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Eliphalet Remington


Eliphalet Remington (October 28, 1793 - August 12, 1861) designed the now-famous Remington rifle.

He was a blacksmith, and made his first gun himself. He bought the firing mechanism from a dealer, but used his skills as a blacksmith to make a barrel. His guns were notable for their accuracy, and he eventually founded the E. Remington and Sons company to manufacture and sell them.


The work of ELIPHALET REMINGTON II made a significant contribution to America’s 19th century history. He was born in 1793, to parents whose origins lay in Yorkshire, England. At 23, he hand-made a revolutionary sporting rifle.

The gun received such an enthusiastic response that Remington decided to manufacture it in quantity, and formed the firm of E. Remington & Sons, which he headed until his death in 1861. By the mid-1800s the gun had become immensely popular with American sportsmen and was one of the standard guns used in what has been called “the winning of the West”.

The company continued to grow and to develop its product and gradually began the manufacture of other sporting goods items, such as bicycles. At the present time, the company is known as the Remington Arms Co., Inc.

Through Mr. Remington’s craftsmanship in gun making and his initiative in commerce, what began as a one-man enterprise has become one of the world’s leading manufacturers of sporting arms. Before the Remington Company was formed, American sportsmen relied upon foreign sources for the majority of the sporting guns they used. The production of a rifle within the reach of men who wanted and needed a good gun changed the picture permanently.

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Eliphalet and Elizabeth Remington had their second child, e was a son they named after his father - Eliphalet II. As the couple's only son of their four children, Eliphalet II would follow in his father's footsteps and enter the blacksmith trade at the family's rural forge in Herkimer County, New York.

Situated in the Mohawk River Valley - the eastern gateway to the expanding "Northwest Territory" and in the path of the still to be constructed Erie Canal - the fieldstone Remington forge was astride a trade route that would bring prosperity to the family and the other inhabitants of the region. The expansion of population and wealth along that conduit of commerce would cause young Eliphalet Remington to enter the arms making business.2

In August 1816, then 22-year-old Eliphalet Remington II would forge his first rifle barrel. His initial experiment would prove a success, and the young blacksmith proceeded to make others to meet the growing demand for sporting rifles in the Mohawk Valley. With the completion of the Erie Canal, connecting Buffalo with Albany, commerce in the Mohawk Valley expanded remarkably. To meet the increased demand for rifle barrels, in 1828 the Remingtons moved their forge and foundry from its rural setting to 100 acres (400,000 m²) of land they had purchased astride the canal and abutting the Mohawk River near a town then called Morgan's Landing (later Ilion), New York. The move coincided with the elder Eliphalet's death, and Eliphalet II assumed control of the business. In 1839 he was joined by his eldest son, Philo Remington (to make the business "E. Remington & Son"), and in 1845 Eliphalet's second son, Samuel, also joined the company, afterwards called "E. Remington & Sons." Remington's third son, Eliphalet III, would also join the company later.

During this period, the Remingtons specialized almost exclusively in the manufacture of rifle barrels. These barrels, marked with the distinctive "REMINGTON" stamp near their breeches, were recognized for their quality and reasonable price. Many, if not most, of the independent gunsmiths in the Mohawk Valley purchased completed (but not rifled) barrels from Remington and assembled them into arms custom ordered by their customers. As demand increased, the Remingtons added other parts to their inventory, first percussion locks made in Birmingham, England but marked with their stamp "REMINGTON," and later sets of brass gun furniture, including triggerguards, buttplates, and patchboxes. After 1846, first martial longarm and then revolver production dominated the company's workforce.3

Remington supplied the U.S. Army with rifles in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). In 1847, Remington supplied the U.S. Navy with its first breech-loading rifle. In 1856 the business was expanded to include the manufacture of agricultural implements. Upon Eliphalet's death in 1861, his son, Philo, took over the firm during the Civil War, and diversified the product line to include sewing machines (manufactured from 1870 to 1894) and typewriters (1873), both of which were exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876.

The Remington Arms Company supplied a large proportion of the small arms used by the United States government in the Civil War (1861-1865) and in World War I (U.S. involvement 1917-1918) and World War II (U.S. involvement 1941-1945).

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