AFA Autumn 2021

Autumn 64 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com His Horn” and dated 1774. The presence of the initials “SI” on another part of the horn seems redundant with respect to ownership but could be interpreted as Jones signing as maker. If that is the case, Jones should also be given credit for the decoration of Amos Barrett’s horn. Barrett may have turned to his Concord neighbor to tattoo it for him during the Siege of Boston, perhaps outside Boston where Jones was on picket duty in May 1775 (Amos Ba rrett’s movements in May a re unrecorded), or perhaps in Concord. Like the Abner Hosmer horn, Amos Barrett’s horn had a projecting lobe that was pierced with two holes for tying the strap. These lobes seem to have had a tendency to fail, and on this horn the lobe was removed and a gun screw (a sear spring screw, as armament specialist at Skinner Auctions, Chris Fox, has noted) was driven into the plug to serve as the strap attachment. The artistic quality of Siege of Boston horns can be very high, and the Jonathan Gardner horn (Figs. 7, 7a) is a good illustration of the fact. Bill Guthman characterized this as “an extremely visual horn,” deeply carved and well composed, and c onc luded t hat it s owner ha i led f rom Sunderl a nd , Massachusetts, serving in Roxbury and Dorchester Heights in the fall of 1776. The line of marching soldiers is one of the motifs Guthman traced from the horns produced around Lake George in the 1750s to the last full flowering of the art during the Siege. The phrase “Liberty & Property or Death” reflects John Locke’s concept of Natural Law, which was frequently posited in opposition to the laws of parliament during the lead-up to the Revolution. The final horn under consideration here is the Reuben Hosmer horn (Figs. 8, 8a). Characterized as a “fine Siege of Boston horn” in Guthman’s catalogue, Reuben Hosmer’s horn was carved by the same individual who carved the horn of his brother Nathaniel (Historic Deerfield). Both Reuben and Nathaniel were born in Concord, in 1739 and 1731, respectively. Hosmer’s horn features compass-worked pinwheels similar to those seen on Samuel Jones’s horn carved the year before and a pike-like fish frequently seen on horns from the 1740s onward. In the fall of 1940, the Reuben Hosmer horn came up for auction in the sale of the collection of James G.S. Dey, a Syracuse, New York, dry goods merchant. The auction took place at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in midtown Manhattan and the auctioneer was O. Rundle Gilbert, best known for his part in dispersing the 3600 crates of patent models that had been sold by the U.S. Patent Office. The Concord Museum found out about the horn when Gilbert previewed part of the Dey sale at the Museum of the American Indian in lower Manhattan. Reuben Hosmer’s horn, inscribed “Concord May 1775” and therefore carved just weeks after the epochal events of April 19, was irresistibly appealing. Fig. 6: Samuel Jones powder horn, Concord, Mass., 1774. Concord Museum Collection; Gift of Cummings Davis (A101). Photograph by Gavin Ashworth.

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