I’m convinced, with about 99% certainty, that I’ve solved the mystery of Frank Baldwin. In looking at the monogrammed initials on the gun, the middle initial just didn’t look like a “G” to me so I began searching the internet for a Frank Baldwin with the middle initial “C”. I found an obituary for Frank Conger Baldwin, a fairly prominent architect who was born in Galesburg, Illinois June 13, 1869. He was educated at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, married Lilian E. Edson in Boston on June 24, 1896, and practiced architecture in Detroit (the firm of Stratton & Baldwin) and later Washington, D.C. He passed away in November, 1945 at age 76. The obit listed one of his hobbies as hunting. So armed with that name, I further found that Frank Conger Baldwin was friends with Harry Snyder, backer of Hoffman Arms Company, and made a hunting trip with Snyder and Edwin H. Lupton to the Athabaskan Country of Alberta, Canada in September of 1923 on the recommendation of Townsend Whelen, after Whelen’s hunt in the fall of 1922. Baldwin wrote a two part story about the trip published in Outdoor Life magazine June and July 1924 and titled “With Pack Train and Tepee in the Rockies of Alberta”. Interestingly, a .35 Whelen built by Hoffman Arms Company, stocked by John Dubiel, and engraved by Rudolf Kornbrath “Dr. A Knutson/Reynolds Ill” was previously discussed in this forum and that man, Dr. Anton Knutson, arrived in the same area of Alberta to hunt, infringing on the area occupied by Baldwin, Snyder, and Lupton. Also, the guide/outfitter was Stanley Clark, the man to whom Townsend Whelen gave his Wundhammer rifle upon conclusion of the previous year’s hunt.
I think given these connections, there’s little doubt that Frank Conger Baldwin owned these two rifles.
Last edited by Flygas; 11/19/22 06:55 AM.
