I am a descendant of Thomas Pruden who owned some property in the foothills of the Smokies before it was a park and my grandfather Clyde Pruden was a friend of one of the Gregory descendants and they exchanged guns as a token of friendship. My Grandfather gave Mr Gregory a new rifle and Mr Gregory gave my grandfather a rifle that had been in his family for generations.

I have asked some people knowledgeable about percusion rifles and they say that it is a rifle with an unusual bore. I have always been intrigued by the story that Charles Gregory recognized his father Russell Gregory's gun by the sound it made. Do you suppose this gun had an unusual bore and therefore that was how his son recognized it by the sound? Do I, by any chance, have the gun that originally was owned by Russell Gregory?

This is a percusion rifle that was made by a gunsmith named Schuyler, I think I can read that on the barrel and he made guns in the mid 1800s in Tennessee according to what I can find out. So the time frame is in the ballpark to have been a gun that Russell Gregory might have owned.

This has been a treasured possession in my family for over 80 years because it was a friendship gift between my Pruden family and the Gregory family. I wonder if anyone in the Gregory descendants have Russell's gun? Or could this really be his gun?

Would love to hear from anyone who might have any thoughts on how to research this gun further or perhaps I might do some research on Ancestry.com to see if I could find the Gregory family that might have been living there in 1920 or 1930 that could have given my Grandfather the gun. Somewhere I have a photo of the Gregory family and I remember it being rather large with at least 8 to 10 children but I don't know if it was ever identified as to the name of Mr Gregory.

Donna