The Turnbo Manuscripts
by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925
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FINDING A BADLY RUSTED GUN BARREL IN THE WOODS
By S. C. Turnbo
Nathan Tyler an old pioneer hunter of Taney County, Mo. and Boone County, Ark. related this account to me. "One day" said he "while I was hunting on White Oak Creek a small but fine watered stream that empties into Crooked Creek I discovered an old rifle gun barrel lying on the ground and some pieces of the trigger was lying nearby. The barrel and the remnants of the lock was badly corroded with rust. A bullet was found in the gun barrel which had been pushed half way down." Mr. Tyler said that he took the barrel and the pieces of the trigger home and kept them several years and showed them to a number of hunters and others and mentioned it to many more but none of them were able to give him any information regarding this old time relict and how it got there. But the supposition among the most of the settlers was that the gun had belonged to a white man or an Indian and more than likely the owner of the gun had shot a wild beast and wounded it and the animal had attacked and slain the man before he could finish reloading his gun again. This is only conjecture. "I found the gun barrel soon after the close of the Civil War, between the states and no doubt it had been lying there in the woods many years before I discovered it"l said Mr. Tyler.
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