I always appreciate
@Howard Pippin 's comments. Keep 'em coming, Squint!
I found this short article and photo in a back issue of
The Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Fall 1975), p. 11, and thought it might be of interest to readers of this thread:
View attachment 159128
That oblong object second from the bottom on the left side is a whetstone, and the item in the lower right corner is its rawhide sheath. Using the ruler at the top of the image as a reference, I calculated the whetstone's size at roughly 6" long by about 1.4" wide. I don't know the thickness. Also note the comment in the next to last paragraph: "
The ordinary Indian household sharpener was often a flat round polished stone of the type that could be found in mountain streams." Pretty much what Loyalist Dave and Appalachian Hunter were talking about in their posts.
The knife is a big one... using the ruler as a reference again, the blade appears to be about 9.6" long, with a total or overall length of about 15.1". The buckle (or more properly, the "belt plate"), with the eagle facing the viewer's left, looks to me like the Model 1874 Officer's Belt Plate. The text indicates these items were found with a number of Indian head pennies dating from the 1860's to 1882, so this outfit may be a little "late" for the pre-1840 era that interests a lot of forum members. However, I wouldn't be surprised if a whetstone and case like this might have existed 30-40 years earlier.
Best regards,
Notchy Bob