common wisdom that most everyone believes that the punt or stanchion gun, also

known as the big gun, saw its beginning in England. In the

podcast, I give some history of the punt/stanchion/big gun along with a few

of my thoughts on why, how, where, and when the punt gun originated and the general area where it originated.

colonies. However, I find no more mention of big guns being used for

waterfowling until some 60 years or so later. Maybe, some of the reasoning why

is because the colonies were in the Seven Years’ War from 1755-to 1764. Whaleboats

with smoothbore swivels were the model gunboats of the Seven Years’ War in

North America, while wall guns were also utilized. The whaleboat smoothbores

and wall guns were utilized in almost every action in the interior. Following

this came the American Revolution, with trouble brewing between England and the

colonies, beginning in 1765 when members of the American colonial society rejected the authority of the British Parliament to tax them without colonial representatives in the government. During the following

decade, protests by colonists—known as Patriots—continued to escalate until the

American Revolutionary War started in 1775 and lasted until 1783. Like the

Seven Years War, wall guns and whaleboat smoothbores were used. After the

Revolutionary War, the colonists were extremely busy forming a new government

and drafting a constitution with its bill of rights. Certainly, not much waterfowling

was done from 1755 until the start of the nineteenth century.