4/30/2012

Originally Published in American Rifleman, Jan. 2002

"The Winchester stocked and sighted to suit myself is by all odds the best weapon I ever had, and I now use it almost exclusively ... .”—Theodore Roosevelt, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman

He was a human dynamo. He was the 26th and youngest President of the United States. He was an avid hunter, a Nobel Prize winner, a wildlife conservationist, a war hero, a Life member of the National Rifle Association, the author of 39 books, a father of six and the most gun-savvy man to ever occupy The White House. When it came to gun knowledge or shooting skill, no chief executive, now or then, was his peer.

When it came to firearms he wrote a number of times that his favorite was the Winchester. From his first Winchester, a Model 1876 he ordered when he was 22 years old, to his favorite Model 1895, last used on a river exploration just scant years before his death at the age of 60, Roosevelt’s Winchesters are now legendary and priceless pieces of Americana.

Roosevelt, who was fond of exquisite goods, had within his economic means the ability to own any rifle manufactured during the period. Fine English doubles were considered the apex of the sporting world, yet Roosevelt choose an American classic or, perhaps, the rifles he chose helped make them classics. Roosevelt’s poor eyesight may have been a mitigating factor in his fondness for the arms of Oliver Winchester and his Winchester Repeating Arms Co. He was quoted as saying that he didn’t “know how to shoot well, but I know how to shoot often.”

No gun of the period shot more often or as reliably as did the Winchester—some models were capable of holding as many as 16 cartridges. Roosevelt no doubt enjoyed the capability of having plenty of ammunition in the gun as well as having a firearm that could easily bring each successive round into battery with effortless ease and remarkable reliability. To a man whose shooting skill was severely hampered by his eyesight—nearsightedness and later blindness in one eye—the fact that a Winchester could be sighted and fired, and fired again without having to remove the gun from his shoulder would have been a welcome feature for this “Bull Moose” of a man.

He special ordered his first Winchesters in the late summer of 1881, possibly to celebrate the publication of his second book, The Naval War of 1812. He ordered a pair of consecutively numbered Model 1876s, and these guns would be similar in composition to nearly every one of the next 20 Winchesters that he ordered. When he wrote “stocked and sighted to suit me,” he meant that the guns should have half-round and half octagonal barrels, pistol-grip, deluxe-checkered stocks, case hardened receivers—sometimes factory engraved—plain triggers, half-magazines, shotgun butts and special sights. Generally, enough special order features were desired by Roosevelt to cause the price of the gun to double!

In the summer of 1883, Roosevelt was hit with a bout of wanderlust that directed his daydreams to the plains of the “Wild West.” He decided to check out the Dakota Badlands along the Little Missouri River. His Winchesters caught the attention of everyone who saw them and they marveled at the exquisite nature of the engraving and checkering. William Dantz, who remembered meeting Roosevelt, was so impressed by one Winchester that he mistook it for the exceedingly rare 1 of 1,000 model (he never did own one). To those who had grown up on the Plains, Roosevelt was the epitome of an Eastern dude. Dressed in a fringed and embroidered shirt and buckskin pants with a wide-brimmed Boss-of-the-Plains Stetson, he looked the part of the hapless greenhorn that every dime novelist depicted.

Though his trip diary mentions nothing of the two deluxe Winchesters in his personal inventory, he managed in 16 days to bag one bison, a blacktail buck, assorted rabbits, grouse, teal and other such wildlife all with a Sharps .45-cal. 1874 Sporting rifle or a 10-gauge double-barreled shotgun that had been a gift from his brother Elliott. He was so impressed with his guide, Joe Ferris, and the territory he had traveled that he promptly purchased a sizeable ranch and made Ferris a foreman along with fellow guide William Merrifield.

Roosevelt returned east to run for re-election and await the expected birth of his first child who was due in mid-February of 1884. As the winter passed, the re-elected assemblyman began to plan a grizzly bear hunt for his next trip to the Badlands and purchased a second ranch called the Elkhorn, not far from his Maltese Cross ranch purchased the year before.

On Valentine’s Day, 1884, he received a wire while on the floor of the New York State House in Albany. He rushed home to find that his wife had delivered a healthy baby girl, named Alice Lee, after her mother. However, the heartfelt joy of a first child was quickly diminished as first his mother and then his wife both died within hours of each other. Devastated and heartbroken, he sought solace in the Badlands of the West.

Scheduled to begin his second expedition exactly one year after his first one had begun, he ordered two more Winchesters, an 1873 in .32-20 Win. and another 1876 in .45-75 Win. (the previous two had been in .50-95). Roosevelt had pretty much decided to lose himself in the Dakota Territory and make a go of being a rancher. It was possibly during this trip that Roosevelt made a present of one of those first new Winchesters he had bought in 1881. He had a special gold plate (a motif that he would use repeatedly) engraved and mounted on the butt with an inscription to William Merrifield and it carried the brand of the Maltese Cross ranch.

This time, the hunting was to provide Roosevelt’s first taste of dangerous game, a grizzly bear. During the hunt, he and Merrifield came upon the king of North American beasts. He recounted to his sister in a letter: “I shall not soon forget the first [grizzly] I killed. We had found where he had been feeding on the carcass of an elk; and followed his trail to a dense pine forest, fairly choked with fallen timber. While noiselessly and slowly threading our way through the thickest part of it, I saw Merrifield, who was directly ahead of me, sink suddenly to his knees and turn half around, his face fairly ablaze with excitement.

“Cocking my rifle and stepping quickly forward, I found myself face to face with the great bear, who was less than twenty five feet off—not eight steps. He had been roused from his sleep by our approach; he sat up in his lair, and turned his huge head slowly towards us. At that distance and in such a place it was very necessary to kill or disable him at the first fire; doubtless my face was pretty white, but the blue barrel was as steady as a rock as I glanced along it until I could see the top of the bead fairly between his two sinister looking eyes; as I pulled the trigger I jumped aside out of the smoke, to be ready if he charged; but it was needless, for the great brute was struggling in the death agony, and as you will see when I bring home his skin, the bullet hole in his skull was as exactly between his eyes … . This bear was nearly nine feet long and weighed over a thousand pounds.” The trip lasted seven weeks, the longest hunting expedition mounted by the future President until his African Safari of 1909-1910.

A review of various articles and books, most notably R. L. Wilson’s “Theodore Roosevelt—Outdoorsman” confirm that he had at least 20 Winchester rifles in his collection. By far, it was the gun for Roosevelt. When it came to presenting a gift to an admired associate or hunting companion, Roosevelt was quick to share his affection for Winchesters with those he honored by his generosity. The Metcalf brothers who had provided the president with a bear hunt in 1902—a hunt that begat the legend of the Teddy Bear—were each presented with identical Model 1886s exactly like the president’s own. Another 1886 was a gift to a man named Holt Collier.