Front Park

Parrott rifles are so named because of the rifling of the cannon barrel. The spiral cuts in the interior of the barrel added spin to the projectiles, which made them more accurate than smooth bore cannons. The projectile itself was the pointed shape of modern artillery shells, spelling the eventual end of cannonballs as ammunition. So these can accurately be called either rifles or cannons.

The rifles and ammunition were both perfected by Robert Parrott, a former U.S. Army officer and, from 1836 to 1876, superintendent of the West Point Foundry, where the cannons were cast. By 1860, his design of the rifle was set. Its long barrel of cast iron had a tendency to blow up, so to help stabilize it, a wrought iron band was forged around the bottom, giving the rifle its distinct profile. It was still a dangerous piece to fire, but its accuracy made it the cannon preferred by the army and the navies of both sides in the Civil War.

Buffalo’s Parrott rifles are 100-pound naval versions. Various sizes were cast but the 100-pounders could fire projectiles weighing up to 100 pounds as far as 7,800 yards and needed a crew of 17 sailors to load and fire them. By the 1870s, this cannon model was already obsolete since it was made for wooden warships and would not fit the new iron fleet.

In the 1880s the Philadelphia Naval Yard offered cities its supply of surplus 100-pound Parrotts which had never been used in combat. Buffalo acquired 20 to 25 of them and probably put them in storage until suitable sites could be selected.

.... Of the 450 or so 100-pound naval Parrotts cast, only 32 still exist; that these two remain was a lucky accident of neglect. I’m speculating that these were the two 1864-65 cannons found in a city storage yard in 2013. Carefully restored and seated on new GAR carriages, they were placed at Front Park on July 3, 2014, echoing those many cannons of years ago."