Meylin, Martin

Name Street Town State From To
Meylin or Mylin, Martin   Pequea Valley (now Lancaster County) Pennsylvania 1710 1745


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Martin Meylin, original name was Meili, Meyli, Meily, Mylin or Meilin, born 1670 in Switzerland (probably Hedingen, Canton of Zurich)), born about 1670, died 1749 in Pennsylvania, maried to Anna Rutgen. He had shipped from London on June 29, 1710 on the Mary Hope and came to Philadelphia in September and traveled to Pennsylvania. In 1719 he bought the first gun factory with a boring mill in Pequea county (now Lancaster County) on Mylin's Run, Lampeter Township.

Other records state:"Martin Meylin (1665 Rhineland-Palatinate, then Prussia - 1749 (aged 83-84), West Lampeter Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania) was a gunsmith best known for inventing Daniel Boone's Gun, the "Kentucky Long Rifle".

Both records says that in 1710 he left Zurich (Switzerland) for Pequea (now Lancaster County).

It seems that he emigrated together with a group od other Mennonites. He received 265 acres of land from the 10.000 acre plot granted by William Penn to settlers from the Palatinate.

Local histories state that Martin Meylin was either a gunsmith or blacksmith, and that Martin Meylin's son, Martin Meylin (II) also practiced these professions. As a result, the historical record is hard to parse, as it is not always clear which Meylin is being referred to in any given document. Anyway, in 1719, gunsmith Martin Meylin opened his mill, along Piquea Creek to bore rifle barrels. These gun barrels may have led to the earliest prototype of the Pennsylvania long rifle.

Meylan was the owner of the earliest known gun shop in Pennslyvania and it is believed that he developed the Pennsylvania Rifle (called Kentucky rifle as wideley used by Kentucky sharp shooters in the 1812 War).

Meylin grooved (rifling) the barrel which made the gun accurate up to 300 yards. A marker of this evenement is at the intersection of Eshelman Mill Road and Long Rifle Road at Willow street near Lancaster. A Martin Maylin's Gunshop marker is at 0.2 miles north of Beaver Valley Road, Willow Street, Pennsylvania on the right when traveling north. His shop is still standing.

The forerunners of the Pennsylvania long rife were built by German gunsmiths in Pennsylvania so about 1725.

Martin Meylin's Gunshop was built in 1719, and it is here that the Mennonite gunsmith of Swiss-German heritage crafted some of the earliest, and possibly the first, Pennsylvania Rifles.[7] No single rifle has been found to date to be signed by Martin Meylin. Two have been attributed to him- one in the Lancaster Historical Society has been found to be a European musket of a later date and the other with a date of 1705 has been found to be a forgery - the Meylins didn't arrive in America until 1710. The Martin Meylin Gunshop still stands today in Willow Street, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on Long Rifle Road. An archaeological dig performed in 2005 by Millersville University around the so-called Meylin gunshop found no evidence of gunmaking activity among the thousands of artifacts found - only blacksmithing artifacts were found. The Lancaster County Historical Society has an original Pennsylvania Long Rifle smithed by Meylin that was passed down within the family for seven generations before being donated to the society in the middle of the twentieth century. This particular rifle was analyzed and the barrel removed during the Lancaster Long Rifle Exhibit at Landis Valley Farm Museum, Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 2005. The six experts on hand found the barrel was European and the stock itself dated from a later period than 1710-1750. The initials on the barrel - "MM" were found to be added later than any other part of the gun, therefore it was concluded that the rifle in the Lancaster County Historical Society could not have been made by either son or father named Martin Meylin. A document describing the history of Meylin, the Gunshop, and archeology of the shop is available online from Millersville University. The Mylin Gun Shop Survey Project (thanks to the University)


Some historians have written that the role of Martin Meylin as one of the earliest gunsmiths in Lancaster is not clear. The argument is that the will of Martin Meylin Sr. makes no mention of gunsmith items while the will of Martin Meylin Jr. is replete with gunsmith items, and thus the reference to Meylin as a gunsmith is more properly placed on the son. In any case, no rifle has been found to be positively attributed to any Meylin. However, in regard of the following we can clearly consider Martin Meylin as a gunsmith and riflemaker.

Well, his son made he inventory of Martin Meylin's son, made two years after the father's death in 1749 included most of the gunmaking tools and stock since ir was started in 1719. The inventory, still in the Lancaste Courthouse reads:

"INVENTORY OF MARTIN MYLIN
(Register of Wills 27, 1751)
A True & perfect Inventory of all the Goods & Chattels of Martin
Mylin of Lamppiter in the County of Lancaster, Late deseased,
Praysed by the Subscribers the 27th day of august, 1751.

Item £ s d
To Money Cash at 35 10 6
To Bonds and Notes at 638 12 9
o 8 gunnt Lockes at 14 0 0
To 2 1/2 lbs Powder at 2/0 lb   5 0
To 2 Stills & Worm Tups 30 0 0
To 1/2 Tunn of Iron at 14 0 0
To Hammers and Pincers at 3 10 0
To Auger and Anwell at 1 5 0
To Old Iron at 4 0 0
To 2 Pares of Stilgarts, filles & Sundry Sort of Tools at 3 0 0
To Sundry Soit of Tools at   8 0
To a GrineStone   5 0
To Sundry Sort of Riffels Tools 10 0 0
To 8 gunn Lockes at 2 0 0
To 2 Bick Iron at 5 0 0
To Prass Riffel at 6 0 0
To 90 Gunne Stockes at 3 15 0
To Boplar Boards & Boards for Gunn-Stockes 1 10 0
To Sum Casting Mowles   8 0
To Two Anwells at 14 0 0
To one vice at 2 0 0
To Sundry new filles at   10 0
To Hoghot of Liquare at 10 0 0
(Also farm and household supplies, horses, cattle, etc.)
Praised by us the Subscribers
Christian Haer
Adam Brenemann
Hans Rohrer


In this inventory the high priced items are gunlocks (£16), iron (£14) and rifle tools (£10). The latter doubtless included one or more rifle-benches, with their guides, boring and rifling tools, etc. The half-ton of iron at £28 a ton, must have been bar iron, which, though it might have been imported, was probably first obtained at Rutter's Forge (1716), along the Manatawny Creek (now in Berks County), later at Pine, Pool or McCall's Forges (1725) along the same creek. With little doubt, after 1726, the bar iron came from its nearest possible source, the Kurtz (bloomery) Forge, along the Octoraro Creek, fifteen miles from the gunshop.

The Bick iron (£5) was probably rifle iron, Bichse, in Pennsylvania-German, meaning rifle (not gun). The appraisers had difficulty enough even to speak English, let alone write it. It is likely that the "2 at £5" were rifled barrels.

Gunpowder was valued at 2 shillings a pound. Brass rifle, (£6), is most likely brass, rifle or rifle brass-metal for stock-butts, trigger-guards, etc.

There were no finished rifles in stock. With the enormous demand they must have been sold as quickly as they were made.

Scattered through the general material, minor parts, as with "Sundry sorts of tools," there must have been some Hammer-flints. These probably came from their main source, the Dover Cliffs, along the English Channel. Some of these flints from England came to America long before 1700. They are found among the trader articles in the Indian graves in Lancaster County.

The "mowles" were probably bullet moulds. The stills, worm and tubs (high at £30) and the hogshead of liquor, (£10), were not unusual, even among the Mennonites. Many of the early farms in Lancaster County had stills to use up the excess grain.

Three anvils, many hammers, 16 gunlocks, half a ton of bar iron - enough to make a hundred and twenty-five gun barrels. 90 gunstocks, indicate a considerable amount of business in the shop. Boards for gunstocks prove that the stocks were made in the shop, not brought in from another shop, as was sometimes done. Together with the other items of the inventory this would prove that finished rifles were assembled in this shop.