D Guard Bowie

[Treestalker]

Ah Yes! That was the name of The Keystone of the South when Billy Clinton was still Governor of the fiefdom. About the time I moved here and the hippies weren't profiled on hwy 23 south by the local sheriffs department during music festivals. :shake: Tree.

 

[Luke MacGillie]

From what I can figure there weren't that many Bowies in the mountains. Most trappers carried either a butcher knife or scalping type knife. A few carried fighting knives and most appear to be dagger types.

I agree with you on this, but there is this puzzling piece of information that might, yes I said might indicate there were some Bowie knives being carried:

This image is Oliver McCloskey's copy of a sketch sent east in 36 The question of course is how many "Texicans" were up there in the mountains at the time?

 

[Rifleman1776]

Here is one from Mexico. I know this to be over 70 years old. It was sold as a tourist souvenior and, reportedly, similar are still sold. Unlikely much quality in the blade, kept as a curiosity only.

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[Rifleman1776]

There are several original D-guard Bowies at HAM (or at least there was the last time that I was there several years ago) - I doubt that the Bowies have been removed from the collection.

Btw, Arkansas was also once called "The Land of Opportunity".

yours, satx

Yep, they are still there. And, one in particular that I am well acquainted with. :wink: http://www.historicarkansas.org/collections/knives.aspx?id=147

 

[bpd303]

I was fortunate to find this saddle scabbard in a junk shop. My version of the artillery Bowie 13 1/2 in blade.

This knuckle guard handle was in the same shop, just screamed for a blade.

 

[Wes/Tex]

This image is Oliver McCloskey's copy of a sketch sent east in 36 The question of course is how many "Texicans" were up there in the mountains at the time?

True. From what I've found through the years, most anyone from Texas or the Mexican Coahuila y Tejas states probably was involved int eh Santa Fe trade in the most southern mountain area...and probably too busy being chased all over God's green earth by the pesky Comanches! :wink:

 

[LaBonte]

From what I can figure there weren't that many Bowies in the mountains. Most trappers carried either a butcher knife or scalping type knife. A few carried fighting knives and most appear to be dagger types.

I agree with you on this, but there is this puzzling piece of information that might, yes I said might indicate there were some Bowie knives being carried:

This image is Oliver McCloskey's copy of a sketch sent east in 36 The question of course is how many "Texicans" were up there in the mountains at the time?

Luke this knife is also shown in a scale drawing in the MOFT's Fur Trade Cutlery Sketchbook.

As for Texans and Bowies - a bit late but sill illuminating:
The Texan Immigrant - 1840 - Col Edward Stiff:
"Perhaps about 3,000 people are to be found at Houston....among them are not to exceed forty females. Here may be daily seen parties of traders arriving and departing, composed of every variety of colour from snowy white to sooty, and dressed in every variety of of fashion, excepting the savage Bowie-knife, which, as if by common consent, was a necessary apppendage to all."

A New History of Texas, Being a Narration of the Adventures of the Author in Texas, and a Description of the Soil, Climate, Productions, Minerals, Tons [sic.], Bays, Harbours, Rivers, Institutions, and Manners and Customs of the Inhabitants of that Country; Together with the Principal Incidents of Fifteen Years Revolution in Mexico; and Embracing a Condensed Statement of Interesting Events in Texas, from the First European Settlement in 1692, Down to the Present Time; and a History of the Mexican War. by Col Edward Stiff.

THE PRAIRIE AND OVERLAND TRAVELLER A COMPANION FOR EMIGRANTS, TRADERS,TRAVELLERS, HUNTERS, AND SOLDIERS TRAVERSING GREAT PLAINS AND PRAIRIES. R. B. Marcy http://books.google.com/books?hl=e...=bCxuJDpdAa&sig=0ilXr1IE7yqV6UID1HrooRR6WJg\\
http://www.over-land.com/diaries.html

 

[LaBonte]

This image is Oliver McCloskey's copy of a sketch sent east in 36 The question of course is how many "Texicans" were up there in the mountains at the time?

True. From what I've found through the years, most anyone from Texas or the Mexican Coahuila y Tejas states probably was involved int eh Santa Fe trade in the most southern mountain area...and probably too busy being chased all over God's green earth by the pesky Comanches! :wink:

And not just in the "legal" trade - an encounter by the US Miltary with Texican freebooters in 1843. No Knives
In 1843 Captain Philip St. George Cooke, in command of a dragoon detachment patrolling an area along the north bank of the
Arkansas River, encountered a band of Texas "irregulars/freeboters" who were threatening a Santa Fe caravan. Anticipating trouble
from the captain and his frontier-toughened troops, the Texans hastily concealed a number of their best weapons (including some
Colt repeating rifles), but Cooke nevertheless relieved them of various other guns, including muskets, shotguns, pistols, and rifles.
Among the rifles Cooke confiscated and later turned in at Fort Leavenworth were:
30 flint lock rifles, valued at eighteen dollars each, including the barrel of one which has no stock, which appears to have been lost in
transportation.
12 percussion rifles, valued at twenty two dollars and fifty cents, including the barrel of one which has no stock. . . .
3 half stock Middletown rifles, percussion lock, valued at eighteen dollars each.
1 full stock percussion lock [Middletown rifle], valued at eighteen dollars.
1 halfstock flint lock Middletown rifle, valued at eighteen dollars.
NOTE: The "Middletown rifles" were probably altered U.S. Model 1817 contract arms made by Simeon North
Totals: 31 flinters and 16 percussion

Besides the forty-seven rifles and two "American dragoon carbines" (Hall's maybe - could be either flint or caplock) the Texans were carrying twenty-eight smoothbores of various types:
15 English flint lock shot guns.
3 Tower pieces (most likely India pattern Brown Bess flinters)
1 Large American flint lock shot gun.
2 Double barrelled flint lock, stub and twist, shot guns.
4 Percussion lock, double barreled, stub and twist, shot guns.
1 American musket.
2 Texas muskets (most likely the flintlock M1822 type muskets supplied to Texas by Tryon of Philadelphia in 1840 and marked Texas with a star on the lockplates) - a total of 860 were purchased out of the 1,500 ordered.
Totals: 23 flinters and 4 caplock - the American musket could be of either ignition so was not included in the totals.

The Texas "freebooters" were also rather well equipped with pistols - Cooke confiscated:
4 pairs of flint lock holster pistols, valued at twenty dollars a pair.
2 pairs percussion lock pistols, valued at forty dollars a pair.
8 flint lock holster pistols, odd, valued at ten dollars apiece.
7 percussion lock belt pistols, valued at fifteen dollars apiece.
1 percussion lock duelling pistol, valued at forty dollars.
Totals: 16 flinters and 13 caplock - just about half and half

Another mention of Texans with Bowie Knives
After arriving in Texas in the early 1840s, Nelson Lee joined the Rangers, describing their "uniform" and equipment as "buckskin moccasins and overhauls, a roundabout and red shirt, a cap manufactured by his own hands from the skin of a coon or wildcat, two or three revolvers (Colt's or pepperboxes?) and a bowie knife in his belt, and a short rifle on his arm."

 

[LaBonte]

One thing to note is that by the mid 1830's or so the term Bowie knife in news reports or other literature had become a sort of synonym for any large fighting knife. A. J Miller's notebooks that accompanied his sketches from 1837, often mentions the mountaineers carrying Bowie Knives. While most folks today tend to envision the classic" Bowie as having a 9-12" clip point blade, the fact is that in period the term Bowie covered more ground so to speak.
You have Spear point Bowies, Bowie camp knives, San Francisco Bowies (small spear point or dagger type blades often carried by gamblers, etc) and with the Ames Bowie of the mid-1830's you have nothing more nor less than a stout version of the standard humpbacked butcher being called a Bowie. Therefore we need to look past our own "impressions" of what makes a Bowie a Bowie and look at them through the eyes of those during whatever period we are interested in - the proverbial 4 W's of history research - who, what, when, and where - it matters a great deal at times since history is not always a logical procession of events, but is rather a set of staggering steps, colored by the varied thoughts of those living at that time and place,
For those interested in the history of Bowies, sans a lot of the mythos and folklore, I can highly recommend Norm Flayderman's "The Bowie Knife - Unsheathing an American Legend" it is hock full of beautiful color photos as well as lots of primary documentation and it is IMO a must have resource.

 

[dikman]

How many were in that "freebooter" group? They seized enough weapons to outfit a small army!! :haha: .