Hi all! I am trying to volunteer monthly at our local San Juan Bautista Historic State Park, which incorporates a Spanish Mission. I'm creating a persona based around my own real ancestors in order to keep the genuine traditions and skills I learned on the ranch alive.
My ancestor was 1/4 Chickasaw, and participated in the Trail of Tears in 1838 to Oklahoma just to keep up with his mother's family. After that he got a job scouting and foraging into Texas for the Mexican War in 1846-1847. Nothing really heroic, a few brushes with Comanches and Mexican scouts, in which nobody seems to have died. He accidentally shot himself through the calf dropping a "Colt's Revolver" on its hammer, so we can guess he loaded six, not five. After the war he kept going, all over the continent with his younger brother until they became miners/lumbermen in 1849 in California. He married a part Spanish, part Mutsun local woman and had kids in his 50's. He also married a ranch!
Just for CAS I'm going to try to buy a Henry this year and move him up to 1869 for the competitions. But the mission persona is in the 1850's. So he's 57 years old in 1857. He is tri-lingual: Spanish, English, and Chickasaw. He later becomes quadralingual because he learns Mutsun.
We know he had a flintlock musket, apparently an 1816. During the Civil War the pro-Unionists apparently issued percussion conversion 1816 muskets to local loyalist militias. he had one of them too, which is now in the hands of a relative. He had a percussion fullstock rifle in .54. We also know that he later had a Spencer, a Henry, several percussion "Colt's Revolvers, and later in life an 1873 Colt in .44-40 which we still have.
Apparently like some of us modern folks he never saw a gun he didn't like. He seems to have kept flintlocks much later than history would suggest their use, and family oral history says that everybody around here on California ranches had them as well. So while he bought a Spencer he apparently took the percussion gun out for a walk every once in awhile.
He was quite literate and followed the latest books: we still have some poetry volumns. Emerson, etc. We also have his glasses, etc. He insisted on proper diction and had periods when he was smooth shaven and times when he had a giant beard. But in 1857 he apparently was clean shaven.
So...please tell me about him. What did he wear? Did he prefer to ride a horse or a wagon, and did he use oxen getting here? I am thinking that since all his other guns were large caliber he probably used Dragoons. I plan on loading 5 only.
When he used a Dutch Oven, did he use the new round flat-topped version or the old tripod round kettle?
Any comments welcome. Thanks, and Happy Thanksgiving.