Some Thoughts
on Butchers & Other Knives
By Gene Hickman
Most butcher knives did not look
much different in the 1800s than they do
today.
According to Charles E. Hanson, Jr. in The Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly
(Vol. 23, No. 3, Fall 1987) The term
“butcher knife” began to appear in trade goods lists toward the end of the
18th century. In different periods of history a “butcher knife”
might mean widely differing styles of knives by 1816 in Sheffield it meant a
knife very much like today’s average butcher knife.
A few years ago I contacted a
company in Sheffield England that has been in the knife business since 1700. I
was trying to obtain knives that would have been available in 1803 and perhaps
used by the Lewis & Clark expedition. The company I contacted told me that
the majority of their utility cutlery was going to North America and Africa all
through the 1700 & 1800s. Their records show a common butcher knife just
like those used today. They sent me drawings and dimensions of what they were
making as butcher knives from the 1700s on. The only difference in the earlier
to the later 1800s knives was that the nose got broader, otherwise they were the
same width as the handle. Of course the older knives had tapered tangs and pins
rather than brass cutler's rivets, which date from the 1890s. Most early
butchers had blades as wide as the handle with the characteristic fat nose with
up-swept point.
Butcher knives came into their own
as the most popular knife in the Indian trade and for general use on the
frontier from the Revolutionary War on through the 1800s. Although the term
“butcher” knife can a somewhat generic term that could also include those
knives with an arcing or curving single-edged blade. Others use the term
"scalper" for this style knife, although scalper is also another
generic term for knives of several different styles. The same company I
contacted in Sheffield shows their scalper of the 1700 & 1800s as what we
would recognize today as a French kitchen knife, which historically was also
known as a Frenchmen’s knife.
According to Carl P. Russel Jr.
scalpers may not be what you think, as the term
"Scalping Knife" was used by fur traders of the period to designate a
certain style of knife for trade to Indians, and Russell described them as
"any cheap butcher knife." On the other hand, Charles E.
Hanson, Jr. has confirmed the existence of a specific pattern for the trade good
known as "the scalping knife." In the Quarterly Journal of the Museum of the Fur
Trade, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Spring 1987), Hanson illustrates and describes the knife
from notes and letters of Alexander Mackenzie & Co., a partner of the North
West Company.
"These
scalpers are of the simplest pattern possible-a generally straight or very
slightly curved blade 6 or 7 inches long, fairly straight and unsharpened on the
top, ending in a point from which the sharpened bottom edge begins and runs
along the bottom back to the grip, making a curved edge suitable for skinning
and slicing. The grip is a single piece of wood split with a saw for two-thirds
of its length. The short tang of the knife blade was shoved into this split and
fastened by two or three rivets inserted into holes drilled from side to side.
With a minimum of machine polishing, the knife was completed and ready for sale."
Hanson
goes on the say that "hundreds of blades of this general style have been
found at fur trade sites of the 1780-1840 period."
The company in Philadelphia, John
Wister & Charles Jones Wister (143 High Street), that Lewis buys his butcher
knives from, advertised in the local papers as carrying only the finest English
knives. He pays $2 for his 4 dozen butcher knives. Incidentally he also buys
scarlet cloth, fancy handkerchiefs, binding (probably like bias tape or ribbon)
and card beads from the Wister's. The Director of the Frontier Army Museum and
the former Army Historian and L&C "point-man" both agreed that the
"scalper" that L&C got from the Purveyor General most probably
looked like the French kitchen knife. The knife guys in Sheffield confirmed that
this was very possible as it is what they made a lot of at the time and they
were variously known as Frenchmen's knives or
scalpers,
depending on the customer.
The
Sheffield guys told me that some of the handles were also of the extreme octagon
shape and that other handles were originally nothing more than the rectangular
slab handle with the corners angled. They also told me that tangs were made both
half and full. Full tangs were easier to haft and were stronger, but cost
slightly more. Pin numbers varied as to the size of the blade it supported and
whether it was full or half tang. You'll see 4, 5, or 6 pins commonly, usually
depending on the size of the knife. Either way it was always more than 3 pins.
The 3 pins become standard with the big fat brass cutler's rivets of the 1890s.
Iron and less often brass pins
are correct for the time period and not the large brass cutler’s rivets. Brass
pins are also acceptable. Some of the 19th century examples even have 3/32” to
1/8" iron pins. The norm, based on years of handling and looking at
originals in collections and other research, is wood handled with iron pins.
I
have 4 old (pre-1890) I. Wilson butcher knives. Three have 6 pins and one has 5
pins. Two are 10", one 8" and one 6". One 10" and the
8" are half tanged the other two are full tanged. All have rectangular slab
handles with the corners "shaved." I had two other I. Wilson butchers
which I gifted to an anthropologist friend for his collection. Can't remember
details on them, they were about 6" & 8" knives. I have a bunch of
other old butchers where the marks are indistinguishable. Most have had the
blades sharpened so much they've lost their original shape. All have multi-pins,
tapered tangs, and rectangular slab handles. All of these knives are pre-1890,
but may all have been manufactured well after the Civil War. However, it seems
that the basics of the butcher knife have not really changed much in the last
200 years.
The knives
I eventually got from Sheffield, for our L&C interpretation, had the old
company name and logo stamped on them. The only thing they added was Sheffield,
which is required by law. Otherwise the original stamp had: John Nowill &
Sons Ltd. Est A.D. 1700 flanked by crossed keys on the right and a D with an
asterisk above it on the right. The 8" butchers I got from them had 5 pins,
and the 5"-6" butchers and the Scalpers (6 1/2" blade) had 4
pins. All had full tangs. My Wilson knives have an X with o's in each of the
four spaces and a
diamond
to the right of it.
Don't
know whether L&C had Wilson knives. Here's a reference to
Wilson
butcher knives in the fur trade of 1835:
http://roxen.xmission.com/~drudy/mtman/html/diana.html
and here's
another
for 1837: http://roxen.xmission.com/~drudy/mtman/html/rmo1837.html.
We
know a lot about knives in the 18th & 19th century, but then again we don't
know a lot of detail. I think that the modern buckskinner and his fascination
with knives of all kinds has really turned our heads as to the kinds of knives
that most trappers, traders, hunters, Indians, etc. carried. I believe that the
butcher has got to be the most prevalent knife of the time. It certainly is the
dominant knife in fur trade records. I also think that in the early half of the
18th century the cartouche knife was dominant and after the Rev War the butcher
seems to have become more dominant. I can't give you direct references for this,
as I’ve not had time to quantify the numbers. I’ve looked at lots of museum
specimen knives, reviewed lots of early newspaper ads, and read lots of trade
records. Unfortunately none of these sources have pictures or detailed
descriptions of what the knives looked like. Butcher knives are mentioned by
“name” in a number of period journals too. Much of my information also came
from the knife guys in Sheffield and the Fur Trade Cutlery Sketchbook by James
A. Hanson.
Knives
can generally be categorized into three general categories: butchers, scalpers
and cartouche knives. If you want more information on the Scalping knife it may
be found in The Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 1, Spring 1987
and for the Cartouche knife it is in Vol. 23, No. 2, Summer 1987.
The knives commonly known as the
"ripper" and the "skinner" are considered in the butcher
knife category and were developed in a later historic period for the buffalo
hide hunters. The skinner, as a specific pattern developed from the butcher,
even though it has a more radical curve to the blade. I would refer you to the
Fur Trade Cutlery Sketchbook for more information. Many folks try to tell us
that the Green River was the knife of the fur trade and even for Lewis &
Clark. However the Green River dates to the Civil War. The company was not
started until 1834 and it did not manufacture knives until 1841. I often see
“Skinners,” Green Rivers, Bowie knives, and other large chopping knives,
many with all kinds fancy handles, antler handles, animal jaw handles, and many
other outrageous innovations at modern rendezvous, and all are purported by
their owners to be what the "Mountain Man" carried.
There are a lot of guys that know
more about knives than I. I got into it trying to find the L&C knives. The
Museum of the Fur Trade has a number of knives which I have studied and they
also have written knife articles in their Fur Trade Quarterly. I think that Carl
P. Russell's book "Firearms, Traps,
& Tools of the Mountain Men" is also a reference worth looking
into.
Another source would be to look up the knife makers in Sheffield, England. Many
have been in existence for 100s of years. Those that responded to me, I found
most helpful in what knives they were making in the 19th century, and seemed to
know everything about what they were making and where they were going. One thing
I learned from them is that until about the 1950s most knives were made by one
company and the handles were made and assembled by a totally different company.
All of these were family businesses. John Nowill & Sons, where I got my
knives, was a knife maker, which company is now owned by the family that was
formerly the handle maker. Just recently Crazy Crow Trading Post started
carrying a “Snake Brand” Sheffield butcher knife, which I consider to be an
excellent example of the kind of knife carried during the fur trade period.
That’s my 2 pence worth on knife
ramblings.
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