A little American Bicentennial Longbow history...Happy July 4th!

       Forty-nine years ago, America celebrated its bicentennial birthday of becoming a nation.  During the week of July 4th, 1976 there was a little bit of history being made in a little bow shop in Hamilton, Montana.  The bow shop was John Schulz's, and he was building longbows for Howard Hill Archery.  John was an artist in various mediums.  Drawings, poetry, leatherwork, building longbows...he enjoyed the mind of an artist looking at ways to bring beauty to enhance ordinary things.  John's artistic drawings were the inspiration for the Howard Hill charging elephant logo, which was also used for the medallion in the Commemorative longbow series commemorating Hill's life.  (The Commemorative series was also the brainchild of Schulz, originally poo-pooed by Ted Ekin but later embraced when John showed Ted a finished product). John came up with several special edition longbows during his tenure as a bowyer, and the following story is one of such...howbeit almost lost to the obscurity of time.  Thankfully, John told me the story, and recently I was privileged in bringing a piece of this story to life again.

     John and I were discussing his tenure building longbows for Ted Ekin at Howard Hill Archery and the reason for their parting of ways.  There were a few items of contention between the two, and after hearing John's side of the story, I think it boiled down to one main thing.  John was an ardent follower of his mentor Howard Hill and was deeply involved in archery, preferring to continuing the legacy of Hill through Hill's shooting instructions, longbow designs, and love of archery in general.  Ted was a businessman.  Selling bows made Ted's living.  Building bows made John's.  John's artistic bent was always at work and he had brought many ideas to Ted along the lines of customized bow models, special bow series, and unique materials.  Ted pretty much pooh-poohed the ideas as they seemed to frivolous to him and he said as much to John. Ted wanted to stick with the basics and just "sell bows".  John wanted to build artistic Hill legacy that consumers would want to be a part of.  

   John had approached Ted about doing a commemorative longbow in honor of Howard's passing, serial numbered for each year of Hill's life.  John did the artwork for the medallion, sourced the special hardwoods, lined up the source for the medallion and dreamed up the glass combo, then presented it to Ted for approval.  Ted nixed it.  He told John that for the price, an unheard of sum of $500.00 for a longbow, they'd never sell.  Ted didn't even try to promote it in any way.  John was discouraged, and built a prototype bow anyway and started garnering potential pre-orders as a way to try and convince Ted to let him do the work.

    During this timeframe, July 4th, 1976 was approaching.  A special time in America's history for sure and John wanted to somehow commemorate the occasion.  On a whim, he thought of a special edition longbow, of unannounced nature.  He and his two sons, John Jr. and Steve, would build 13 longbows (in honor of the original 13 states), from complete start to finish, all during the week leading to July 4th.  The next 13 names on the bow waiting list at the beginning of that week would be the recipients, whomever they were and whatever model of bow they were awaiting.  At that time, the Big 5 model was the most popular, so it was probably the most likely in the majority of the 13 bows made that week.  John and his boys each worked close to 80 hours that week, and on July 4th, the bows were dated and finished.  John's propensity to naming bows with the word "Shot" included, led to the name "Flagshot" on the limb, while the bow model was written on the side of the handle, which wasn't its usual position.   John told me that he didn't remember telling any of the recipients that their bow was a special one of only 13 made to honor the holiday.  The bows at that time were handed over to Ted and Ted shipped them out.  It's very likely that Ted never told anyone and the customers never really knew the reason for the bow name.  Perhaps some did contact John to inquire, but he didn't tell me such.  However, this event was the thread pulled to start unraveling their business relationship.  When the boys hand delivered the bows to Ted along with the invoice for the work, Ted was incredulous.  He hardly could believe that many bows had been made start to finish in one week.  As he wrote out the check and handed it to one of the boys, he made the comment, "no one should make that much money building bows".  The comment was relayed to John and things never went well from there.  John was upset that Ted didn't realize around 240 man-hours had been invested in building these bows. It wasn't as if they'd made any extra money, the bows were sold at the usual price.  It was an honor thing, a work of the heart and soul that had been stepped on.  Shortly thereafter, Ted found out through a customer inquiring about the potential Commemorative longbow, who told Ted how willing he was to pay the high dollar for such a special bow, that Ted decided he could make some money on the series after all.  So Ted went to John and told him to go ahead with the series.  But the relationship was already on the downward slide by this time and John only made around half the bows before he ended ties with Howard Hill Archery.  Following the split, advertising for John's American Longbow Company and Howard Hill Archery took a few back and forth swipes at each other in national bow and arrow magazines.  Things were never repaired and John told me that as Ted was suffering some serious health issues which led to his passing soon thereafter, he told his wife that he'd done John wrong and maybe this was possible karma. John told me that Betty called him and told him of Ted's words after Ted had passed.

     Be that as it may, I always wondered why I saw the strange back and forth advertising in the magazines and why there seemed to be a rift in the Schulz / Hill manufacturing of longbows.  This account cleared it up for me.  As all accounts of an issue have two sides, we'll never know Ted's side, but for now, it's interesting to contemplate.

     So how does this all fit into this year?  Well, I happened to be perusing an Internet site several months ago and saw a bow with "Flagshot" written on the limb.  I asked the owner to send me photos of the bow, as this was potentially one of the special bows made almost fifty years ago.  After seeing the photos, and deciphering the serial number as John told me, I deduced the bow was one of the original 13 bows and was made in a heavy weight, for a person with a long draw, and it had been sent back to Craig Ekin at some point in the past to be reworked down in weight.  Craig put his signature handle shape on the bow, sanded down the limbs to his preferred limb cross-section and reworked the string grooves to his 1990's style of string grooves and bow tip shape.  The writing was in Craig's hand, but the names and serial numbers were all Schulz.  I don't know for sure that Craig actually reworked the bow, because during this time, he had assistant Tom Hardy helping build bows in the shop.  The limb tiller tracing matched my Schulz Trophy Hunter limb tracing.   I asked the owner if he would mind me reworking the bow back to the condition befitting the original build forty-nine years ago.  I would shorten the bow to the length that John would've made it for the new owner's draw length, reshape the limbs to John's classic trapezoidal limb cross-section, reshape the tips, rework the handle and re-ink the lettering in John's script.  A re-tillering after shortening it to John's Trophy Hunter limb bend would also be fitting as this bow was made just a few short months before John left HHA and started building the Trophy Hunter model under his own name.

      The present owner (who has asked to be kept anonymous) agreed and I got the chance to rework the bow. 

     The specs written on the bow were by Schulz, but now in Craig's handwriting.   5 - 70107     52@28.   Schulz's specs read for all his bows,  model first, then bow length, bow number in the series (and every model or series started with 101) then the weight at the requested draw length.  This model is a Big 5  (5) , 70" long, number 7 bow of the series (of 13).  Knowing how John built his bows to fit a customer, a 70" bow was for a long draw, not 28".  So the poundage was a rework by Craig and he wrote the 28". Originally, I'm quite sure the original owner had a 30" or longer draw length.  If Craig reduced down the bow as much as he did by rounding the limbs, the bow was probably a heavyweight, I'm guessing due to the era it was built in and the way Craig reshaped the limbs...it was 70# plus originally.

   The bamboo was the old stuff...good and hard, the bubinga handle nice and mellowed with age.  It was great fun to hold a small piece of history, to rework it as I have other bows of John's make over the years.  I remember many years ago getting John's seal of approval on a bow of his I'd reworked, after he cautioned me to make sure I retained the tiller..."yes sir", I said, "The tiller is the thing".  "Yes it is" he replied.

     I shortened the bow to fit the new owners draw length of 27", meaning a bow length of 66". This made the bow heavier and I was then able to shape the original style limb trapping to get the weight to the desired result...mid 50#s.

     With the new length, I rewrote the specs to reflect it's current condition:  5 - 66107  55@27.  The Big Five written in the same place below the leather and Flagshot on the limb as Schulz did it.  This was the 7th bow of the series.

     With this Flagshot bow I got to be a part of history as it relates to Howard Hill Archery, John Schulz, and the American Bicentennial celebration. The following photos show the bow as I received it, and it's new restored condition.  Enjoy this bow's rebirth, and Happy Birthday America!