Release Date: Tuesday, April 26th 2011

Post-Gazette: At Fort Pitt Museum, 'The American Frontier Rifleman' exhibit hits bull's-eye in timing

At Fort Pitt Museum, 'The American Frontier Rifleman' exhibit hits bull's-eye in timing

Rifle exhibit will coincide with ... the NRA convention!

Monday, April 25, 2011

By Vivian Nereim, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Standing amid 18th-century rifles, Alan Gutchess seemed perfectly at home.

Director of the Fort Pitt Museum, Mr. Gutchess can build reproductions of antique wooden rifles by hand. He once worked at the gunsmith's shop in colonial Williamsburg. The history of the skilled rifleman -- a romanticized figure who traversed America from the revolutionary war through the 1820s -- is a "lifelong fascination" of his, he said.

When "The American Frontier Rifleman: Tall Tales & Truth" opens Thursday, the exhibit will cap a year's work for staff at the museum, located in Point State Park. The fact that 65,000 National Rifle Association members will descend on Pittsburgh for an annual convention the same day? Merely a coincidence, Mr. Gutchess said -- but a happy one.

Staff moved the opening date of the exhibit to accommodate the convention attendees, and they are offering NRA members half off the $5 admission through May 1. The exhibit runs through Oct. 30.

"Obviously we're hoping to appeal to people who are already into guns, but ... there's more to it than that," Mr. Gutchess said.

The exhibit will include more than 50 objects, some on loan from institutions, many culled from private collections.

In addition to about a dozen rifles, the museum will showcase gear essential to the true rifleman. Powder horns -- cow horns used to carry gunpowder -- make an appearance, including an 18th century example engraved with patriotic sayings: "LIBERTY OR DEATH," "KILL OR be KILLD."

An original 18th century hunting shirt, a dusty-looking but well-tailored garment, also will be displayed. Owned by a collector, the shirt will be shown to the public for the first time this week, Mr. Gutchess said.

"There were thousands of these garments in existence in the period, and now there's only four believed to be from the 18th century," he said.

Mr. Gutchess' favorite object is an enormous rifle once owned by a member of a Washington County militia.

"It was carried for so long ... to the point where they wore through the wood, and yet it was never abused," he said. "It may be related to the fact that it stayed in the same family."

The exhibit also will feature memorabilia from the rifleman nostalgia of the 1950s, fueled by Disney's wildly successful "Davy Crockett" television series.

"Every little boy in America had a coonskin cap at one time, so he could be like Davy Crockett," Mr. Gutchess said.

"We haven't forgotten the ladies," Mr. Gutchess added, noting that many women on the frontier used rifles to protect their households while their husbands were away. The exhibit will highlight two regional riflewomen, Louisa St. Clair and "Mad" Anne Bailey.

St. Clair, the daughter of Arthur St. Clair -- governor general of the Northwest Territories -- was skilled with a gun, despite her more gentile upbringing.

"She could out-ride, out-run, out-shoot all the boys," Mr. Gutchess said.

Bailey, a West Virginian who outlived multiple husbands, was described by travelers as a fearsome woman with a leather coat and a rifle.

"She had more of a reputation of being a little askew," Mr. Gutchess said.

A gateway to the West, the Pittsburgh region was important to rifle-using culture, Mr. Gutchess said.

"Braggart, bully and trick-shot" Mike Fink, popularly depicted as one of Crockett's opponents, was a riverboatman on the Ohio River, he said.

"There's more fiction about him than fact," Mr. Gutchess said. "But he appeared to have been born right here at Fort Pitt."

Vivian Nereim: vnereim@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1413.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11115/1141781-53.stm#ixzz1Ke6dcEnG