newbie with a few questions on a Henry

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy Peddler

I am curious where you got your figure about 600 Henrys being built with loading gates. Everything I have read says that there were only a very few made with loading gates, probably less than a dozen, and they were all prototypes not intended for sale. The Henrys made with side loading gates were experimental only, to try out the new system, and they all varied slightly from each other.

Oliver Winchester was deeply involved in the development of the Henry rifle from as early as 1857 as an investor in the Volcanic Repeating Arms company. It was Winchester who directed B. T. Henry to begin development of the rifle that eventually bore the Henry name, it was Winchester who told Henry to go back to the drawing board when Henry came up with a 38 caliber rimfire cartridge, knowing that the underpowered old 38 caliber Rocketball ammo was the chief reason for the failure of the Volcanic design. Somehow Winchester realized this while Smith and Wesson never did. It was Winchester who reorganized the Volcanic company into the New Haven Arms company for the production run of the Henry rifle, and by this time he had bought up all the stock from the other stockholders. Only after Henry tried an unsuccessful attempt to sieze the company and rename it after himself did Winchester finally rename the company after himself in 1866, but he had been a major player for almost a decade.