AFA Autumn 2021

Autumn 62 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com Museum collection includes horns that are part of this artistic tradition, but the collection is particularly distinguished by the horns that were at the North Bridge. These horns were used to load the muskets that fired, in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s stirring phrase, “the shot heard round the world.” The earliest horns in the collection are two that belonged to Stephen Parks of Concord, both decorated by the same carver (Fig. 1). Parks farmed near Nine Acre Corner, a part of Concord that became part of Lincoln in 1754. The horn with the smaller stature and brass mounts is an early form that hearkens back to the days before flintlocks, though it is dated 1747. The larger horn has all the features that Guthman identified as characteristic of the first phase of distinctly American military engraved powder horns, all of which are dated 1746 or 1747. As seen on the larger horn, these characteristics include the letters formed of parallel lines joined by ladder-like hatching with triangular serifs, colons composed of a pair of lozenges each bisected by a line, the finely engraved figures of two figures (perhaps the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland (Fig. 2), and the scattered menagerie of animals labeled with their names (Fig. 2a). At the base of the larger Parks horn is a double border, one resembling an embroidered band, and one a double row of opposed scallops separated by diagonal hatching. This border matches closely the border on the David Fletcher horn (Maine Historical Society). In all, Guthman identified three horns as the product of the individual he termed the Smith-Fletcher Carver, and the same carver worked the two Stephen Parks horns. The smaller Parks horn has the inscription “Joseph:Gar/Gift:To/Stephen/Parks” (Fig. 3). A reasonable interpretation of that inscription is that Joseph Gar carved the horn and gave it to Stephen Parks. That would identif y Joseph Gar as the Smith-Fletcher carver. Regrettably, Joseph Gar remains unidentified. He might have been a neighbor of Parks in Concord, or Parks and Gar may have served together during the Louisburg campaign. Joseph Gar clearly encountered Stephen Parks, David Fletcher, William Smith, and Meshach Taylor somewhere and carved their powder horns, but no service records from 1746–1747 survive for any of them. Some features of this group of horns, notably the suckling fawn (here spelled “FAN”) (fig. 2a), reappear in horns carved during the French and Indian War, which Guthman grouped under the heading Lake George School. During this period the art of the military engraved powder horn became more sophisticated, to no small degree owing to the artistry of a company clerk from Shrewsbury named John Bush. This carving tradition was ultimately transmitted to the horns carved around Boston during the Siege, an example of which is discussed below. Twenty-one--year-old Abner Hosmer of Acton was carrying his father’s powder horn when he was killed in the first round of firing Fig. 3: Stephen Parks’ smaller horn, with inscription from Joseph Gar (A102). Photograph by Gavin Ashworth.