Davey Crockett's Rifle

[Steel Horse Rider]

We spent last week in San Antonio and of course we visited the Alamo touring both the church and the museum. They had a lot of Alamo memorabilia from Phil Collins of the band Genesis. Phil was an Alamo artifact collector and he donated his entire collection to the museum as well as commissioning a diorama of the battle as well as a 20 minute narration of the battle. There were a number of rifles attributed to defenders of the Alamo as well as a goodly collection of other artifacts he had acquired over his career. Although as always there is an "expert" nearby to point out the inaccuracies and the "expert" behind me loudly informed his friend that the caplock in the collection couldn't possibly be from the Alamo because they hadn't been invented yet. I didn't say anything.

 

[Mauser lover]

Well, it had been invented. But...

 

[Armored farmer]

I visited the Alamo again in March of '23
You learn a little bit each time.

 

[hawg]

The cap locks I've seen from pics of the museums collection were all long rifles. The percussion cap was invented in 1822 and the battle at the Alamo was in 1836 so it is a possibility there were some there. The ones in question could have been converted later. The rifle attributed to Crockett isn't the one he used in the battle.

 

[25-5]

Hallowed ground.

 

[forward observer]

I had read somewhere that Crockett was presented with a fancy caplock by a group of admirers from a political party sometime before leaving for Texas but that he left it behind since he worried that percussion caps might be hard to obtain on the Texas frontier.

The article linked below is not the one I originally read but it does mention the supposed cap lock rifle that was referred to as "Pretty Betsy". According to the article, the gun still exists but its owner apparently will not let anybody view it nor will he answer any questions about it.

David Crockett's rifles--True West magazine

Cheers