Massachusetts Arms Company
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The Massachusetts Arms Company, of Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts was a manufacturer of firearms and firearm-related products from about 1849 into the early 20th century.
The Massachusetts Arms Company was incorporated March 5, 1850 and was founded by Arthur Savage along with Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson, who later founded Smith and Wesson. The Massachusetts Arms Company was an outgrowth of the Wesson Rifle Company.
Christian Sharps, who later founded the Sharps Rifle Company, transferred the manufacture of his first rifle to the Massachusetts Arms Company in 1849 or 1850.
The company also manufactured Wesson & Leavitt revolvers between 1850 and 1851. However in 1851 Samuel Colt filed and won a historic patent infringement lawsuit against the company. The company then limited its revolver production to relatively unpopular designs by Edward Maynard until 1857, when Colt's patent expired.
Maynard, the firearms inventor and former dentist, patented his revolutionary breechloading rifle in 1851 and when he and some financial backers founded the Maynard Arms Company in 1857, it was the Massachusetts Arms Company which actually manufactured the rifle. The company had been manufacturing the system under contract for several years. In 1855 they had produced 2,000 Greene Carbines, a Maynard system firearm, for a British government contract. These carbines were used in the Crimean War.
Maynard's rifle was operated by a lever which when depressed raised the barrel to open the breech for loading. A brass cartridge, also developed by Maynard, was then inserted and the lever raised to close the breech. Once cocked the loaded rifle could then be primed by either placing a percussion cap directly on its nipple or by using Maynard's patented priming system to advance a primer to the nipple.
Also in 1857 the Massachusetts Arms Company received a contract to manufacture Adams revolvers under license for the U.S. government. Some 500 or so were produced and used in the U.S. Civil War.
The company also produced single- and double-barrel shotguns, including both box-locks and external central hammers. Later it manufactured a selection of 20- and 28-bore Maynard-action shotguns of 1865 and 1873 patterns.
With civil war looming some Southern states purchased Maynard rifles from the company for their state militias. Of close to 3000 sales most were to Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi. The First Model Maynard was designated an official Confederate firearm.
The Massachusetts Arms Company factory burned down in January of 1861, halting production until the factory was rebuilt in 1863. The company then received an order for 20,000 of the simpler Second Model Maynard carbines. Deliveries of these guns began in June of 1864 continuing through May of 1865. As the war was then coming to an end few of these rifles saw service. Some, however, are known to have been used by the 9th and 11th Indiana Cavalry and the 11th Tennessee Cavalry regiments.
In the late 19th century the company began producing revolvers on various Smith & Wesson patterns.
Production continued until the factory closed permanently during the Great Depression.
The Massachusetts Arms Company is also the trade name used by J. Stevens Arms and Tool Company for firearms produced for sale at the Blish, Mizet and Silliman Hardware Company of Atchinson, Kansas.
