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Site Updated: 04/22/2024
The go-to place for the Fenian Needham Conversions.
All information presented in this site is evolving and subject to change as new research warrants.
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Latest Needham Conversion Collection Images
Hammer Numbers:
#1(possible)
#28
#39
#100
#110
#130
#231
#287
#293
#377
#421
#425
#583
#1181
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Anyone has any questions about Needham Conversions please contact me:
fenianmaster@gmail.com
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This Needham Hammer is Haunted!!!
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From Patrick Keenan – March 18, 1868
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At the present time, 177 Needham Conversions are accounted for. Current history tells us 5020 Needhams were constructed. SH&G bought at auction all the Needhams that were confiscated plus any uncompleted and parts at Pioneer Arms Works. SH&G built Needhams from the parts they bought and would wind up selling approximately 1500 Needhams. There is known to be 700 that were sent to Nebraska before the raids so these were not counted in the SH&G Needhams they bought at auction. My research tells me that 400 of the 700 in the basement were given to John O’Neal for the raids into Manitoba in 1871. The remaining 300 burned up in the fire at John Fitzgeralds house in Lincoln Nebraska known as Mount Emerald.
This leaves 1900 Needhams that are known to exist. So if there were 5020 made that leaves around 3000 unaccounted for. The highest hammer number I have seen thus far is 1455. There is one reported that has hammer number 1961 but I’ve not seen it. It is my belief there were not 5020 Needhams made. I believe the number is more around the 2500 mark.
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If anyone looking at this site has a Needham Conversion or knows someone who does, please have them contact me….. fenianmaster@gmail.com
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Note: This site is for research in Fenian and SH&G Needham Conversions. At anytime a particular section can be undergoing updating. Please keep this in mind while one section may be updating the rest of the site will be available.
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So this is where the 5020 number came from…
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This was a raid planned to go into Manitoba in 1871. Manitoba is located just north of North Dakota.. Nebraska is the next state south of South Dakota. I believe the 400 Needhams John O’Neil received came from the batch of 700 Needhams sitting in John Fitzgerald’s basement. That would have left around 300 Needhams left in the basement that burned.
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Bridesburg Machine Works
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This site was formed to help discover answers on certain aspects of the Needham Conversion Rifle.
Some of these questions are, but not limited to:
1. How many were actually made?
2. How many are left?
3. Where did the Fenians actually convert their percussion muskets?
4. What is the purpose of the hammer and wedge number?
5. Why is there an “O” stamped on locks and stocks on some Needham Conversions?
6. Why and when was the firing pin retaining screw location changed on some Needhams.
7. How many were stamped IN and how many were stamped IR and why the different stamp?
8. Did the Fenians build the components or were they contracted out to another firm?
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The Needham Conversion is the only firearm made specifically for the 800 year old fight for Irish Independence.
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The Fenian invasions of Canada of 1866 and 1870 and the operations of the Montreal Militia Brigade in connection therewith : a lecture delivered before the Montreal Military Institute, April 23rd, 1898
“From the time of the arrival (May 23), of the first batch at Leahy’s farm, where their Camp was formed, there was a constant stream of Fenians pouring into the Camp from all quarters. Wagons loaded with boxes of army ammunition and stores, that had been concealed in the cellars and barns of neighbouring sympathizers were incessantly arriving, till the amount was sufficient to equip 10,000 men. It passes all belief the quantity of stores of every kind which had been accumulated. We think we are below the estimate in stating that a quarter of a million dollars would not pay for all that was sent to the frontier. There were boxes of rifles, bayonets, water bottles, knapsacks, haversacks, belts and uniforms, barrels innumerable, of pork and biscuits. In fact, the most wonderful part of the movement was the completeness and extent of the preparations. To say that such a quantity of stores could
reach the frontier without the knowledge of the United States Government is absurd. The New York Tribune laughed at the Fenians as an army without a Commissariat; the truth is, it was a splendid Commissariat without an army worthy of it.”
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Thank you to the Atlanta History Center for allowing me to photograph their Needham Conversion.
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I would like to thank the National Infantry Museum in Columbus Georgia for allowing me to photograph and examine two of their Needham Conversions.
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Thank you to the Nebraska History Center for allowing me to photograph their three Needhams including the one from the basement of John Fitzgerald’s mansion Mount Emerald.
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The year 1869 saw O’Neill still at the helm of Fenian affairs, and large sums of money rolling in to the coffers of the organization; although, as always the case with Irish movements, dissensions reigned within the ranks. The Stephens section, now presided over by John Savage, who had succeeded John O’Mahony, was constantly attacking the Senate wing, and many and bitter were the feuds which raged. In my position as Inspector-General of the Irish Republican Army, I was fully engaged in my old work of inspecting the companies, and directing the location of arms along the Canadian country for coming active operations. In this way I distributed fifteen thousand stands of arms and almost three million rounds of ammunition in the care of the many trusted men stationed between Ogdensburg and St. Albans. Some thousands of these guns were breech-loaders, which had been re-modeled from United States Government “Springfields” at the arms factory, leased, and “run” by the organisation at Trenton, New Jersey. The depôt from which the bulk were packed and shipped was “Quinn and Nolan’s” of Albany. Quinn was a United States Congressman and Senator of the Fenian Brotherhood; and Nolan, that very Mayor Nolan so prominently mentioned by Mr. Parnell in his evidence as one of the eminently conservative (!) gentlemen who received him in America. Constantly the recipient of compliments for the admirable way in which I discharged my duty, I was now promoted to the office of Assistant Adjutant-General, with the rank of Colonel; and my new position enabled me not only to become possessed of the originals of every document, plan of proposed campaign, &c., but also specimens of the Fenian army commissions and uniforms of the time, which of course I conveyed to the officials of the Canadian Government.
Henri Le Caron
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