Daniel Boone's Knife?

[tenngun]

The British Gov’t had no need to deal with a private enterprise like the HBC. The HBC had an incredible markup on its goods and so for one thing it was more cost effective to deal directly with cutler firms in England. Remember the headquarters of the Company was York Factory on Hudson’s Bay, not Montreal. The HBC didn’t have a presence in Montreal until it amalgamated with the Montreal-based North West Company in 1821. And HBC had its own fleet of ships that sailed from Portsmouth to Orkney then directly to the Bay posts, then straight back home with that seasons cargo of furs. Hudson’s Bay Company ruled Ruperts Land. The British Government controlled the rest of British North America and they could be thought of as friendly rivals for the Indian Trade. That is why I find the claim of his knife being of HBC origin suspicious when his geographic area was flooded with the products of the British Indian Dept.

HBC didn’t have the monopoly it would have later in colonial times. But across the frontier from Johnsons place in New York to a local Indian trader in South Carolina men were buying trade goods to sell to Indians and Frontiersman or settlers. How much difference would there be in a knife sold by HBC in Canada and one offloaded in Chesapeake bay or Charles town?
Can we identify an HBC item from a NW item or random item sold across trans Appalachian area?

 

[Rató:rats]

HBC didn’t have the monopoly it would have later in colonial times. But across the frontier from Johnsons place in New York to a local Indian trader in South Carolina men were buying trade goods to sell to Indians and Frontiersman or settlers. How much difference would there be in a knife sold by HBC in Canada and one offloaded in Chesapeake bay or Charles town?
Can we identify an HBC item from a NW item or random item sold across trans Appalachian area?

I don’t think we could. That’s another good reason I find Dixie Gun Works claim so spurious.

 

[Rató:rats]

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Interesting find. What museum is that? Someone should correct them. Mr Ellerbe or any number of historically correct knife makers in this forum will tell them emphatically that that is not a trade knife. Pretty impractical from a trappers point of view. While that dirk could certainly have been owned by a Hudson’s Bay Company employee it’s not the pattern of a trade knife of any century. If you can find it’s like dug from an archeological HBC site I’ll give you my house.

 

[smoothshooter]

I CERTAINLY doubt he had but one knife his whole life/career. Things get used and when they do they get worn out/ broken or sometimes lost. I am sure he had many. When tools such as a knife were so important to life at that time it is unlikely he carried an average quality knife when he could almost certainly afford and likely through connections obtain much better.

Boone was captured by the Indians at least twice, and they would have taken anything of value or usefullness away from him and kept them.
Also, I’m sure Boone was aware of the fact that having an unusually nice knife, powder horn, or gun could draw additional unwanted scrutiny from the Indians ( and some whites ) and get you killed because someone coveted your equipment.

 

[smoothshooter]

It may be worthwhile to look at a couple of portraits of Boone. This first one is an engraving by D. C. Hinman after a portrait by Chester Harding:

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This looks like a large knife, with an antler crown handle.

The next image is the famous J.O. Lewis print:

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The knife tucked in Boone's belt is smaller than in the other image, and could easily be of the common "scalping knife" pattern, like one of these:

View attachment 51458

One thing both of the portraits show is that Boone was carrying his knife tucked under his belt (not outside it), and he wore the knife on his left side, for a right-hand "cross-draw."

You are certainly free to draw your own conclusions. Speaking for myself, I find period images of Daniel Boone and other characters from history interesting and informative, but not necessarily definitive in regards to their kit. I give a lot of credence to period illustrations, but like to get corroboration and not base my conclusions on a single image. There was certainly some "artistic license" taken, even back then, meaning paintings and painters sometimes sacrificed accurate detail to get a better picture. This was discussed at some length recently, in the thread, Rifles of the 1830's

When researching this sort of topic, one thing we need to keep foremost is an open mind. Your preconceptions may be challenged by some of the things you find in your research, and your conclusions may (and probably will be) challenged by others doing similar research. Whether you believe what you see or not depends to some extent on "confirmation bias." We all have it, to some degree.

If it were me, I would research common knives of the period and pick one that looks typical.

Best regards,

Notchy Bob

It was common practice for portrait painters to paint only their subject’s face and head while in the presence of said subject. The clothing and any acoutrements could be done from memory or totally made up at a later time and another place.
That way the subject did not have to spend so much time just sitting or standing in a pose.