ction was assembled. And he lived again, dark, grim,
bearded, the spirit of lofty pines and hemlocks among which he spent
his days, always plotting to kill something. Many of the arms, if they
could speak, what tales of war, the chase, and love adventure they
could tell! The Pennsylvania woodsman was filled with the romance of
slaughter, a heritage of mingled Continental origins, Huguenot,
Spanish, Portuguese, Swiss, Waldensian, Levantine, with the strains of
Ulster Scot, Alsatian, Palatine, Hollander and Moravian, cooling cross
currents in his veins. No wonder that the women of this blended race
were the most darkly beautiful in the world, and a group of the
curious edged weapons they carried to destroy men who annoyed them
might well be the subject of another separate collection. But the arms
stacked in silent panoply, or the daggers, dirks and powder flasks,
would not suffice to give the collection the answer to the questions
it involved. Along with a group of daring Alpinists to "Restless Oaks"
came H. Beam Piper, of Altoona, Pa., a modern master-of-arms, who
patiently set to work to describe the collection from its oldest to
its newest examples. As the results of his intelligent energy and
research the following catalogue has been prepared which gives us the
skeleton figure of the armed Pennsylvania mountain man, from the
frontier days until later and more prosaic times ensued. While many of
the arms listed are in imperfect condition and some of the more
important ones are lacking, they give the idea of his times. Other
pieces of later periods, and a few of foreign use, are included for
purposes of comparison. To these are added Mr. Piper's catalogue of
his own collection, all in perfect order, to show similar types of
weapons at their best. While, as stated, there are many specimens
missing, these vacancies emphasize the wide range of weapons used by
the old-time Pennsylvanians. The frequent wars kept bringing new types
of arms into the wilderness and new ideas for weapons among the
woodsmen themselves, and this was most noteworthy after the Civil War,
which was also the end of the grand romantic period of the
Pennsylvania wilderness. The mountaineer of Pennsylvania was of
martial blood, his ancestors had fought in every state of Continental
Europe--and the science of armorer was his birthright. David Lewis,
the "Galloping Jack" or highwayman of Central Pennsylvania, used new
pistols every year, and weapons which h