TWISTEDWILLOW Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 Or was it Hanibles great grandson the revenuer who after not finding a future in warfare became a government Man and used his elephant to invade stills? A clever disguise! Nobody would ever suspect the elephant was a highly trained booze detection animal! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike BR Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 What is the world coming to? I go 56 years blissfully ignorant about any drunken herbivores. Then yesterday I watch something about Tycho Brahe's moose, and today I learn about Tusko Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George N. M. Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 There was a similar incident in Laramie in IIRC the 1890s. A lady whose mother was expecting at the time was always told that she had been born when there was an elephant in the back yard. Every word true. GNM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nobody Special Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 As I'm given to understand, rampage first, booze, then a little more rampage before "Mongo just pawn in great game of life" and going Goodnight Irene. Slept it off and was good to go after. Since we're in a curio section and on weird history, elephants have an absolutely insane history in America. They were frequently shot in parades after being advertised as having skin that was bulletproof, and in at least one instance, one was hanged after killing a freshly recruited hobo handler that beat her too much. They hung it from a gantry hook on a railroad car, the chain used for the travesty broke and it displaced a hip, then they did it again, buried it, and dug it up again and staged a photo of the event for the papers the next day. You can find it easily using the googles. Then there was the one that was sentenced to death and electrocuted on the bridge to Coney Island...they made copper shoes for it just to ensure that it would get sufficient grounding. There was a great microhistory on the whole subject called Elephants in America. https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.npr.org%2Fassets%2Fimg%2F2019%2F05%2F13%2F025_027_07_elephant009_custom-cece01e7e9790ab2cfdf78f394c834d32c8939a6.jpg&tbnid=gu2wDhUKVEhyoM&vet=12ahUKEwigxN-ugOGEAxWMPzQIHVvDBk0QMygAegQIARBK..i&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2019%2F05%2F15%2F722236763%2Fthe-town-that-hanged-an-elephant-is-now-working-to-save-them&docid=4L9jlUBx5XsnIM&w=2950&h=4121&q=elephant hanged&ved=2ahUKEwigxN-ugOGEAxWMPzQIHVvDBk0QMygAegQIARBK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daswulf Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 5 hours ago, Shainarue said: the bobblehead aspect manages to raise it a notch! They also bobble different. The drunken guy gives an up and down but moves his head around as if unsure. The hunter guy gives an up and down kinda sideways while giving you side eyes. They are definately strange. Man, the elephant stories sort of make me think of the poor creature that they hung after a newbie abusive handler mistreated her. So sad really. Sorry, as you mentioned NobodySpecial. It was Mary the elephant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyBones Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 The house i grew up in at night you would hear footsteps on the basement stairs. My grandma called it a haint. You would just hear weird noises at times and the like. Now, my aunts house on the other hand, they had paranormal investigators there a few times. Things would happen like mirrors breaking in the middle of the night. They came home from visiting one weekend and every drawer in the house had been pulled out. Not emptied just pulled out. When i was stationed in Kitzingen the barracks we lived in was haunted. During WW2 they were built as a hospital for German troops. There was a tunnel in our basement that led to all the other building in our area. There were tunnels all over that post. One week our scout platoon went to the field. They lived on the top floor, seperately from our company and would lock up and secure the floor before they left. They came back and all the weights in their weight room had been laid out on the stairs. I was on the CQ desk one night, the desk was in the foyer but i could look over my left shoulder into the gig mirror (you old vets should know what that is) and see all the way down the hall. I heard a commotion and looked into the mirror and saw 2 guys fighting. Thinking great who is drunk tonight and fighting i get up to go and break up the fight and put them to bed. When i turn into the hallway there is no one there. So i sit back down that is when i realize that both were in uniform, strange to be still in uniform at 2am. And one uniform was brownish green and the other grayish, not the woodland camouflage that we wore. Like WW2 uniforms of the Americans and Germans. I woke up the Pvt. that was my assistant and told him to get up and come keep me company cuase i was about to fall asleep. Aint no way i was going to say i just saw a ghost and i am freaked out now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 I've lived in old and new houses all my life and not ONE was haunted! Some people have all the luck. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nobody Special Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 Regarding ghosts, I'll apply Granny Weatherwax's advice on gods in the Discworld. I ain't saying they ain't real, I just don't you should go around encouraging them by believing in them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TWISTEDWILLOW Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 I’ve places from coast to coast and places overseas as well that are supposed to be super haunted but I never saw any, I guess I must have always showed up during the off season for haunting honestly though the scariest and most disturbing things I’ve ever experienced in my life were caused by my fellow humans… Now back on the topic of Curios and artifacts, I was recently givin a couple of old firearms, they had been taken to an expert for information and appraisal years ago but I didn’t get the paperwork with them, so I can only repeat what I was told, you antique arms aficionados my know more, what I was told is that they are from the American revolutionary era and that they were originally flintlocks that had been reworked at a later date, iwas talking with a forum member on the phone the other day about some other antiques I have recently inherited and he told me that conversion was Common when technology had evolved Anyways they are a couple of old rusty muskets but I think they are pretty cool Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 Those are pretty cool Billy, what are you gong to do with them? Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TWISTEDWILLOW Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 Jerry I don’t really have any special plans for them other then hanging them on the wall of my study room that I’m putting together along with the swords and some other neat artifacts I’ve collected, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted March 8 Author Share Posted March 8 Very nice Billy. But what are the conversions all about? I know very little of such things. I'm waiting on photo's from my brother of a model Case steam tractor my grandpa built. He doesn't tolerate being pestered or rushed very well. He got the tractor, rather large and a heavey beast, and I got his lathe at the estate sale. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TWISTEDWILLOW Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 Scott oh man a steam tractor sounds awesome! You’ll have to share pics! as far as I understand from what John told me the old flint lock firearms were replaced by the more modern percussion cap ones, and there was a lot of people who would take their old flintlocks and had them reworked to be percussion arms because it was much cheaper than buying a new rifle, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted March 8 Author Share Posted March 8 I better study up on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 Enjoy: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 Percussion caps are much more reliable, faster and weather resistant, where flint locks REQUIRED you to load the primer pan just before cocking to shoot and flints needed regular sharpening. Rainy days? WAY less likely to get a shot. Converting was pretty straight forward, remove the pan, tap the flash hole screw the nipple in and change the hammer. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George N. M. Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 But, with percussion locks you are dependent on one more manufactured item, percussion caps. That is one of the main reasons that trade guns for the Native American trade in both the US and Canada stayed with flintlocks for long after percussion ignition was common. Also, there was the idea of providing possible enemies with weapons that were not as good as what you had. GNM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted March 8 Author Share Posted March 8 Thank's John. Grandpa's ran on steam or compressed air, I have to verify the compressed air part with my brother though. Family lore. I'm hoping he sends a video. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 True George and for the first while they weren't so dependable but improved pretty quickly. A percussion lock gun didn't require extra flints or a dressing hammer to sharpen them, though you did need a thin wire or drill to keep the flash nipple clear. I've never fired a flint lock but have fired a few different black powder percussion cap rifles a time time or two. There is little blow back unlike the pan of firy smoke from the flash pan but it's still there and tends to be right in your face. Thanks for the steam tractor video John, I got to see the steam tractor at the Ponderosa Ranch on Lake Taho run, it was like a small house crunching along. I felt for the poor frightened dog in the steam holiday video, steam tractors are scary to be around if you can stay away from them. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George N. M. Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 I have seen a number of large steam engines run on compressed air. I have been told that the problem is that seals and packing will dry out with compressed air where they would not with "wet" steam. One of my favorite memories of a steam traction engine was when we were at a Sweet Corn Festival and Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON. There was a large traction engine on the main street which had a steam line connected to a 55 gallon drum full of sweet corn. The worlds larges, most complicated, and expensive corn steamer. GNM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TWISTEDWILLOW Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 There’s a vertical bottle shaped steam engine at silver dollar city that’s ran on air and they have it hooked up to a bunch of wood lathes turning Baseball bats, last year I had a chance to buy a comparable steam engine at an auction but it was so big and heavy that I couldn’t get it myself and it was at the far back of the property in a shed on a small hill side with trees everywhere so I couldn’t drive up to it I would have had to wait all day till the auction was over be over with before they would load it with a skid steer, and I passed on it, I kick myself because they almost gave it away, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted March 8 Author Share Posted March 8 I know, I said large and heavey, but I mean't by model engineering standards. It may be 2 or 3' long. I haven't seen it in 30 years. I'm getting a bit irritated with no photo. We may lock horns soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 Those muskets look like 1831 Springfield's or Prussian Potsdam's that are converted to percussion and sporterized. Nice finds none the less both were used in the ACW. Are they smooth bore or rifled? I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s. Semper Paratus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TWISTEDWILLOW Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 Randy I just checked after you asked, they are full of cobwebs but from what I can see there is no rifling I’ll have to find where my cleaning kit got buried during the move so I can run mop dow there and double check Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 They are not Harper's Ferry 1803 rifled muskets which had a much fancier butt stock. I have a replica flintlock 1803 and it's fun to shoot. Debi says hi and good to see you posting again. I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s. Semper Paratus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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