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And obviously we all know that Savage Arms ended up buying Stevens in 1920.

The board of directors removed Arthur from his position no later than January 25th, 1905 when Savage had published in multiple periodicals a notice that Arthur W. Savage was no longer in the position of managing director and was not authorized to make any transactions on their behalf. If he sold a design to Stevens in 1906 or 1907 that was probably not the reason for being removed from his position.

What's the date on the first contract with Stevens? or is there one?


Company management in January, 1905 was:
President: Benjamin Adriance
VP: Walter Jerome Green
Secretary/Treasurer: J. DePeyster Lynch

I can't find a reference to any of these except Walter J. Green, who in 1902 was a director and had been there since they incorporated in 1897 (1894 probably). So change in management/ownership sometime from 1902 to 1904?

The date for which Arthur W. first signed and re-made for Arthur J. to sign the agreement with Stevens is dated Sept. 9, 1905. No telling how much negotiation preceded their signing or how long before that it took him to design the rifle. JTC

Wouldn't have guessed Arthur was involved with such a deal if he'd departed long before that time.

The story about Lame Deer is also on the Savage Arms official site, it's been there for years - savagearms.com/history/

Since by 1919 Arthur Savage had been in California for several years involved in manufacturing tires, Lame Deer would have had to take quite a trip to see him & probably would only have been able to get a deal on some tires & tubes to replace the ones he wore out getting there if he drove.

Hmm. So if Arthur was involved with the 1903 and 1904 22's, and involved with the pistols which were patented in 1905(?), sounds like the problems probably arose in late 1904 - or culminated in 1904.

Weren't the Perris Specials in summer or fall of 1904? Not saying there is any connection, just trying to think of significant happenings around that time. 1905 was the intro of the 1899H, takedown didn't show up until 1906.

Great info Gene B & JTC!!!!! Thanks for more great FACTS.
tjw

Some time in the future look for the Lame Deer legend to be corrected. The current president of Savage is wanting to get factual information regarding the company's history and dates to correct a number of things like this. This is one thing he has already looked in to. JTC

Here is a list of the last patents of Arthur W. Savage that were assigned to Savage Arms, note the filing date because all were granted after he left the company (possibly the reason for a lot of confusion as to when he actually left).

789761 May 16, 1905 (filed Nov 25, 1904) for the No 21 rear sight

806007 Nov 28, 1905 (filed Apr 8, 1904) used for the 1904/1905/1911 (the 1911 also had other designers patents)

839517 Dec 25, 1906 (filed May 20, 1901) used for the 1903, 1909, 1912, 1914 and 25 (the last 3 also used patents by other designers)

885868 Apr 28, 1908 (filed Nov 25, 1904) for improvements in the magazine for the 1903

The take down feature was 865357 Sept 10, 1907 (filed May 3, 1904) by Frank C. Chadwick who had many patents assigned to Savage Arms

Charles A. Nelson and Charles W. Lang are other names that show up often on patents assigned to Savage Arms starting about 1914.

I find no information that Arthur Savage had much to do with the pistols. The pistol patents (that apply to the models they actually made) are in the following names - Elbert H. Searle (the original designer), Charles A. Nelson (several for improvements) and Charles W. Lang ( 1 for improvements to the safety).

If you search the internet you will be able to find articles about Arthur Savage and Savage Arms that give him credit for developing the Savage pistol and also saying 'he ran his company until his death in 1938'. You may also find some old post of my own that have some incorrect information that at the time I thought correct, I now try to always list my source so one can judge for themselves if the data, or my interpretation of it, makes any sense.

Thanks, Gene. So patent wise Arthur had nothing to do with the pistols, but he was managing director while they were being developed. Probably safe to say he had significant input, he just shouldn't get credit for the design.


That November 25, 1904 patent filing for the magazine improvement likely narrows it down. Might have been a lot of problems by then, but it's probable that his change to contract employee happened at the very end of 1904 or early January 1905.

Even better, from the lips of Mr. Coburn, the chief had been using the Savage 99 in .300 Savage for a number of years. He doesn't say the year but it must have been after 1919 if the .300 wasn't introduced until 1920. He does say the Chief approached Savage Arms, does not identify Arthur. Also sounds to me like he said Lame Bear, not Deer, then again he's the CEO, not the historian. The Accurate Shooter site presents the article to show a pretty gun, not as an historical reference on details either.

http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/2010/10/5/history-of-savage-arms-and-the-savage-110/

With regard to Calhoun,s thought and statement that Arthur W. changed to being a contract employee in 1904 is not correct. The document that lists his duties and salary is dated October 11, 1897. JTC

Oops, I was misunderstanding something. I thought Savage put Arthur under contract as a consultant once they removed him from the general manager position. My bad.. his contract was as an executive (general manager) for 3 years including 1903-1905 at $4,000 per year. That's in the newspaper article, and the lawsuit by Arthur was to get Savage to pay the last 2 months of his salary.

So he started out making $30/wk in 1897, 1903-1905 he was making $77/wk. Not too bad.

Hard to read those old scans of newspaper articles.



GeneB, as to the church - I note that the church gave notice to both Arthur and to Savage Arms. I wonder if it wasn't part of Arthur's 3 yr contract in 1903 that Savage Arms would also pay his housing and that whole thing got confused in 1905 with him leaving the state and Savage saying they'd fired him in January/etc? Just a guess, but I can't think of any other reason for the church to serve the company. Regardless, Arthur ended up paying for it since it looks like it was taken out of his money from the lawsuit.

My interpretation was that the church added an attachment to any award Arthur Savage would have got, my thoughts were that if he didn't win they wouldn't get anything either. Those scans are hard to read, I will try to look at them again. I do recall that there was mention of Savage Arms saying Arthur left town owing a lot of debts, which he denied.

There is also something to consider when interpreting patent dates, this is based on my layman's understanding of the patent laws and probably would not hold up in court... but from my understanding only the actual designer can legally get a patent and that they have one year to file after the design has been made public, if not, then it can no longer be patented by anyone and becomes free to copy. Patents filed in Nov of 1904 may have been ready to file as far back as Nov of 1903, so they cannot be used to definitely date when the work was completed. I would think a company, knowing this, might set on patents for a time before filing to maximize the length of protection. This again is my understanding - patents would expire 17 years after the issue date or 20 years after the application date, which ever came first, by waiting to file, almost a year could be added to them being in effect.

As a side note to management at Savage, Lynch, as corporate secretary was also president of the Genesee Underwear Company. He was instrumental in the sale if Savage to Seabury, and made out quite well, while things were not quite so rosy for the rest of the stockholders.

The 1899 .250/3000 that I have had at three of the fests was delivered to Lynch, and later was owned by Fred J Rath, who was mayor of Utica, and later NY State senator.