and to come and inspect them as soon as possible. Just something neat to have as an accessory to my show displays. If you look closely, you can see Whitney on the plate under "MANTON" where Whitney scrubbed his name and substituted the Manton lock. Whitney did this to disassociate him from the product as the quality was inferior and not to be subject to Federal gauging and only for State sales.

 

[vmicraig]

Good eyes, Brian. I probably wouldn't have noticed the Whitney inscription

 

[BBurkett]

Upon further research, I found that this lockplate was originally from Whitney's Plymouth Naval Rifle batch. He filed down the plate and added the Manton script. It truly shows his ability to "waste not, want not" in reusing old stock/over stock parts.