Johann Peter Boßler
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Johann Peter Boßler [ˈbɔslɐ] also written Bossler and Bosler (born between 6 and 9 April 1689 in the liberty of castle Lichtenberg; died 31 July 1742 in Darmstadt)[1] was a German master gunsmith and hunting arms manufacturer. He was in the service of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt and is considered an outstanding figure in the history of hunting in Hesse-Darmstadt.[2]
Even before his son Friedrich Jacob, Johann Peter Boßler had been the most famous European specialist for air rifles. Even while he was still alive, his elegant and engineeringly outstanding air guns were imitated by other gunsmiths.[3][4]
It is also known that Johann Peter Boßler made hybrid air-powder rifles that could be used with explosive material and with air rifle mechanisms.[5]
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Johann Peter Boßler is said to have learned the gunsmith's trade in Zella in Thuringia. He is also said to have been born there, which can be read in much of the older literature.[6][7] A documentary source on Boßler's place of birth and training is not to be found in any of these books.[8]
When Johann Peter Boßler took over the godparenthood of a son of the master gunsmith Andreas Boßler the Elder (1673 – 1741) in Umstadt in 1719, he was named as the brother of the child's father.[9] The origin of Johann Peter Boßler is therefore beyond doubt, since his brother Andreas Boßler the Elder clearly came from Lichtenberg and Johann Peter Boßler was confirmed there in 1701.[10][11]
The ancestry of Boßler was thoroughly investigated by a relative. In the process, a Boßler gunsmith family from Lichtenberg (Fischbachtal) has been reconstructed, which held the court office of the Burgrave of Lichtenberg and from which Johann Peter Boßler also descended. Thus the court gunsmith belongs to the Lichtenberg tribe of the hessian Boßler family.[12][13]
Through this evidence of Johann Peter Boßler's origins, secured in scholarly periodicals, it also became clear that he had been a great uncle of the dramatist and novelist Friedrich Maximilian Klinger.[14][15] Johann Peter's grandson Heinrich Philipp Boßler[16] was the original publisher of Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart.
