The section in AJ Campbell's book on Charles Wheeler shows that much of it was drawn from an earlier book entitled Maine Made Guns and Their Makers, copyrighted in 1972 (and revised in 1992) by Dwight Demerritt, of Orono, Maine. We attended a talk on Maine guns given by Demerritt a couple of years ago and yesterday Cathie and I finally caught up with him at home.
The purpose of the visit was to interview him and hopefully pick up more background on Wheeler, but first I needed to establish what he knew that I didn't about Wheeler's rod work. His focus had been on guns but being a collector of many things he had some rod information as well. Our conversation rapidly expanded to include a wide variety of outdoor Maine subjects and he made us follow him to his collection room, where we handled rods from Pritchard, Landman, Wheeler, Daniels, and others. Among the assorted rods and nets and early firearms, were sidearms, including the most striking relic of the day for me, even if it was not the most valuable: the Leonard two-shot pistol made for Maine naturalist Manley Hardy. For the uninitiated, Hardy is the source of the stories of Leonard the woodsman, and the two of them became good friends making several long trips up north in the late 1850's.
A written description would not do the gun justice but I mention it only to reinforce my belief that Leonard had an exceptional eye for precision and his wood-to-metal fit was superb throughout. Obviously that ability translated well to his rods and any early example in good condition will bear that out. I would like to say that the same applied to Charles Wheeler's gun work but his doesn't approach Leonard's, in large part because he was so much younger than Leonard when the rod business took off for him. Leonard had roughly 15 more years under his belt than Wheeler when he made his first bamboo rod.
The array of guns and accessories we looked at was impressive but Demerritt has been at it for 60 years. There is nowhere else you can see that quantity of early Maine-made rods and gun, not even in the State Museum. Now in his 80's he's thinking about letting some of it go, with museums being the preferred recipients. With a little luck I may be able to direct some of it to Rangeley's new outdoor museum, certainly a fitting destination. The trip was well worth the 5 hours on the road and Demerritt will be contacting me before long to schedule a second visit, this time to include photo ops. On my way out, he made certain I took all his Wheeler research notes. I think I want the Leonard notes next.....
