WHEN Cornelis Wynkoop's musket was placed in the writer's hands, its original antiquity was obvious. A fractured fore stock, a slightly bowed barrel and a coat of grime covering its full six feet two and one half inches, proclaimed the old shooter a seasoned veteran. The unusual stretch from butt to muzzle was striking and it was felt at once, that in all probability, here we had the longest early colonial gun on record. Every detail of lock, stock and barrel placed the piece, conservatively, in the second half of the seventeenth century. On second thought one could well risk a more precise attribution and say 1660-1680.

    A glance at the illustrations make a detailed description superfluous, however, a few points are worth noting. The "fish belly" stock is of American cherry, nicely carved in the manner of the period. The lock is six and one-half inches long and attached to the stock by two screws. Hammer and lock plate have rounded faces with an incised decorative border of scallops and dots. The action of the pan and frizzen is not reinforced by a bridle; that of the tumbler is. The flash pan is not integrated with the plate. As can be seen the trigger finial is broadly rounded. The hammer is the gooseneck form at its best and stands cocked with fine aplomb.

    The ornamentation of the musket is in good taste and achieved for the most by the nicely engraved brass mounts. The butt plate is chased to spiral and foliate motives, while the trigger guard with spear head finials is deeply cut in longitudinal bands. The screw plate is a handsome pierced scroll. An escutcheon shows a capital letter C followed by W and K integrated. The ram is a hickory stick with a copper tip held in place by four fluted brass pipes.

    The fifty-nine inch barrel is circular throughout, smooth bored and .75 inch caliber. Attachment to stock is made by four pins and a screw piercing the tang. There is a blade sight foreward and a grooved one aft. The heavy breech is separated from the rest of the barrel by circular ornamental flutes. Marks of the London Gunmakers Proof House, a crowned G. P., and a crowned V, are impressed into the barrel, between them likewise under a crown are the unidentified initials I. W. Framed in a crisp, well cut scroll is the name Cornelis Wynkoop.

    Who was Cornelis Wynkoop? The writer concedes at once the possibility that the man conjured from a careful scrutiny of the early colonial documents of New York State, did not own or use this gun. Nevertheless he strongly feels that such a contingency is highly remote, especially in view of the fact that no other Cornelis can be found in the rather complete Wynkoop records of the period. Hence we proceed on the assumption that our musket once belonged to Cornelis (nicknamed Keese) Wynkoop of Kingston.

1 Reprinted from Hobbies (Chicago) February, 1942.

    In March 1644 Kiliaen Van Rensselaer's ship the Arms of Rensselaerwyck freighted with merchandise for the Mohawk trade, cast anchor off Manhattan Island. The manifest exhibited among other things the following:

"woollen, linen, and cotton goods, ready-made clothing, silks, glass, crockery, leather, fruit, cheese, spices, brandy, gin, wines, cordials, tobacco-pipes, nets, looking glasses, beads, axes, adzes, razors, knives, scissors, bells, nails, spoons, kettles, thimbles, pins, needles, threads, rings, shoes, stockings, gloves, combs, buttons, muskets, pistols, swords, shot, lead, canvas, pitch and tar, candles, stationery."

A value of 12,870 guilders was placed on the cargo. Considering a guilder to be worth forty cents and that in those days money having three times its modern purchasing value, it is seen that the Supercargo Pieter Wynkoop was directly responsible for upwards of $15,000 worth of the Patroon Rensselaer's property, moreover he had a direct pecuniary interest in the profits to be made by the sales at Beverswyck and Beeren Island.

    To the Manhattanites, involved at the time in a bloody war with the Indians, the arrival of the richly burdened ship was a godsend. Governor Kieft's militia was immobilized for lack of clothing and equipment. At once he requisitioned Pieter for shoes, payable in beavers and wampum. Wynkoop either acting under orders of the owner or eyeing the immensely richer profits to be made up the river, flatly refused to deliver the goods. Kieft provoked, issued a forced levy and seized the shoes.

    As an upshot to the affair the entire cargo was overhauled resulting in the discovery of gun powder and muskets not recorded in the original invoice.

    The law had been violated, the arms were declared contraband and the ship with its entire burden was confiscated. Criminations and recriminations were bandied and from the heavy litigious fog that enveloped the dispute, Pieter Wynkoop appears for the first time in early colonial history. He was Cornelis Wynkoop's father.

    We do not know where Cornelis was born, but he must have lived up in Rensselaerswyck with his father, having been familiar around Fort Orange (Albany) as early as 1655. On January 29, 1657 after much spirited bidding at a public sale, he purchased the house of Marcelus Janssen Van Bommel at Beverswyck for nine hundred and eleven guilders. Marcelus reserved the right to use the pigs' pen. Beverswyck was a small town and trading post, in 1646 it contained only ten houses, in 1672, one hundred twenty. In 1664 Wynkoop left Beverswyck to live in Wildwyck, Ulster County. This move was perhaps influenced by the murder of his nephew Gysbert Phillipse van Velthuysen in a rumpus with the Indians along Esopus Kill. That country of remote trading posts was the scene of many a debauch compounded of gun powder, rum and drunken savages. Cornelis requested that he be appointed curator of the dead man's estate. He was officially named administrator on November 25, 1659.

    As Wildwyck grew, its new citizen became a man of local importance. In the year that Wynkoop arrived, New Netherlands fell to the English and Wildwyck became Kingston. In 1673 it was restored to the Dutch and called Swaenenberg. In 1674 the English regained final control and renamed it Kingston. During the brief Swaenenberg period, the Dutch Governor Anthony Colve asked the burghers to nominate candidates for the town board of aldermen. Cornelis was nominated and officially appointed in October 1673. In the following year he sat with the local committee for defense against the incursions of the French. In 1675 he was granted a location for a brickyard.

    Cornelis Wynkoop emerges from the record as a rather solid, peaceful, bourgeois New Netherlander, steady and unspectacular. He married Maria Janse Langendyck who bore him seven children. No doubt like his father he was a trader, at the same time dabbling in most of the activities of his small community, including real estate and perhaps building. His public services as far as is known included membership on alms and defense committees in addition to three years as alderman (schepen). He was an active churchgoer and contributor to charitable funds. His will, drawn up and signed by him, is dated August 11, 1676, and now reposes in the County Clerk's office at Kingston, N. Y. He died in this town at an unknown date, sometime prior to July 8, 1679.

    The writer wishes to thank Miss Emma B. Swift for help in compiling the bibliography.

Documentary History of New York
    E. B. O'Callaghan, M.D., Albany, 1856.

The History of New Netherland or New York under the Dutch
    E. B. O'Callaghan, M.D., Albany, 1856

Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York
    Albany, 1858

Genealogy of the First Settlers of Albany 1630-1800
    Jonathan Pearson, 1872

History of Ulster County
    Nathaniel Bartlett Sylvester, 1881

The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, 1891

Year Book of the Holland Society of New York, 1897

History of the State of New York, 1933, Vol. II

Ulster County Probate Records
    County Clerks Office, Kingston, N. Y. (Gustav Anjou)

Munsell's Collection of the History of Albany, Vol. III

Source:

Mayer, Dr. J. R., F.R.M. "Cornelius Wynkoop's Musket", Hobbies, Chicago, February 1942: 4 pages.

    I would like to thank two people for their help with this article. First, an enormous vote of thanks goes to Jesse T. Wallace, [email protected] of Rochester, Minnesota for sending me this article in the first place and secondly a very special thanks goes to Gerard E. Wynkoop, [email protected] of Beaverton, Oregon for sending me a much clearer copy of the photographs. The originals were not nearly as crisp.

    Gerard's source was:

Kauffman, Henry J., Early American Gunsmiths 1650-1850, Bramwell House: New York, 1952

    Thanks Guys! I really appreciate your help.

    Chris