James Herbert Bullard's most cherished Onyx ring.
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WARNING ALL INFORMATION ON THIS PAGE AND OTHER PAGES IN THE BULLARD REPEATING ARMS COMPANY WEB SITE ARE PROTECTED BY COPYRITE AND OR OTHER LEGAL REQUIREMENTS, NO PORTION MAY BE COPIED OR REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WHAT SO EVER WITHOUT THE PERMISSIONS OF THE AUTHORS OR RELEVANT OWNERS.
Magazine gun patent 1883.
Some of the many inventions of James Herbert Bullard, and his workshop.
The above text courtsey of G. Scott Jamieson - Bullard Arms 1988 - the Boston Mills Press Ontario Canada.
Scott Jamieson at the site fo James Herbert Bullard's grave
Scott Jamieson at the grave site of J.H. Bullard
An interesting side light to Bullard's arms patents is shown by patent #287229, (plate 1-6 above) granted October 23, 1883, for for improvements shown in B. F. Henry's patent drawing of October 16, 1860. Its object was to remove much of the friction in the operation of cocking the hammer and in moving the operating lever forward.
           As well as being involved in many careers and patent designs, Bullard spent much of his time working on a steam car in the shed behind his house on State Street (plate1-8  Below). He patented his steam cat on July 5 , 1887, patent #365788. His vehicle actually ran in Springfield, but not until December 31, 1898, and it is doubtfull that more than one was ever built. (Plates 1-7, !-9 below)

                Bullard made several attempts to interese investors in his steam motor carriage,but when he failed he conclude that the time was not ripe for such an invention. The car was alowed to stand in the workshop and was finally sold for scrap metal.
           Several articles and newspaper clippings state that the car ran in 1885. This is very unlikely given that the summer of 1885 found Mr. Bullard in England studying much of the technology that he was to incorporate into his vehicle as the design progressed. The car was not patented until 1887.
           Bullard's ideas for development of heat generated by petroleum were so successful that he was led to believe that it was of equal importance for the purposes, and he began to devote his whole time todeveloping it for heat in metallurgical uses and processes. Between 30 and 40 petente for its application were secured by Bullard over the years. This method of generating heat     was used by hundreds of factories around the world.
           About 1888 Bullard formed the Aerated Fuel Company, located at 425 Main Street and became its president, Mr. A. B. Wallace of Forbes and Wallace its treasurer, and Chares E. Stickney its secretary. The company was formed to manufactur and sell industrial-type oil burners,     the device Bullard had invented for high preasure steam boilers.
           J. H. Bullard had married Martha Bullard (her maiden name) on December 31,1863 and they had three sons and one daughter: Frederick Herbert, Herbert Augustus, Edwin and Mary Louise.
           In the 1888-89 Springfield City Clerk Directories, Bullard was listed as manager of the Aerated Fuel Company, located at 425 Main Street until the year 1906. In 1907 he was listed as a manufacturer of speed recorders (speedometers). No business address is listed so he probable worked from his house. In 1908 his son Frederick joined him, and they and they remained in this business until 1910, about which time Bullard sold his home at 777 State Street to a neighbour, Col. A.H.H. Goetting, who a few years later converted Bullard's old shop into a garage where the widely advertised cars of later, more successful automakers were sold.
           In 1911 Bullard's home address became 45 Warner, but sometime after Bullard died, the name of the street was transfered from one road to another, so if the Bullard- owned home still stands on Warner, it would be difficult to prove. In any event, he only lived in it for three or four years. His house on State Street is now a library parking lot. No monuments have been erected to mark the spot.
           The 1912 Directory listed Bullard as manager of the Bullard Specialty Company, 45 Warner, and in the 1913 irectory his capacity and address were unchanged.
           James Bullard died on March 26,1914, at the age of 72, in his home on Warner.
He was survived by four children and one adopted daughter. His wife, Martha , had died in the previous year, on September 20 at 73 years of age. Bullard was buried in the Oak Grove Cemetary near his old employer, D.B. Wesson, but unlike Wesson he left no monument save the steel pin marker #1380 (pictured below being held by Scot Jamieson). The ashes of his son Frederic are also buried in the 20 by 16 foot plot.
           Just before his death in 1914, Bullard contributed information to the springfield newspapers outlining the role of two of his cousins, George A. and Silas Bullard, in the capture of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy.
           By all acounts James H. Bullard was a well-respected citizen and a member of many groups and societies in Springfield. His greatest failing, if one can call it that, was his inability to remain with one project long enough to see it through to commercial success before venturing on to the next project. His adult live was spent satisfying his inventive mind's pursuit of new inventions and patents, but nevre fully capitalizing upon the inventions which should have made him wealthy.
           The greatest and most lasting legacy of James H. Bullard was his development of the solid-heatd semi-rimless (rimless) shell for arms. Perhaps every centre-fire cartridge made today should   be head stamped with a B in honour of the man who made that technology possible.

              .James Bullard was a man of prolific genius, his inventions ranged from automobiles
to sewing needles. Had he been endowed with better managerial sense and the ability to cling tenaciously to a sound concept and see it through to its succesfull conclusion, the companies he founded would still be flourishing. If the firms of Knox, Duryea Bros., and Bullard had survived, Springfield, Massachusetts, would not only be remembered as the historic birthplace of the American automobile, but also have become as important to the industrial might of America as Detroit is today.
         Bullard's firearms inventions, though, are the prime concern of this book. His repeating rifle
patent claim was filed on May 5,1879,and granted on August 6,1881. This repeater was to gain a reputation for the smoothest leaver action ever made. His rifle was also one of the first to positively extract the government .45-70 copper cartridges then in use.
James Bullard's inventive life began in Poultney, Vermont, on May 14 1842. He was the son of Ezekiel W. and Miriam (Foster) Bullard. His father was also an inventor, mainly of agricultural impliments, such as the Bullard Hay Tedder, horse rake and hay cutter.
         Until he was 15, James attended school at Barre, Massachusetts. Upon leaving school, he want to Smithville to work for the firm C.W. and J.E. Smith. a mercantile house. He remained in their employ approximately three years. Just before the outbrake of the civil war, he was engaged in making shaker hoods for southern use, but hostilities ended that venture and he joined the ranks of the unemployed.
         In 1861 James tried to enlist in the 15th Massachusetts Regiment but was refused enlistment. This was to happen to him three more times during the course of the war. The cause was apparently a birth defect or crippled foot.
         Frustrated in his attempts to join the Union Army, he went to Chicopee Falls (opposite Springfield Massachusetts) as the master mechanic of the Belcher and Taylor Manufacturing Company. manufacturer of the Bullard Hay Tedder. He worked there for a number of years before moving to the Lamb Knitting Machine Company of Chicopee Falls, contracting to manufactur that company's knitting machine needles. Later he accepted a similar position with the Wheeler and Wilson Service Machine Company, for who he made a number of machine models. He then returned to the Lamb Company where he made drawings for an automated machine to make metalic seals for Canadian Postal Department mail pouches.
         After leaving the Lamb Company for the second time, James Bullard went to work for Smith & Wesson as master mechanic of the works.
         Mr. Bullards employment record contained both the best and worst traits of his inventive chracter. The best traits embodied his consummate skill as a master mechanic and draftsman who was always in demand in an industrial area  filled with skilled workmen. His worst traits included the inability to stay with any one company or to apply himself in any specific endeavor for long. Possibly this was the direct result of his lack of managerial skill at the large factory level.
          While with Smith & Wesson he collaborated with D.B. Wesson on several patents involving hand guns, from approximately 1877 to 1880. Three patents involved hand guns directly and one involved a machine for a machine to facilitate the checking of pistol grips.
          It was during this time of feverish activity on Bullard's part that he applied for his patent on what was to becom the Bullard repeating rifle. He applied for this patent on May 5, 1879. As significant as these patents were, two other Bullard patents were applied for at this time that were to have a more profound and lasting effect upon the munitions industry. Bullard was the father of the modern solid - head cartridge as we know today. This cartridge, in .50 -115, was also semi - rimless (rimless), certainly a first in America and probably a first in the world.
           Sometime between mid -1880 ( the time of his last patent with Smith & Wesson ) and early 1881, Bullard was offered a superintendency of the Springfield Sewing Machine Company works, and he assigned to them his patent for the shuttle - accurating mechanism for sewing machines on February 1 1881. He followed this with four more patents assigned to the company in 1881 and 1882. When the company moved to Cleveland, Ohio, it did so without James Bullard, who was by now a stalwart citizen of Springfield.
            His patent (#245700, filed May 5, 1879) for a magazine rifle was secured on August 16,1881, so that when the Springfield Sewing Machine Company left Springfield, Bullard was able to devote his full energies to the task of setting up what would become the Bullard Repeating Arms Asssociation. He surely used his time while still the superintendant of the Springfileld Sewing Machine Company to make contacts with people who would eventually finance the factory and its machinery,something well beyond Bullard's financial means to do so. The Company was set up in 1882 under the name Bullard Repeating Arms Association, but here the story becomes muddled. There are several different versions, all of which will be examined in the next chapter.
            From 1875 until almost the end of his life, Bullard lived at 777 State Street in Springfield, not far from the site of the factory.
            The Springfield City Clerk Directory of 1881-82 listed J.H. Bullard aas superintendant of the Springfield Sewing machine Company, and in the 1882-83 directory he was still listed in that capacity. The 1883-84 directory showed no change in J.H.Bullard's status, but his invalid brother, William A. had becoe an employee of the Bullard Repeating Arms Association. In the 1884-85 directory J.H. was listed as employed by the Bullard Repeating Arms Association. Wm. A Bullard became plant superintendant in 1885-86 and his brother E.W. Bullard also became an employee during that time.
             In 1886-87 J.H. Bullard was again listed by the directory,but only in the capacity of mechanic. He apparently spent the summer of 1885 in England studying all sorts of burner and mechanical devices. The primary object of his trip to England, however was the negotiation of a license agreement with an English house to manufacture Bullard rifles. (For legal reasons the author cannot publish information directly from this source but will provide the source sothat any reader wishing to study the subject further may write for the pertinent documents.)
             Upon returning to Springfield, James Bullard severed his connections with the company that bore his name. He now began to turn his attention to the design of appliances for supplying steam road vehicles with heat generated by petroleum rather than solid fuels.

Close up of the above diagram