Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company

The second contract for 15,000 rifles was so large that no suitable land was available in Windsor, Vermont.

The holding company advanced Robbins & Lawrence $40,000 to purchase 25 acres (100,000 m2) of land in Hartford, Connecticut, and to erect a brick factory building.

[2] The Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company produced over 100,000 firearms during the US Civil War for the Union Army, but the company was plagued by lawsuits and eventually succumbed to a shifting marketplace as repeating rifles became more popular with shooters.

A number of companies, among them Shiloh Rifle Manufacturing Company and C. Sharps Arms Co. Inc., both of Big Timber, Montana, and the Italian gunmaker Davide Pedersoli & Co. of Brescia, offer a line of Sharps reproductions.

When Sharps relocated to Bridgeport, the Weed Sewing Machine Company bought the old Hartford plant to manufacture bicycles themselves.

Early tape priming system developed by Richard Lawrence integrated on a Sharp's model 1859 Carbine.
Side view of a Sharps model 1859 carbine with the action open.
Hartford sewing machine company building that housed Sharps Rifle Co.
Left side view of Lawrence priming system integrated on a Sharps Model 1859 carbine.