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Creedmoor
and the
International Matches
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L.L. Hepburn (1832-1914)
1874: Member of
the USA Team at Creedmoor
Lewis Lobdell Hepburn
was a member of the American team that competed against Ireland at Creedmoor
in 1874. He was a gun-maker employed in the rifle works of E. Remington
& Sons, Ilion, New York. Contemporary newspaper reports (1874) described
him as 5 feet 9 inches high, weighing about 160 pounds ad having sandy
hair and whiskers.
An article "(Is
This) L.L. Hepburn’s Creedmoor Rifle From 1874?" appears
on the American Single
Shot Rifle Association web site. There are some corrections needed
with regards to certain matters discussed in the article and the following
should be considered when reading it:
The author says that "In 1873 the Irish Long-range rifle team was
fresh off the winning of the Elcho Shield trophy, having bested all
of the other teams from all over the British Empire."
The Elcho Shield
is infact a 'home countries' international. It originally started from
a challenge made by Scotland in 1861, to shoot against England. The
first match was held in 1862. Ireland were admitted to the competition
in 1865, and in 1873 they won for the first time, beating England and
Scotland. No other teams 'from the Empire' were eligible to compete.
The inference of the article is that land for Creedmoor was aquired
after the Irish Challenge (at least to my reading!). The land had actually
been acquired in 1872 and the range
opened in 1873. Ireland's challenge by the way was published in
the New York Herald. It was the Amateur Rifle Club of that city that
accepted the challenge.
The statement that "L.L. Hepburn was one of the nine members of
the U.S. team." is only correct in so far as Hepburn's participation
in the match. There were actually only six members in the team. The
maximum number of members in any team during the brief period of international
target rifle matches that finished in 1880 was eight.
There was an equal distribution of rifle makes used in the 1874
match. Team members and the rifles used were:
Col. J.Bodine - Remington
H.Fulton - Remington
L.Hepburn - Remington
Gen. T.S. Dakin - Sharps
Col. Gildersleeve - Sharps
G.W.Yale - Sharps
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