Henry Deringer
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Henry Deringer (October 26, 1786 - February 28, 1868) was an American gunsmith. He invented, and gave his name to the Deringer pistol. Further development and copying of his design resulted in the derringer (note the double-r) pistol, manufactured widely by other companies.
He was born in Easton, Pennsylvania to Johannes Heinrich Deringer and Catherine McQuety. He married Elizabeth Hollobush at the First Reformed Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on April 5, 1810.
[edit] Deringer pistol
A Philadelphia Deringer is a small percussion handgun designed by Henry Deringer (1786-1868) and produced from 1852 through 1868. A popular handgun of the era, this design was widely copied by competitors, sometimes down to the markings. Over time, the misspelling "derringer" has come to refer to any small-sized, usually large-caliber handgun that is neither semiautomatic nor a revolver.
Henry Deringer's production records, and contemporaneous records of his imitators, indicate that these pistols were almost always sold in matching pairs. This was, in part, to compensate for the limited power of a single-shot short-barreled pistol. Original Deringers are almost never found still in their matched pairs today.
Initially popular with military officers, the Deringer became widely popular with civilians who wished to own a small and easily concealable pistol for self defense.
In total, approximately 15,000 Deringer pistols were manufactured. All were single barrel pistols with back action percussion locks, typically .41" rifled bores, and walnut stocks. Barrel length varied from 1.5" to 6", and the hardware was commonly a copper-nickel alloy known as "German silver".
Because of their small size and easy availability, Deringers sometimes had the dubious reputation as being a favored tool of assassins. The single most famous Deringer used for this purpose was fired by John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Notably, Booth's Deringer was unusual in that the rifling twisted counterclockwise (left-handed twist), rather than the typical clockwise twist.
