Here's a picture of one of grandfather's Barlow knives. You can see the blade is worn. He had a small farm and once owned a sawmill but mostly used farm trucks to haul stuff to market. The stuff varied depending on time of year. Produce, salt fish, corn, firewood, oyster shells, etc.
Thanks Gus.
Thanks, Gus!
I’ve never said that if something wasn’t written down, it didn’t happen. But I will absolutely say that if it’s not actually documented, you can’t prove that it happened- the best you can do is make an educated guess that it might have. And as I’m sure you’ve seen, there are a lot of people out there making guesses that aren’t particularly educated. The bigger issue is people thinking “well, I figured it out, so people back then must have done it, too.” There are plenty of things that we can surmise, once we have a thorough understanding of the technology and the documented (not just in writing, but through physical evidence- tool marks, wear patterns on surviving artifacts, etc) practices of the period. I have cleared acres of scrub and young woods with everything from stone axes, and Cold Steel pocketknives, and machetes and hatchets and felling axes to chain saws. I have started with a tree in the field, felled it, bucked and hewn it, dragged it out, and pitsawn it into scantling for construction. Sometimes I was attempting to test theories based on research, sometimes I was trying to duplicate documented feats or replicate artifacts. Sometimes, I was just dicking around in the woods. But just because there are modern people who engage in experimental archaeology, or who get their jollies pitting themselves and their $400 artisanal knives and old Boy Scout lashing skills against the harsh suburban wildernesses in which they make bushcraft videos is no reason to think that our ancestors- who generally HAD the right tools for the job, and nothing to prove to themselves or their online followers- would have done the same.
My understanding is that that is not a siamois? Looks like an 'a la dauphine Jambette' as per Ken Hamilton's research.
That's a beautiful knife but is it a siamois or an a la dauphine jambette? It looks almost transitional to my untrained eyes. Just going from Ken Hamilton's French Knives in North America.
According to Kevin Gladyz and Ken Hamilton’s article the term dauphine knife refers to blade shape
I'm not sure I would characterize things as well-settled during the time of the sandbar fight for much of the country. Of course, the original knife Bowie used during the sandbar fight was most likely a butcher knife, not really much like the Bowies that became popular afterwards, and things did become much more well-settled shortly afterwards as well. But the mere fact that Bowie was carrying a large belt knife during the sandbar fight should give us reason to believe it was not uncommon at the time, as the seconds had no expectation of the brawl that would ensue. We also know that at least one other member was carrying a swordcane. Of course, this is later than colonial times, and what was done in the late 1820's was not necessarily what was done half a century or more earlier.
Truth.
