The Freeman Revolver

Hoard had obtained ratification of his Springfield contract, but as his testimony before Holt and Owen indicated, he felt that revolvers offered greater profits. Much of the machinery listed on the large bill which he presented to the Commissioners, in arguing that his musket contract should be confirmed, was doubtless capable of manufacturing revolver parts as well. To obtain a revolver design he went to Binghamton where Austin T. Freeman worked. To judge from the handle configuration of the revolver eventually made under Freeman’s patents, Freeman worked at the Starr Armory and either openly or secretly was

Smith & Wesson’s revolvers were made in quantity but firm preferred to sell smallbore .32s and ,22s to private soldiers than engage in government work. Top gun, known as No. 2 Army, was used by officers to some extent. Indiana cavalryman Col. Edward Anderson owned pearl-handled specimen with 6" barrel with which he executed over 50 suspected Confederate spies or guerrillas.

intending to effect an improvement by preparing a single-action style of revolver. The location of the rear screw in frame, hammer pivot screw, and a screw near the front edge of the wood handle, are much the same in the Starr and the Freeman guns. Freeman’s design has a full handle strap instead of the one-piece grip of the Starr. The Freeman revolver has two-piece grips held by a center screw and escutcheon in ordinary fashion. But the cylinder without recesses for the cones and with the back turned to a bevel shape, like the Starr, where it runs in the lock, suggests how strongly Freeman was influenced by Starr. The front of the frame is pure Remington, and the frame is solidly joined to a rounded standing breech, instead of the concave-flared standing breech of the Starr. The Freeman loading lever latch is similar to that of the Starr, which is unlike any other arm of the time. Not necessarily significant, the Starrs and Freemans have six groove rifling. Freeman’s patent of December 9, 1862 (No. 37091) is stamped on all known Freeman revolvers, so the gun could not have been in production much before that time, and none sold without the mark.
Manufacturer was C. B. Hoard, who produced a very small number of these 7 Vi-inch barrel .44 six-

C. B. Hoard at Watertown, N.Y., made Freeman revolver which has strong resemblance in frame to Starr design. Design of Freeman was probably swapped to Rogers & Spencer for their stock of Springfield musket parts.

shooters at his Watertown, New York, remodeled farm tool works. Serials over 1700 have been noticed but none bear U. S. inspectors’ marks and none are listed as having been bought by the United States. No State of New York or other purchases are at present known. Superintendent was W. A. Roberts, formerly of Remington. It is possible that the manufacture of the Freeman began to be more a headache than a profit to Hoard, who must have found that producing the Springfield was not all moonlight and roses. The Hoard revolver thereupon disappears from the scene, and the Rogers and Spencer bursts upon the market. In between was the brief and accepted military revolver, the Pettengill, produced by Hoard’s neighbors at Willow Vale, Rogers and Spencer. A “pepperbox” with revolver frame, it is the only hammerless percussion revolver bought by the United States.