Benjamin Mills was born on February 8, 1810, in Palmyra, New York. He would go on to become one of the most celebrated gunsmiths of his time, both in the state of Kentucky where he would spend most of his working life and in the United States. He would also become the Master Armorer at the Harpers Ferry Arsenal, be present for the John Brown Raid at Harpers Ferry, and would die struggling with debt, with his name in many ways becoming just a mere footnote in firearms history, surrounded by myths and confusion. 

Some of the confusion lays in the fact that more than one Kentucky based gunsmith with the surname Mills worked during the 19^th century. Additional confusion comes from the fact that one of Mills’ more interesting accomplishments, working at the Confederacy’s Fayetteville Arsenal, is apparently unsubstantiated and comes primarily from the work of William Albaugh. In an attempt to make a discussion of Mills’ life and career as correct as possible, I have relied heavily upon the research and paper presented by Dr. Glenn Marsh of the American Society of Arms Collectors, which was published in the ASAC Bulletin #68 on pages 56-69.

Benjamin Mills appears to have learned his trade from his father, F.M. Mills who had been born in New York, but is listed as a Charlottesville, NC gunmaker according to Sellers. Interestingly both Sellers and Whisker, et. al. list a Benjamin Mills working in Charlottesville, NC circa 1784-1790 and later working in Harrodsburg, KY circa 1790-1814. They imply that this is the father of our Benjamin Mills and that our Mr. Mills is Benjamin Mills Jr. However, no indication has ever been found that the mid-19^th century Harrodsburg, KY based gunmaker Benjamin Mills ever used the suffix “junior”, so the link is tenuous. Dr. Marsh’s research suggests that Benjamin Mills may have adopted Kentucky as the state where he would live most of his life because of another potential relative, who appears in numerous documents variously as Alexander Mills, A.H. Mills and Hamilton Mills, with his true identity almost certainly being Alexander Hamilton Mills. This Mills was a rather wealthy gunsmith working in Mason and Lincoln counties during the 1820s and 1830s. Our Benjamin Mills had lived in Canada for some time prior to moving to Kentucky, and it was there that he had married his Irish immigrant wife Jane O’Connor in Toronto. He apparently worked as a gunsmith in Canada and at least one extant example of a Canadian-made Mills full-stock rifle is supposed to be known. Sometime circa 1839-40 Mills moved the family to May's Lick, in Mason County Kentucky and shortly thereafter relocated to Harrodsburg in Mercer County Kentucky, about twenty miles away. This is where he would spend most of his working life. Apparently Mills had already established quite a reputation for himself, at least within the firearms community, as according to a period newspaper reports, in February of 1842 none other than Christopher Houston “Kit” Carson, along with two traveling companions, came to Harrodsburg specifically to visit with Mills. According to the period accounts the trio was there for a couple of days and Carson fired a number of guns that Mills had produced. Eventually all three purchased rifles and Carson subsequently carried his Mills rifle while acting as the guide for John C. Fremont’s expedition to the Pacific Ocean. Considering that Carson could certainly have obtained a rifle from any maker who struck his fancy, including the famous Hawken brothers of St. Louis, the fact that he specifically chose a Mills rifle above all others was certainly a ringing endorsement for the rifle’s maker. 

However, more recent research suggests that this newspaper story is apocryphal. However, with that kind of published notoriety in the public eye and in the upper ranks of the arms making and using fraternity, Mills saw his business grow and become quite successful. By the early 1850s he had acquired land in the Harrodsburg community to establish his home and workshop and was gaining more notoriety as the supplier of the rifle to local man, Dr. Graham who claimed to be finest off hand shot in the country. In fact, a local shooting team was established by Dr. Graham, known as the Boone Club of Kentucky, that offered a $10,000 prize to the team that could beat them in a target match. No team ever took up the challenge, indicating that the shooters were either as good as they claimed, or that no one with access to those kinds of funds was willing to risk them in case the team was as good as they claimed. Dr. Graham boasted about the Mills rifle that he used and noted they were best made and most accurate rifles in there were. In fact, Dr. Graham specifically compared Mills’ guns to the other great rifle makers of the period, including Joseph Manton of London, Morgan James of New York and Frank Wesson of Massachusetts, claiming that the Mills product was better than all of the others. 

Mills’ exceptional reputation within the firearms community landed him a rather special opportunity. On November 1, 1858, Mills became the Master Armorer at the National Armory at Harpers Ferry, replacing the recently dismissed Samuel Byington. While the circumstances regarding the appointment are unclear, Mills does not appear to have advocated for the position himself and appears to have been chosen for the position by the government or the Ordnance Department, based upon his reputation. 

Mills held that position for exactly one year, resigning in a letter to Secretary of War John B. Floyd dated October 8, 1859, to take effect on November 1, 1859. The reasons for Mills’ resignation are multifaceted and appear to stem primarily from his perception that he had been insulted by not being appointed as the temporary superintendent of the armory while Superintendent Alfred Barbour was on a leave of absence in the fall of 1859. While the slight may have been very real in Mills’ eyes, there were probably multiple issues that affected his decision to resign. First, Mills was an outsider brought into a government job from the outside, apparently based upon his reputation as a gunmaker. This likely caused some discontent among those who had worked at the armory long term and who no doubt assumed they might have an opportunity to be promoted to the vacant master armorer’s position. Additionally, as noted in correspondence between Barbour and the War Department, Barbour felt that Mills was out of his depth in his position as master armorer. In fact, Barbour noted in his letter to Secretary of War Floyd:

“He may be a good mechanic in his way….the duty of the Master Armorer is not to make guns, but to command, and direct others. Mr. Mills has in my judgement very poor executive or administrative faculties, and so far from being an aid in the management of the Operatives, is an absolute encumbrance.”

This perception of his inability to manage people or the attendant paperwork of a manager is probably an accurate appraisal of his capabilities in that department. Barbour further noted later in the letter that: 

“He does not pretend (I believe) to know anything about the books and papers in his office.”

Interestingly, on October 17, 1859, just nine days after he wrote his resignation letter, and less than two weeks before it would become effective, John Brown launched his infamous raid on Harpers Ferry. Among the hostages taken and held in the Engine House were Master Armorer Benjamin Mills, who would later be rescued by then US Amry Lt. Colonel Robert E. Lee at the head of a detachment of US Marines. Very soon thereafter, Mills returned to Harrodsburg to continue doing what he loved to do, build quality rifles and firearms. 

It has long been noted by author William Albaugh that Mills subsequently worked at the Fayetteville Arsenal after the Confederacy captured Harpers Ferry and removed the rifle making machinery to that location. This seems to be the result of the logical assumption that since many of the Harpers Ferry workers were loyal southern Virginians who often went on to work either at Richmond or Fayetteville, that Mills did as well. When combined with the misidentification of the North Carolina based Benjamin Mills from the previous century, who later relocated to Kentucky, it is easy to see how this error could me made during an era where there was no internet and browsing period documents meant traveling to the National Archives to view them in person if they could even be located. No matter the reasoning, better researchers than I have determined that there is no primary source evidence that our Benjamin Mills ever worked at Fayetteville. In fact, the only indication that Mills ever did any Civil War related arms work is an invoice for repairing arms for the 19^th Kentucky Volunteer Infantry in February of 1862. The invoice, in the amount of $151.70 was for two days of work, with a total of eight workmen, inspecting the regiment’s arms and aligning barrels and sights. Interestingly, the only “military” type gunsmithing that can be attributed to Mills is his year working for the US government at Harpers Ferry and the repair of arms for the 19^th Kentucky US Volunteers. Nothing at all related to Mills working for or with the Confederacy can be located. 

However, his son Charles would fight for the Confederacy, enlisting in John Hunt Morgan’s Cavalry, serving in Company G of the 2^nd Kentucky (Basil Duke’s); Captain McFarland’s command. Charles would be captured in Harrodsburg, KY during Morgan’s Raid on July 14, 1863, and sent to Camp Douglas in Chicago. He would later be transferred to Point Lookout, MD in February of 1865 for exchange, after taking the Oath of Allegiance. Upon returning from the war, Charles would go to work for his father in Harrodsburg.

While the decade leading up to the American Civil War had been good for quality American arms makers, the war years and the years immediately after the war were not. The 1860 Census listed five apprentices in Mills’ household, one each from Kentucky and Pennsylvania, two from England and one from Holland. During the war, a pattern of debtor behavior started to establish itself with Mills that would eventually be his downfall. As noted by the Superintendent at Harpers Ferry, Mills was unable to manage the bureaucracy of business, he was a great gunmaker but a poor record keeper, bill payer or manager. By mid-1863 he owed significant sums to gunmaker and parts supplier J.P. Moore of New York and was starting to become embroiled in lawsuits regarding bills that were past-due. With the end of the war, and huge number of surplus arms on the market, Mills found business even worse than it had been during the war. The demand for muzzleloading arms was waning during the post-war era and it was cartridge breechloaders that were the future for the arms market. In an attempt to find income in a world where his skills as a craftsman were not currently needed, Mills expanded to buy a part interest in a sawmill and also branched out into whiskey making. His unpaid bills were mounting, and more lawsuits were being brought or were on the horizon. He owed money to his partner in the sawmill endeavor, and then the government placed a tax lien for $2,250 on his whiskey holdings for not paying his taxes. 

While in 1860 Mills had had five apprentices in his household, a decade later the 1870 Census revealed he now had none. His debt crisis resulted in the appointment of a commissioner to oversee the debt, divest the Mills family of their holdings and sell off anything and everything in an attempt to pay off his creditors. Somehow, after selling off all of his holdings, Mills and his wife managed to repurchase (on credit perhaps?) their home and workshop so they were not homeless and without any form of income. However, by 1873 it was clear there was no future in Harrodsburg for the family, so they relocated to Lexington, KY. At this time, the company was known as B. Mills and Son and now offered breechloading rifles and shotguns. A decade after relocating, the Mills family pulled up stakes again. This time Benjamin mortgaged his tools and returned to Harrodsburg, while Charles moved to Louisville to start over. Charles experienced moderate success in the gun trade and was a partner in at least two firearms ventures. He was working on his own as a gunmaker when he died of typhoid fever in 1895. His father Benjamin had died on August 6, 1888, of paralysis, possibly brought on by a stroke. He was 78 years old. His story is one of a talented craftsman who was capable of making the finest quality rifles and pistols of the period, but who had no business acumen. This meant that when times were tight, and he could not survive his own financial ineptitude by doing high volume business, things caught up with him and created a downward spiral which he could not escape from.

While the Mills name is found on a variety of arms, from simple percussion muzzleloaders to high-quality pistols and target rifles to breechloading arms, it was the target rifles for which was universally praised and known for. The guns have a very distinctive style and are of the highest quality. Typically, the guns are heavy barreled half-stock rifles with a “saw handle” tang normally associated with New England “saw handle” target pistols. The shape of the tang area gives the guns an instantly recognizable silhouette. The guns usually incorporate a skeletonized steel pistol grip to the rear of the triggerguard and usually feature double-set triggers. A variety of sight combinations and false muzzles are noted on Mills rifles as well. Stocks are often checkered, with separate forends that are attached in a variety of manners from ranging wedges to screws. Some multi-barrel cased sets are known, as are high-quality pistols of the same basic design, although Mills handguns are significantly less common than his long arms. While some earlier guns are marked on the barrel as well as the lock, most of the Harrodsburg production guns are only marked with the Mills name and the location on lock, which is invariably of the back-action percussion variety. His pistols are rather uncommon and are highly prized by collectors due to both their rarity and quality.

Offered here is a VERY GOOD+ to NEAR FINE condition example of a Rare Benjamin Mills Double Barrel Percussion Pistol. The pistol is nominally .40 caliber, a favorite bore size for Mills and many of his rifles are this caliber as well. The over and under round barrels appear to be forged and machined from a single piece of metal, rather than being two barrels that are joined by a rib, like double barrel shotguns were. The barrels are rifled with six lands and grooves of nominally equal width with a very slow rate of twist, as the rifling does not appear to even make an eighth of a turn in the 5 1/8” barrels, suggesting the twist is probably in the 1:48” range, fairly typical for a round ball rifle of the period. The pistol has an overall length of 9 ½” with the two barrels measuring 1 ¼” in height from the top of the upper breech to the bottom of the lower breech. The top of the upper barrel is marked CAST STEEL on the nocksform, the same mark that Mills applied to his rifle barrels as well. The breech is forged separately from the barrels and has a fenced percussion bolster on each side. The percussion locks are of Mills’ typical back action design and are marked in two lines:

B MILLS
HARRODSBURG KY.

The double locks are controlled with a single, adjustable single-set trigger. The percussion hammers are secured by bun-nuts with the hammers mounted on tumblers that have male threads, rather than the more conventional tumbler design of the period which used a conventional hammer screw that entered female threads in the tumbler. Mills regularly used this same bun nut and tumbler design on his rifles as well. The sights consist of a simple, but well machined, block notch rear sight mounted at the rear of the breech plug tang, behind the tang screw. The front sight is a well-made dovetailed blade on a wide base that is installed 11/32” from the muzzle on the top barrel. The sight radius is slightly more than 5 ½” which is about as long a sight radius as one could have on pistol with barrels of this size. The pistol is made without a forend or receptacle for a ramrod. The iron triggerguard incorporates a finger rest, a hold over feature often found on Mills’ target rifles. The barrels, breech and triggerguard of the gun are blued and it appears that the locks may have been color casehardened. The pistol has a one-piece figured walnut bag shaped grip that is neatly checkered from the tail of the lock to the butt.  A small rectangular German silver escutcheon plate is pinned to the butt of the pistol and is about 1 ¼” long and about  1/3” wide. This was probably to allow the owner to personalize the gun with his initials or names, but it is not engraved. Stylistically the pistol was probably built between the mid-1840s and mid-1850s. This period was probably when the concept of the double barrel percussion pistol was at the peak of its popularity. The percussion revolver was still a new product and not fully trusted by those who might rely upon their firearm to keep them alive, and the earlier repeating pistol concept, the pepperbox, was typically big and heavy for a relatively small caliber and was not completely reliable. Both percussion revolvers and pepperboxes were typically in smaller calibers of about .31 or smaller, and the larger caliber revolvers with bore sizes of .40 or larger were often too big and heavy to carry easily on your person. A .40 caliber double barrel pistol offered two reliable shots of a combat sized caliber in a package that was easily carried both in terms of size and weight. Until the introduction of the Colt “Belt Model” (the Model 1851 “Navy”), many serious men who carried a pistol for protection considered a double-barreled gun like this as the best compromise in terms of size, weight, stopping power and reliability, with the added advantage of more than one shot.

The pistol remains in about VERY GOOD+ to NEAR FINE condition. The barrels retain strong traces of old, thinning and faded blue that appears to be original to the gun, with the breech area retaining somewhat more of the thinning blue which is brighter. The areas where the blue has worn have a dull bluish-gray patina that is somewhat mottled with some areas having more a pewter gray color and others more of a bluish tone with some lightly oxidized plum patina mixed in. Under regular light the gun appears to retain more finish than it really does, but realistically the barrels just retaining thinning and faded traces of the blue with about 20%-30% coverage. The locks have a lightly oxidized mottled brownish and bluish-gray patina that suggest they may have been case hardened originally. The pistol shows some scattered light surface oxidation overall with some freckled areas of pinpricking here and there, some small patches of minor roughness and some scattered minor impact and handling marks. The markings on the locks and barrel are fully legible, although the word “CAST” is a little weak on the barrel and the there are some minor areas of weakness in the lock markings. The locks and single set trigger work as they should, with the hammers clicking tightly and securely into their cocking notches when the trigger is pushed forward to set it. The pistol was designed for the hammers to be cocked and fired one at a time and should both hammer be cocked and the trigger pulled, both hammers will fall at the same time. The bores of the pistol are in about VERY GOOD condition and retain clear, crisp rifling but are moderately oxidized and dark with some lightly scattered pitting. The lovely walnut grip remains in about VERY GOOD+ to NEAR FINE condition as well. The checkering remains crisp and sharp and the grip is solid and free of any breaks or repairs. There are two tight grain cracks that appear to be surface cracks that run diagonally from the lower left of the grip up to the lock. A narrow scratch is also present on the left side below the front edge of the lock. One other short, tight grain crack is present on the right side, on the lower edge of the grip, below the lock. Otherwise, the grip shows only some lightly scattered minor handling marks.

Overall, this is really a lovely example of a rare Benjamin Mills Double Barrel Percussion Pistol by one of the finest target rifle makers in mid-19^th century America. The pistol remains in very nice condition and fully represents the high quality of the firearms made by Benjamin Mills during this period. While Benjamin Mills made rifles are rare, they do appear on the market from time to time. However, his handguns are significantly less common and rarely come up for sale, in particular double-barreled examples. This pistol was made by a famous and desirable Kentucky gunmaker, who made allegedly made rifles for the likes of Kit Carson, and whose fame during the period earned him the job of Master Armorer at Harpers Ferry; if only for a year. During that year he over saw the final inspection of thousands of US Model 1855 Rifle Muskets, as well as Model 1855 Rifles, and was held as a hostage by John Brown. This is a pistol is steeped in history, made by one of the more interesting gunmakers of the period, and for you Confederate sympathizers, Benjamin Mills’ son even rode with Morgan and spent about 18 months at Camp Douglas in Chicago as a result. Mills’ handguns are extremely scarce and desirable, and do not appear on the market very often. This would be a wonderful addition to any collection, but in particular one that centers on Antebellum American pistols, Kentucky gunmakers or as an adjunct to a collection of mid-19^th century percussion target rifles. Don’t miss your opportunity to add this gun to your collection.

SOLD