Museum accessions.(collection of colonial American powder horns to Historic Deerfield)

Shortly before his death earlier this year, the collector and dealer in militaria William H. Guthman arranged for the transfer of his renowned collection of colonial American powder horns to Historic Deerfield, in Massachusetts--one of the few museums in the country that, thanks to the town's important role in the French and Indian Wars, can feature the cultural history of the period on site. A uniquely North American art form, carved powder horns were first produced in the 1740s and continued to be made well past the American Revolution, particularly along the frontier of northern New England, upper New York State, the eastern Great Lakes region, and eastern Canada. They developed because many soldiers fighting in the series of conflicts now known collectively as the French and Indian Wars could not afford or did not have cartridge boxes, so they stored their gunpowder in hollow cow's horns.

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The smooth surface of horn lent itself to engraving, and since it was necessary to document ownership, powder horns are often engraved with a name and usually with the date and / or location of fabrication. Many are much more elaborately decorated, often by carvers who came to specialize in this new art. Among these were Jacob Gay, whose career spanned almost thirty years and to whom the horn illustrated above is attributed. It belonged to Samuel Connor of Pembroke, New Hampshire, and was probably made at Fort Number Four in Charlestown, New Hampshire. Among the features of Gay's work are flowers, geometric designs, and an adaptation of the British royal coat of arms in which the central figure represents an American soldier and the motto reads, "Success To," not the king, but "the American ...