Firearm Factory of the Month: Hamilton Rifle Co.

The story of the Hamilton Rifle Company begins with its founder Clarence J. Hamilton. 

Mr. Hamilton got into the rifle business in what could only be described as a round about way. 
Clarence was a watchmaker, inventor and businessman.
In 1882 he, along with some investors started the Plymouth Iron Windmill Company to produce a vaneless windmill that Hamilton had invented two years earlier. 


Sometime later, circa 1886, Hamilton began designing a steel air rifle to compete with the Markam Air Rifle that was also made in Plymouth Michigan. He had partnered up with Cyrus A Pinkney. The two founded the Plymouth Rifle Company in 1888. 
Hamilton still owned stock in the windmill business, but was hoping to make even more money on the air rifles.
In 1894 the Plymouth Air Rifle Co. suffered a devastating fire. After only 6 years and 4 different models, they didn't have the money to rebuild as they were not insured.
Hamilton did not give up, he took a  a sample rifle into the offices of his Plymouth Iron Windmill Company. 
On March 6th, 1888 he showed the rifle to the Board of Directors and after General Manager Lewis Hough test fired the gun he exclaimed "Boy, It's a Daisy!". Hamilton's idea was to build the rifles at the windmill plant and give one away with the sale of each windmill.
The gun was renamed the "Daisy" air rifle. After only a year or so the company was making more money selling Daisy rifles than windmills, so the company was renamed the Daisy Air Rifle Company. 
In 1897 Hamilton sold his interest in the Daisy company to Lewis Hough, so that he may focus on some firearm designs he had been working on.

In 1898 Hamilton and his con Coello started the Hamilton Rifle Company (also known as CJ Hamilton & Son) and was soon was filling out patent applications for its designs. He believed he could apply the techniques and lessons learned in building the air rifles to a rimfire rifle. 
The rifles they designed were very inexpensive which made it easier to compete with the dozens of arms makers in the .22 rifle market.

In 1902 Clarence passed away and left the company to his son, Coello. Coello had been through tool & die training and had been with his father from the beginning. He continued to design and produce inexpensive .22 rifles.

The one we list here was known as the model 27. Below are just two of the patents issued to Hamilton.

While Hamilton made numerous models, the model 27 was by far the most prolific with over 500,000 being produced.

The Model 27 was introduced in 1907 and was built until 1930.

Specs:
Action: Single shot, tip up barrel
Weight: 2.5 lbs
Length: 31"
Barrel Length: 14.75 - 16"
Material: Brass barrel, stamped sheet metal, stocks of gum wood or walnut
Caliber: .22 Short, Long & Long Rifle

You may notice that the barrel lengths were quite short, some were too short actually, but remember when these rifles were made there was no regulation on how long a barrel needed to be.
Thankfully the BATF has "grandfathered" these rifles and made them exempt from the 1934 National Firearms Act.

The rifles were sold for just a few dollars, literally just a few dollars, like $1.50 to $2.55. 
They were so inexpensive that they were often given away with the purchase of other items (a hold over from the Windmill days?). One grain & feed company would randomly put them in sacks of grain, similar to a prize in your Cracker Jack box.

During WWII the company switched to making bogie wheels and tank tread parts for the government.  

Following WWII the company found sales were tough to come by, so Coello Hamilton, then 73 years old, decided to retire and sold the tooling, patents and materials to an employee named John D. Hoban.
Hoban moved the tooling and parts 60 miles north to Salem, Michigan where he produced the Hamilton model 51 as the Hoban model 45 (named for the year of introduction). Production of the Hoban rifle ended in 1949/50.

 
Finding the factory where these guns were made was not easy. At first I assumed they were made in the Daisy Air Rifle factory, but that was not correct as Hamilton left the company before he started producing his rifles.
The 1917 ad above shows the address as 923 Depot Street. I found Depot Street on this old map of Plymouth, but it didn't show up on any current maps.

That is because the street was renamed Hamilton Street in honor of Clarence Hamilton.

923 Depot Street (now 923 Hamilton Street) is now a park, named "Fairground Park", it could be that the address changed and 923 is not in the same place it was at the turn of the century.

I also found an ad from a 1924 issue of Boys life which listed the address as 317 Hamilton Street, this is an address for a residence, the residence of the Hamilton family. 
Further research lead me to an article in the Canton Observer & Eccentric from 1974, the article contained and interview and stated the Hamilton factory was across the street from their home. 
After the war the building was sold to prominent Plymouth businessman Frank Arlen, who produced truck parts for awhile.
What sits across the street now is the Hamilton Garden Loft Apartments

This picture shows where the old Hamilton factory was (orange star) and the Plymouth Iron Windmill/Daisy factory was (yellow star)

Coello Hamilton passed away on October 28th, 1967, he was 95 years old.

Sources

NRV Outdoors
Field & Stream
Wikipedia
"Hamilton Rifles were Plymouth products" Canton Observer & Eccentric, December 2, 1974
Davidswikinet