"Because LeRoy Hunter, older brother of the Hunter Arms Brothers, left Hunter Arms/L.C. Smith to start the Ithaca gun company, with some other Hunter Arms employees"

He is way way off. It was Leroy Smith, older brother of Lyman C. Smith who left the L.C. Smith Gun Company along with his brother-in-law George Livermore and W.H. Baker and a few others in 1880. I believe it was 1883 when they founded the Ithaca Gun Co.

David