Millwood’s master gunsmith still has a reputation over a century after his death

Samuel Stull would have been amazed by what happened at an auction in 2019. Certainly, having been born in 1808 and died in 1907, Stull wouldn’t understand anything about the internet and auction websites. But he’d surely be stunned to find a rifle that he himself made selling in that auction for a sum that was far more money than he ever saw in his entire 98-year lifetime.

The actual figure wasn’t publicly disclosed, but experts estimated that the exquisitely made firearm went for over $13,000.

Quite an accomplishment for a Knox County farmer who mainly pursued his gunsmithing trade in the winter months, when there was less farm work to do. Samuel Stull was born in Coshocton in 1808 and showed a knack for mechanical work early.

When he was twelve, a grownup gave him a split rifle barrel that he had been planning on throwing away. The enterprising boy took the broken barrel to a blacksmith and had it repaired.

Samuel then carved himself a rifle stock to fit the refurbished barrel, and added a flintlock mechanism, making his first gun.

In his long career, which continued until his final year, Stull made hundreds more, ranging from straightforward practical pieces, to fancy and elaborately carved rifles with silver inlays. While he obviously became a master craftsman of the trade, the latter pieces easily qualify as works of art in their own right.

Family legend reported in the September 1981 issue of the newsletter of the Association of Ohio Long Rifle Collectors said that when he was getting ready to work on guns, Samuel would leave his farm just over a mile south of Millwood and begin the long walk to a foundry in Canton, Ohio. He would buy as many barrel blanks as he could carry, then begin the long trek home.

There he would drill and rifle the barrels himself in his workshop, and use only curly maple for the gunstocks.

His early firearms were all signed with an engraved “S. Stull” in script. Later, he developed a way to stamp “S. Stull” or “S. Stull, Ohio” on the gun. On occasional, more elaborate rifles, he would do both. Newsletter article author F. G. Tilton even commented that he had once seen a full-stock rifle marked, “S. Stull, Millwood. Knox Co. Ohio, Feb. 28th, 1852.” A gun pictured in the article features 57 silver inlays, including a Masonic symbol and a Federal eagle.

Family legend also says that Stull made any tool he needed for farm work or gunsmithing himself, inventing distinctive devices along the way, including a device which planed both sides of a piece of wood simultaneously. The article also states that as recently as 1952, 125 of Stull’s rifles were exhibited in a show at the Mount Vernon Armory sponsored by the Shooters Haven Gun Club.

How many of these outstanding pieces are still in Knox County today?