Frederick J. Abbey, younger brother of George Thackeray Abbey(died August 10th 1872)??, & J.H. Foster formed Abbey & Foster of Chicago and were a source for Charles Daly in the early days.

Now Frederick J. Abbey seems to have sourced W.C. Scott & Son and most of those doubles utilized the thumb-hole lever. It is possible that Abbey imported components thru his older brother George Thackeray Abbey, who, if I have my facts correct, arrived in the U.S. of A. in the mid 1840s and could have easily been associated with the Kilby klan. "Gunmakers of Illinois" by Curtis L. Johnson may provide some insight on Abbey & Foster. But F.J. Abbey expired on September 22nd, 1878 and it is very curious that about this same time Daly turned to Lindner. And it is about this time that the Abbey lockup appears on Lindner's examples, as found under U.S. of A. patent #114081: http://www.google.com/patents?id=blBjAAA...p;q&f=false

George Thackeray Abbey is noted as working up until 1874 or later but that isn’t the case. Court documents show that a George T. Abbey of the Chicago area died on August 10th, 1872 and left monies for his 3 sisters Harriet Abbey, Mary Ann Welch and Jeannette Carpenter. Excluding donations to hospitals and the like George T. Abbey left about everything to his son William Abbey, with the exception of his 12 bore double which was supposed to got to an un-named friend. Then William Abbey expired August 11th, 1879, with a possibility of everything reverting back to his mother Julia M. Abbey, wife of George T. Abbey, who expired on January 23rd, 1886. So one of the sisters, along with other brother heirs, felt compelled to try their hand at an acquisition and I guess it to have been Jeannette Carpenter. Odd that George T. Abbey didn’t list any brothers(but court documents noted he had brothers) in his will and I wonder if they all made the boat ride over or some were born here. Some sources suggest that George T. Abbey was the son of Frederick J. Abbey, but for now I think they were either brothers or close relatives. Apparently there are business cards as well as game tally cards of George T. Abbey in existence and he is also noted as a maker of target arms and scopes. If indeed he did make scopes I’d guess them to have been very early versions. George T. Abbey was an importer and very possibly there was an established link between Abbey & Kilby.

I’ve been chasing this rabbit, or on this tangent, as it is possible that James Donn, etal., were either sourcing the boys Abbey or were using their lines of sourcing for components or longarms in the white. But James Don & Associates from 1859 - 1867 had sales of all his wares, I think, he netted $600 per year and then post 1867 when his brother joined him net was $50k U.S. of A. Something is odd surrounding gunmaking, total number of existing examples and cost, but I assume hardware was a large part and was the main contributor to the purported $50k per year.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse