Gene, you had brought to light with me this court case regarding Arthur Savage a couple of years ago. I furnished you copies of the documents that led to his dismissal. Why don't you let the forum members in on that circumstance.
JTC
John, I have shared some of that information, I have been going to contact you to ask if you wished any restrictions on it's use before doing much more with it.
The information from John is on the dealings between Arthur Savage & son and Stevens Arms about the production of a gun design. I did not interpret the information as the reason for his firing, but as the reason Savage Arms felt justified to stop paying him even though his contract had not officially ended. The newspaper article from 1907 says that after Arthur W. Savage left
"the employ of the defendant, he invented another gun, or improvement". This gun design appears to have been what became the Stevens Gallery 80. That design copies the bolt locking and lifter design of the Browning designed Winchester Model 1890 almost exactly even though from outward appearance one would not think they would have any similarities at all (and even though the mention in court used the term "improvement" there are just to many issue with it to say it improved on anything). The major patents on the 1890 were to expire in 1907 and that is the year the Gallery 80 was introduced.
John has copies the contracts between the Savage's and Stevens Arms concerning the Gallery 80. The original contract was written with Arthur W. Savage named, it was then rewritten with the same date in the name of his son, Arthur J. Savage. That first contract in Arthur J. Savage's name was signed by Arthur W. Savage, all later correspondence was signed by Arthur J. Savage (in very much better hand writing). My thoughts are that this was all done to avoid any legal issues with Savage Arms due to any agreements Arthur W. had made with them. The patents for the Gallery 80 are also all in A. J. Savage's name.
The Gallery 80 had some issue and was a failure, so Savage Arms might actually have benefited from Stevens Arms investing in it, instead of something that would have been more competitive, than if they had gotten the rights to it. Some of the last correspondence between Arthur J. Savage and Stevens Arms was about the decision to discontinue the Gallery and what was to be done with an inventory of several hundred unsold rifles, Stevens Arms also had the No 70 Visible Loader by then.
About 1912 there were a couple other gun designs that were patented in Arthur J and Basil Savage's names that were sold to Sears, Roebuck & Company and manufactured by the Sears owned Meriden Arms company. Again I think likely these were actually designed by Arthur W. Savage. A 1914 Sears, Roebuck & Company catalog gives design credits to A. J. and Basil but the design for the Meriden Model 15 pump 22 was later acquired by Mossberg and they had an ad for the rifles giving credit for the design to Arthur W. Savage. The patents for the Meriden Model 15 expired in 1929 and the design was copied by Savage to make the Model 29. The Model 29 is one of the few Savage Arms guns to not have any patents stamped on it, Savage Arms did not use any patents of their own for it.
