200-Year-Old Flintlock Unearthed from the Cowlitz
A rare brass pistol, dredged from the riverbed near Longview, is sent to London in search of its origins.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
At Longview, Washington, a brass flintlock pistol estimated to be 200 years old was recently discovered after being thrown up by a dredge in the Cowlitz River. The weapon was found by A. N. Thorndike in a perfect state of preservation, save for the handle, which had rotted away. The piece is untarnished and bears a London trade mark on one side, and a crest featuring a crown over a crossed sword and gun on the other. It has been sent to a Portland gunsmith who confirmed its antiquity; it is now bound for London, where researchers hope to uncover the history of its owner and how it came to rest in the Cowlitz.
“The weapon was untarnished and unstained and bore upon one side a London, England, trade mark.”
Longview was a planned industrial city that exploded in population in the 1920s; the dredge likely hit a historical layer of the river that had remained untouched for generations. The story reflects the era's fascination with colonial artifacts as a way to anchor the relatively young settler history of the Pacific Northwest in an older, European narrative.
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