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Picture Page May 2015 Another of those old wood shipping crates...... So I like wood crates...... and I cannot lie.....
During the summer of 1980 while living in Gainesville, Florida, I was helping an elderly gun-collector friend named Louis Goolsby
clean our his carport. Several hours into the project we came upon the long
wood box pictured here. It was packed full of old rusty paint cans and gardening
supplies. As we were emptying it, he mentioned that it was a
shipping crate for Springfield Model 1873 'Trapdoor' rifles. Naturally,
being a much younger and far more intelligent person than I am now, I had my
doubts. It was obvious that it was old, as it was made up from wide planks
of full 1" thick pine, but I couldn't
20 SPRINGFIELD RIFLES MODEL 1873 45 CAL
.
. After getting the crate home and looking it over, I was able to confirm
Mr. Goolsby's
While conducting the Google search that yielded the Commission meeting
minutes regarding the demolition of the Alachua County courthouse, I stumbled across a Facebook page
belonging to the group of volunteers who have been scanning Alachua County
documents and records from 1899 to the present, which is also accessible
from the Clerk of Courts web site. On that page was information regarding
the purchase from Francis Bannerman of Springfield rifles, ammunition, web
(cartridge) belts, and bayonet scabbards (I assume bayonets were included
with the rifles) by the
county in 1917 for use by their local guard. The scanned image of the
minutes of the Commissioners
meeting of Saturday, October 13th, 1917 is shown here:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . While the intention of the Commission was to purchase 250 rifle 'sets' (rifle, web belt and scabbard), a note that was added to the minutes some time later indicates that only 200 sets were received. In addition, the per rifle price seems quite high. I don't have a Bannerman catalog from anytime close to 1917, but these rifles in like new condition were priced at $3.85 in 1907, and in good sure-fire condition in 1927 for $4.25 each. If they paid $7.75 per rifle, it would appear that someone who who may have been acting as an intermediary made a hefty profit on the transaction. I does appear that the Commissioners didn't have much experience with firearms, because in that same meeting they authorized the clerk of the board to purchase 16 'Colts automatic revolvers - 45 caliber'. According to Mr. Goolsby, the guns were being stored in the Courthouse attic when the building was vacated after construction of the new Courthouse. They were removed and sold, perhaps at the direction of the County Commssioners, for $5 each to anyone wanting one; the crates apparently were discarded. Contrary to his note on the back of the picture, he didn't actually 'salvage' the crates from the Courthouse attic. While driving by the courthouse on his way home from work (he edited and printed a small newspaper) one afternoon, Mr. Goolsby noticed the crates stacked by the curb and loaded as many as would fit in the trunk and interior of the white Chevrolet sedan that can be seen parked nearest the crates in the photograph above. Much of what was probably the original ammunition purchased with the rifles remained in storage in the courthouse attic as well, and was disposed of with the rifles and crates. Shortly after I received the crate, I was advised that a friend of Mr. Goolsby's had obtained a quantity of the Courthouse ammunition and still had 200 rounds that he was willing to sell, which I eventually bought. About half of these were Frankford Arsenal-made Benet-primed cartridges with headstamps indicating production in December 1881 and February 1882, and the balance was made by Winchester and UMC with their commercial format headstamps - W.R.A.Co. 45-70 and U.M.C. S .45-70. H. . .
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This one I've had for 35 years, and while it isn't an ammunition crate,
it certainly is related to ammunition and has a connection, coincidentally, to
Francis Bannerman (see my pages for the last two months) that I will get to
in just a bit..
imagine
why it should necessarily be a rifle shipping crate, especially one for the old
45-70 Springfields. Much to my surprise, however, after getting it cleaned
out and moved into the sunlight, I could see that some of the original
black stenciling remained on
one end, and with a little effort it was possible
to make out portions of 'Springfield' and '1873'. The clearest part of the
stencil is 'NGFIELD' which can be made out centered below the two rope
holes. Below the N and G is the '73'. I believe the complete stencil would
have read:
Later
that afternoon we were relaxing in his gun room, and while I was
contemplating which of my very limited number of guns I was going to
have to offer up to entice him to trade for the old crate, he dug out a
photograph which showed him looking much younger and standing outside
that same carport beside a stack of three rifle crates, with a smaller one intended for
ammunition balanced on top. He pointed to the crate at the bottom of the stack
and said "I believe this is the one that's out there". He ended up giving me
the crate for my day's work, as well as the photograph, after adding a note
to the back which provides provenance on the crate, at least from 1961 to
the present. According to his note, he"salvaged' the crates were "from the
attic of the "old" courthouse (2nd) prior to 1961". 
The
old courthouse he refers to is the 2nd Alachua County courthouse, a
beautiful brick structure built in 1885 to replace the original wood
courthouse, and demolished in 1961 at the direction of a Board of County Commissioners
who had little interest in preserving their architectural past. They did
provide funding for salvaging the clock tower and clock after a number of
local citizens raised concerns about saving it, and the clock was eventually
restored and placed on display in downtown Gainesville. Minutes from the
July 25th, 1961 Commission meeting (found in the Ancient Documents link on
the Alachua County Clerk of Court web site at http://www.alachuaclerk.org/archive/default.cfm)
indicate that the commission accepted the bid of P. L. Burkhalter Sr. of
Jacksonville to demolish the building for $3,333.33, to remove
the clock tower
intact for $2,700, and to sell the cleaned bricks back to the county for $45
per thousand. The work was to be completed within 60 days of acceptance of
the bid.
The 3rd courthouse was built in 1958, and was a rather stark, unappealing
structure that housed the courthouse for only 20 years, far less than it's
predecessor's 73 years. 
remark
regarding which one it was in the stack of three, based on the crack across
the end of the bottom crate below the rope handle and, most notably, the
missing sliver of wood in the right side of the crack. This photo shows the same view of that end of the crate. Unfortunately, in the intervening
years between when the original photo was taken in August of 1961 and when I
received it in 1980, the condition of the crate had deteriorated a bit; the
most obvious indication being the lack of the rope handle that is seen in
the 1961 photo; only the two empty securing holes remain. In addition, termites
have
done a little damage to the bottom boards, and an assortment of rust rings
in the bottom of one end of the crate provide a permanent reminder of the
paint cans that must have been in it for
years. I eventually turned the crate into a coffee table by adding a top
and base (these slip on with no damage to the crate itself). I used it to display
a
Springfield Trapdoor rifle and , carbine, plus related Indian Wars period
items that I collected
over the years, but eventually my wife decided it was no longer suitably serving our
needs as a coffee table, and it was relegated to our rec (wreck) room after
a replacement was bought. Most
of the collection that was displayed in it has since been sold or traded
off, but the crate and a few
items remain as reminders of the Trapdoor phase of my addiction to
collecting things.
