Oliver Winchester

Oliver Winchester

Oliver Fisher Winchester (born November 30, 1810 in Boston , Massachusetts , † December 11, 1880 there ) was an American businessman and politician.

Life and effect

Winchester, a trained carpenter, made his money as a shirt manufacturer and invested it in the newly founded "Volcanic Repeating Arms Company" in 1854, which produced the Volcanic rifle, an early repeating rifle . By 1857 the Volcanic Works went bankrupt and Winchester became the majority shareholder, relocating it to New Haven and changing its name to the New Haven Arms Company. He commissioned Benjamin Tyler Henry to improve the Volcanic lever action rifle . The result was the Henry Rifle , named after Winchester's foreman. The company was briefly renamed the New Haven Repeating Arms Company and manufactured the Henry rifle during the Civil War . Winchester was able to sell approx. 13,000 pieces in caliber 44 Henry Flat during the Civil War. After the war, Winchester exerted greater influence on the fortunes of the company, which was reorganized and renamed the " Winchester Repeating Arms Company " in 1866 . The first Winchester rifle was the Model 1866 , a major overhaul of the Henry rifle with an improved system box. The weapon now had a loading flap on the side and the tube magazine no longer had to be laboriously loaded from the front.

Winchester hoped to get lucrative orders from the army from the 1866 model. He finally got it, but from the government of the Ottoman Empire instead of his own. From 1870 onwards, Winchester sold around 50,000 1866 rifles and carbines to the Ottoman Empire. This contract saved the company from collapse at the time, because the American military saw no greater use for the Winchester repeater at the time. Although bolt-action rifles were also used in part in the civil war (mostly bought privately by the soldiers because of the superior firing rate and number of cartridges), the US Army relied more on tested technologies and acquired tried and tested firearms. It was not until the improved and more powerful 1876 model became an official military rifle in North America - but again not in the USA, but in Canada .

Winchester was also active in politics, serving as City Commissioner of New Haven, Republican elector in the 1864 presidential election, and lieutenant governor of Connecticut from 1866 to 1867.

Furthermore, Winchester is considered to be the inventor of the so-called Winchester collar. In the case of the Winchester collar, both the collar and the cuffs of a shirt are white.

The Winchester rifle and the company's fortunes

(see also the main article Winchester (rifle) )

"The Gun that won the West": Even if Karl May would have you believe, the "Henry Rifle" is not the rifle that conquered the "Wild West". Winchester's rifles certainly played a small role in the American Civil War (1861–1865) (“The rifle that loads on Sundays and shoots all week”), but very few could afford such a weapon. 1878 cost z. For example, a Model 1866 $ 20 and a 76mm hunting rifle even $ 35, with a cowboy earning only about $ 30 a month at the time.

The ammunition output for the rifles was also not particularly high, so that most trappers, hunters, cowboys and settlers still preferred single-shot muzzle or breech-loaders in strong calibers. It was only when the Colt company launched their 1873 SAA revolver (the famous "Peacemaker") in caliber .44-40 in 1873 that the Winchester rifle began to triumph: In 1873, Winchester's 1873 model was launched in the same caliber, and very few cowboys wanted to carry around several types of ammunition. When it was now possible to shoot one and the same caliber from a revolver and a rifle, this was an enormous incentive to buy, even if the model 1873 with revolver ammunition is actually not a suitable hunting weapon - the title “The Gun that won the West” therefore belongs to the Winchester 1873.

Trivia

The Winchester Mystery House of Sarah Winchester in San Jose

Sarah Winchester, the wife of William, Oliver's son, learned through a medium that the family was cursed by the spirits of those killed with Winchester bolt action rifles, and moved to California. There she built a winding villa with her inheritance, with stairs and doors that sometimes lead to nowhere in order to confuse the spirits seeking revenge.

The story found its way into the episode "Haus des Schreckens (131)" of the radio play series The Three ??? . However, the name "Winchester" was changed to "Marriott".

literature

• Laura Trevelyan: The Winchester: Legend of the West , IBTauris, 2016, ISBN 978-1-78076-469-6

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Oliver Winchester Biography ( Memento from March 23, 2018 in the Internet Archive )