Romero 77
Romero 77. (See also, SHOTGUNS) Romero Arms and Tool Co. was founded in 1853 by Eugene Romero. They developed a line of steel tools and an early model break-action revolver. However, their interest in the firearms industry dwindled following the Civil War, and that aspect of the business was shut down. Eugene Romero passed in 1871, leaving the company to his son, Custer Romero. Following the 1873 Panic, Romero sought new ventures.
Romero Arms was resuscitated in 1877. New investment came from John Harrison, the younger brother of the famed Oliver Harrison &Roberts Firearms. Happy to work with Custer Romero, John Harrison put to paper early designs for a new shotgun focused on sporting, beginning with the Romero 79, named for the year of its entry to market, 1879. Following on from this were four successive improvements on the model, the 83 in 1883, 84 in 1884, 85 in 1885, and, confusingly, the 77 in 1886.
His health ailing, Harrison designed his final iteration. The Romero 77 entered into production a year after his death and was named for the year the company was founded. The Romero 77 became extremely popular, one of the most well-regarded sporting shotguns available at the time.
Journal of Daniel Glanton
Severely deteriorated, bound in unidentified leather, 8 x 8 in.
1/5
May first
IT hadn't seen him since he was standing right over me, so absorbed in my work as I was. My lap was filling with metal dust as I was going at the indentation stamped on the side of the barrel. My file slipped an I looked up and saw him standing there.
He asked me what I was doing and I told him I was taking off the engraving on the Romero. He asked why, and I kept dumb. He didnt look like no lawman, but still I weren't about to say straight forward it was stole from a dead man.
He didn't leave and stood waiting and then I told him it was taken. He said no lawman from here to Marfa is gonna know one gun from another by an engraving, but having one scratched out is something sure conspicuous. I told him I hadn't thought that part out, which he said he figured. I gathered then his intention was to make me feel small
He took the gun from me quick as can be. He had the hinge pin undone and cracked the receiver, pulling the barrel off. He turned it upside down and put the back end before me. If you're gonna do a bad job, at least do it right. he said pointing at a second engraving that had been hidden there.
He started walking on down the road and I set about following. He asked me what I was doing. I told him I was a hunter like him. I showed him the Romero. He said that was more a sports mans gun.
I told him straight back that there was no finer sport than hunting.
Journal of Daniel Glanton
Severely deteriorated, bound in unidentified leather, 8 x 8 in.
2/5
May fifth
We left the road and were crossing open country.
Until yesterday, I'd not got a word straight about what we were hunting. The man stopped midday and said we would make camp here. Tomorrow morning we'll pass into the grounds themselves, he said, crossing himself.
He set up camp and sent me to fetch something for dinner, and some groundsel, hackberry, and devil's snare. I found a family of swamp rabbits. They're so dumb, you shoot one of them and they all disappear back underground. But you wait an hour and they come out again. I bagged four with the Romero.
Evening I got back to find the man waiting with a mortar and pestle. He got me cooking and set about mashing the plants I'd got. I thought it was for flavor, but instead he mixed them into a steal vial set that in the fire.
After eating, he took it out with a tong and carefully poured the hot red syrup inside into a doctor's syringe. It poured like molasses. He said I had to take this. I refused, I hated the doctors. He said, word for word, think of it like a rabies shot, but if you don't take it, it'll be me killing you, not rabies. I saw he was serious.
This morning, I hurled up chunks of swamp rabbit. The man said that we can get going.
We went on. The woods became copses and got flatter and wetter. Soon was splashing out in water past sunk flat bottoms, the banks cloyed with old fish nets. Old outhouses fallen apart, huts collapsing on their stilts.
