East Longmeadow resident has co-authored a 3-volume set of books about the Wesson brothers and their contributions to gun manufacturing in Massachusetts.
John D. Hamilton, arms and military historian volumes he co-authored about Frank Wesson and his brother Edwin Wesson.
The first gun that John D. Hamilton bought was a single-shot Winchester boy’s rifle that he paid $16.50 at Sears & Roebuck in the late 1940s after cashing in a war savings bond.
Living in Snyder, N.Y., a suburb of Buffalo, at the time, he was drawn to the chance at competing in target shooting for his high school, which sported a 20-position firing range underneath the auditorium, and to shoot against older competitors on local men’s teams.
Those early connections with guns, his lifelong interest as a competitive marksman and a career as a historian, led Hamilton to co-author a three-volume set of books about the contributions of Frank Wesson and his brothers in the area firearms industry. “Frank Wesson Gunmaker of Worcester, Massachusetts” was recently published.
It features the first volume written by Hamilton about Edwin Wesson, who was famous for his muzzle-loading target rifles and telescopic sites in the mid-1830s and early 1840s.
Volume two is written by Dick Littlefield and it covers the story of Frank Wesson, the younger brother of Edwin, and the pistols he manufactured first in California and later in Worcester.
Another brother, Daniel B. Wesson, did his apprentice work under Edwin Wesson and later went on to manufacture firearms at the Springfield-based Smith & Wesson with Horace Smith beginning in 1852.
Volume three, authored by Randall Setty, discusses more about Frank Wesson and his development of rifles. The set is also full of photographs of the various pistols, rifles and accessories they manufactured.
Hamilton’s interest in and research on Edwin Wesson began more than 35 years ago when he was director of the Museum of Our National Heritage in Lexington and was the owner of an Edwin Wesson percussion rifle.
“I got interested in him but I couldn’t find anything written about him. I did a lot of research and just put it away in my ‘Wesson folder’ until I was ready to write it,” said Hamilton, who lives in East Longmeadow with his wife, Martha, an authority on silver made for the early fur trade.
Another of Hamilton’s connections to the Wesson’s came while he was tapped by Roy Jinks to be director of the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum in Springfield (from which he retired in 2001).
Jinks, who at the time was on the museum’s board of directors, enticed Hamilton to take the job by saying he would be overseeing the 1,600-piece Smith & Wesson firearms collection that had just been donated to the museum.
“That was hard to turn down,” Hamilton said with a laugh.
Hamilton was particularly interested in Edwin Wesson because he taught his brothers Frank and Daniel “how to make guns and run a business and how not to run a business. He made some mistakes.”
Tom Rowe, publisher of the Frank Wesson set, said Worcester at one time was the “center of gunmaking” when the Wesson brothers were manufacturing firearms.
He noted that Hamilton’s passion for history and interest in arms and the military made him suited to write about Edwin Wesson.
“He’s a real student and a real historian who’s devoted his whole life to the study of New England history,” Rowe said.
Hamilton said he hopes the books educate readers on the firearms industry in this area.
“There was a time in American history when a lot of things were being developed. We had people in Massachusetts who took a chance and made them work. Edwin had all that going for him,” he said.
The price of the 11x17-inch size set of books is $400. It is available for purchase through Daniel Woods, P.O. Box 1212, Trinidad, Calif., 95570.