Historical Remington Firearms: The "Slim" Kohler Collection

Now On View
Cody Firearms Museum Study Gallery

A special firearms exhibition, Historical Remington Firearms: The Slim Kohler Collection is now on view in the Study Gallery of the Cody Firearms Museum. The private collection of 217 firearms and 53 related objects is on display in its entirety for the first time.

Farren T. "Slim" Kohler (1924-2006) was a director of the Remington Society of America and instrumental in coordinating the acquisition and installation of the first major Remington Arms Company exhibition, "It Never Failed Me": The Art and Arms of Remington Arms Company at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in 1997. Kohler collected unique Remington firearms for a large part of his life.

Many special pieces make up the collection, including a pair of Remington percussion revolvers made in 1864 for Tsar Alexander II (1855-1881) for a visit of a component of the Russian Imperial Fleet to the United States during the Civil War. The pair of revolvers is in a satellite display in the Embellished Arms Gallery of the Cody Firearms Museum.

"This collection contains some of the finest and rarest Remington handguns and long guns anywhere in the world," says Warren Newman, Interim Curator of the Cody Firearms Museum. "Especially impressive are the Remington Rolling Block pistols on display. These firearms have some of the strongest handgun actions ever made."

The Remington Arms Company is the oldest continuously operating manufacturer of firearms in the United States. For more than 150 years, since 1847, when the Remingtons produced the first contract of 1,000 carbines for the U.S. Navy, the Remington Arms Company has been making complete firearms at its prime facilities in Ilion, New York. Since 1816, Eliphalet Remington II and his employees supplied the gunsmiths of the region and eventually the nation with superior rifle barrels from the family forge and foundry, first in rural Herkimer County, and then at Ilion. This trade in rifle barrels gradually extended to percussion locks and brass fittings and furniture for the custom gunmaking trade. In the span of continuous existence from 1816 to 2003, Remington has produced more than thirty-six million firearms.1

Remington Arms Company History

On October 28, 1793, Eliphalet and Elizabeth Remington had their second child, a son they named after his father - Eliphalet II. As the couple's only son of their four children, Eliphalet II would follow in his father's footsteps and enter the blacksmith trade at the family's rural forge in Herkimer County, New York.

Situated in the Mohawk River Valley - the eastern gateway to the expanding "Northwest Territory" and in the path of the still to be constructed Erie Canal - the fieldstone Remington forge was astride a trade route that would bring prosperity to the family and the other inhabitants of the region. The expansion of population and wealth along that conduit of commerce would cause young Eliphalet Remington to enter the arms making business.2

In August 1816, then 22-year-old Eliphalet Remington II would forge his first rifle barrel. His initial experiment would prove a success, and the young blacksmith proceeded to make others to meet the growing demand for sporting rifles in the Mohawk Valley. With the completion of the Erie Canal, connecting Buffalo with Albany, commerce in the Mohawk Valley expanded remarkably. To meet the increased demand for rifle barrels, in 1828 the Remingtons moved their forge and foundry from its rural setting to 100 acres of land they had purchased astride the canal and abutting the Mohawk River near a town then called Morgan's Landing (later Ilion), New York. The move coincided with the elder Eliphalet's death, and Eliphalet II assumed control of the business. In 1839 he was joined by his eldest son, Philo Remington (to make the business "E. Remington & Son"), and in 1845 Eliphalet's second son, Samuel, also joined the company, afterwards called "E. Remington & Sons." Remington's third son, Eliphalet III, would also join the company later.

During this period, the Remingtons specialized almost exclusively in the manufacture of rifle barrels. These barrels, marked with the distinctive "REMINGTON" stamp near their breeches, were recognized for their quality and reasonable price. Many, if not most, of the independent gunsmiths in the Mohawk Valley purchased completed (but not rifled) barrels from Remington and assembled them into arms custom ordered by their customers. As demand increased, the Remingtons added other parts to their inventory, first percussion locks made in Birmingham, England but marked with their stamp "REMINGTON," and later sets of brass gun furniture, including triggerguards, buttplates, and patchboxes. After 1846, first martial longarm and then revolver production dominated the company's workforce.3

Remington supplied the U.S. Army with rifles in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). In 1847, Remington supplied the U.S. Navy with its first breech-loading rifle. In 1856 the business was expanded to include the manufacture of agricultural implements. Upon Eliphalet's death in 1861, his son, Philo, took over the firm during the Civil War, and diversified the product line to include sewing machines (manufactured from 1870 to 1894) and typewriters (1873), both of which were exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876.

The Remington Arms Company supplied a large proportion of the small arms used by the United States government in the Civil War (1861-1865) and in World War I (U.S. involvement 1917-1918) and World War II (U.S. involvement 1941-1945).

References

1. Howard Michael Madaus, The Guns of Remington: Historic Firearms Spanning Two Centuries. (Dayton, KY: Biplane Productions, 1997), p. XX.
2. Ibid., p. 3.
3. Ibid., p. 4.

Eliphalet Remington II (1793-1861). Remington Archives Collection

E. Remington & Sons Factory, Ilion, New York, c. 1854. Remington Archives Collection.