A Bit of History
Dance Brothers Revolver
James Henry Dance had not planned on becoming a gunsmith when he and his family, along with their slaves, settled in Brazoria County, Texas. Originally from North Carolina, the Dances had migrated to Greene County Ala., in 1835. But J.H. Dance traveled to Texas in 1848 and liked what he saw. In 1853 the Dances moved there. Five years later they built a house in East Columbia, on the Brazos River, and opened a factory where they made gristmills and cotton gins. James and two brothers George Perry and David Etheldred, named the business J.H. Dance and Company. They prospered. When the Civil War broke out the brothers enlisted in the Confederacy but soon were assigned to their own factory. At first Dance & Company mounted cannons, repaired wagons and ground cornmeal. But Texas and the Confederacy needed firearms, and the Company opted to try making revolvers. Basically, the Dance was a combination of the 1848 Colt Dragoon .44 and the 1851 Colt Navy .36, popular revolvers in Texas at the outbreak of the Civil War. The Dance revolver has been described as a Colt Dragoon on a Colt Navy frame. Flat-framed, the revolver was constructed of iron, with a brass trigger guard and back strap and walnut grips. Unlike the Colts, however, most Dance models had no recoil shields. Produced in .44 and .36 caliber, the weapons were single-action, six shot. The .44 Dance usually had an 8-inch barrel and weighed 3 pounds, 6 ounces. Some .44 models had iron back straps, due to the shortage of brass and other raw materials in Texas during the war. The .36-caliber model had a 7 1/2-inch barrel and weighed 2 pounds, 8 ounces. Prototypes were produced by June 1862. The Dances originally thought they could turn out 50 revolvers a week, but they soon realized that figure was not realistic. Eleven revolvers were sent to the San Antonio Arsenal in October 1862. The Houston Tri Weekly Telegraph lauded the Dance revolver as "superior to Colt's best" in it's September 5, 1862 edition. Even after it was antiquated, the Dance still got around.
Apache
warrior Geronimo was photographed (probably in 1894) with a Dance .44, although
the revolver was most likely a photographer's prop. The Dance brothers returned
to East Columbia after the Civil War and continued manufacturing gristmills and
cotton gins. The factory remained in operation until the buildings were
destroyed in the September 1900 hurricane that hit the Texas coast at Galveston.
* *http://www.carlmoon.com/Revolver.htm
This rare six-shot Confederate revolver was made in .36 and .44 calibers. Soon after the Civil War began, the Confederate government and individual states issued a call for firearms. As a result, a large variety of firearms—from flintlock rifles, pistols, and shotguns to current weaponry seized from federal properties—was used by Confederate soldiers at the beginning of the conflict. It became expedient for the South to begin manufacturing guns to keep their troops armed. Those organizations that did begin manufacturing arms largely used United States weapons as models, though this model is distinguishable by the lack of recoil shield protrusions on the frame. J. H. Dance and Brothers of Columbia, Texas, modeled their revolvers after the Colt Dragoon. The firm started manufacturing firearms in 1862. The men who worked for this company were granted exemption from military service by the state because the need for firearms was so great. In 1863 the workshop was moved farther inland due to fear that the Union gunboats would shell it, but operations apparently ceased following the move. Approximately 325 to 500 revolvers were manufactured by this firm.
Division of the History of Technology, Armed Forces History
National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Behring Center
Bequest of Charles Bremner Hogg Jackson
DANCE BROTHERS. Civil War firearms manufactured by J. H. Dance and Company are among the most highly prized antique weapons, valued for their fine craftsmanship as well as their rarity. From July 1862 through May 1865 the company produced six-shot Colt-pattern revolvers in both .44 and .36 caliber; total output was fewer than 400. The Dance family, originally residents of North Carolina, moved to Daniels Prairie in Greene County, Alabama, around 1835. In 1848 James Henry Dance traveled to Brazoria County, Texas, and in 1853 he moved to Texas with most of his family, including father, brothers, cousins, and slaves. The family jointly purchased 450 acres of land in the Cedar Brake section, where they established a plantation. In 1858 they built a spacious home in the thriving river port town of East Columbia, on the Brazos River. Across the street from their residence they opened a manufactory for metal and woodwork, named J. H. Dance and Company and operated by James Henry Dance and his brothers David Etheldred and George Perry. J. H. Dance and Company prospered before the Civil War manufacturing gristmills and cotton gins.
At the outbreak of the war James Dance enlisted in the Brazoria Volunteers; he later became first lieutenant in the Thirty-fifth Texas Cavalry. His brothers George, David, and Isaac enlisted, but because of their abilities and skills they were detailed to their steam factory at Columbia by early May 1862. Isaac died of measles in 1863. Initially the Dances' primary tasks were mounting cannons and repairing wagons for the Confederate Army and grinding cornmeal for Bates Company. In April 1862 George Dance wrote Governor F. R. Lubbockqv requesting an advance of $5,000. He claimed that this sum would enable the Dances to begin firearm production with an output of fifty revolvers a week. Evidently they received some aid, for on July 5, 1862, a letter written by George's cousin Mattie Duff states that "the boys think they will soon get some three or four of their pistols finished." While production may have been at a somewhat slower pace than originally anticipated, by October 2, 1862, the Dances were able to ship a dozen revolvers to the San Antonio Arsenal.
By November 1863 the Dances had decided to sell their business to the Confederate government. Cousin Mattie wrote that "the boys think it quite possible they will quit the shop soon" and added that George had left for Houston "to see if he could make a government affair of it." Further, "he thinks perhaps it will be done." Revolver production had come to an end in East Columbia by December 10, 1863, and Mattie wrote that she had been "in town all week helping the boys to leave."
The federal occupation of Matagorda Island, located just off the Texas coast near Brazoria County, prompted the belief that the county was about to be invaded. The Confederate government doubtless wanted to consolidate the Dances' skills farther inland and out of harm's way. The Dances relocated to a site three miles north of Anderson in Grimes County, and here the Confederate government built a powder mill and pistol factory. On February 7, 1864, Mattie Duff received word from Uncle Harrison that "they were not quite ready for making pistols but soon will." One of the last known shipments of Dance revolvers took place on April 18, 1865; a lot of twenty-five six-shot pistols was sent from Anderson to the Houston Depot of Supplies. At the end of the war the Dances returned to East Columbia and the manufacture of gristmills and cotton gins. See also COLT REVOLVERS.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: L. D. Satterlee and Arcadi Gluckman, American Gun Makers (Buffalo: Ulbrich, 1940; rev. ed., Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole, 1953). Gary Wiggins, Dance and Brothers: Texas Gunmakers of the Confederacy (Orange, Virginia: Moss, 1986).
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