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What Hawk style?

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Jfoster

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What hawk style would have been most prevalently carried by a 1760-70s colonial fronteirsman?
 
Grizzly Bar said:
What hawk style would have been most prevalently carried by a 1760-70s colonial fronteirsman?

frontiersman? Interesting question. I have ideas and opinions for the Rev. Rifleman, but nothing certain for the frontiersman. First, I define a frontiersman as a guy who went into the wilderness with his family to forge out an existence. That would make him a very practical individual. Just surmising, a poll ax like those shown on the first page of the TACA site would probably fit the bill. The well equipped might also have a broad ax or hatchet. But, methinks that would be the few and not the norm. Good question.
 
A lot of those look like roof/shingle hatchets with a hammer head. That hammer head would have no use on the trail, if you try to drive in a wood stake- the stake splits.
Most were sort of square heads- but that's really a hatchet.
On the Hawks- valley Forge used to have a rifleman's hawk that looks like the kind we throw.
Pipe type tomahawks- I think they may have been gifts to local NDN chiefs.
 
crockett said:
A lot of those look like roof/shingle hatchets with a hammer head. That hammer head would have no use on the trail, if you try to drive in a wood stake- the stake splits.
For someone who has a shingling hatchet that was reshaped to a PC/HC shape and has a hammer-poll, I'm calling BS on this statement. I've driven hundreds of stakes in camp and on the trail with mine and splitting has not occurred. Maybe it's an operator issue...



crockett said:
Most were sort of square heads- but that's really a hatchet.
Please provide the evidence to support your statement.
 
Russel wrote one of the first dedicated equipment books “ Fire arms Traps and Tools of the Mountain man” I’m thinking as I write this it was first published in the 50s. He spends about 1:3 of the book an axes. We know a lot of styles were seen then from the British light infantry axe to ”˜mouse hawks’ and squaw axes.
I’ve been doing this since the seventies and axes and knifes are still my greatest mystery.
 
Harold Peterson's American Indian Tomahawks is available online. It is difficult to use as a electronic document, but still, one of the best resources available, and free to boot:
https://archive.org/details/americanindiant00pete

The other book to find is Neumann's Swords and Blades of the American Revolution. Be wary of his section on knives, but the rest is exceedingly useful.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'd disagree that pipe tomahawks were solely a trade item to Indians, BTW. There are a number of surviving pipe hawks that can be traced to whites. Prior to the Bowie knife I think they were prestige weapons for both sides.
 
Those are two good books.
I’ve said that pipe tomahawks were an Indian trade item, but on second thought I wonder. I own a couple of pipe hawks and they smoke well. So I wonder. You couldn’t chop wood with it but it might cause a debilitating wound. Would many border men carry one? I don’t know. It sure wouldn’t break as easy as a clay stemmed pipe if you you had it on your belt.
 
Grizzly Bar said:
What hawk style would have been most prevalently carried by a 1760-70s colonial fronteirsman?
English or French frontiersman?

I don't know the provenance of this one but it looks plausible for either an Englishman or a French Canadian.
 
I'm not good at links and pictures. :idunno:

Google "Richard Butler tomahawks". He was a gunsmith and armorer at Fort Pitt. He made many fine tomahawks.Trained under his Father, a famous gunsmith from Killkenny Ire. Richard served under Bouquet, and with the Pennsylvania Militia, also as an Indian Agent. He had an noteworthy record of service in the Revolutionary War, and was killed at St. Clair's Defeat at the Miami River in 1791.

One of his hawks was captured along with Morgan's riflemen at Quebec, and was taken to England. Returned to the U.S. in the 1990s, I got to see it at the Heinz History Center here in Pittsburgh, where it was part of The Clash of Empires.

A most impressive weapon.

Richard/Grumpa
 
Grumpa, you milght find this interesting:

_Indian Captivity: A true narrative of the capture of Rev. O. M. Spencer by the Indians, in the neighborhood of Cincinnati_ , (in 1792)
Describing the death of Gen. Butler of St. Clair’s expedition:

“It was during one of these charges, that the brave, but unfortunate Gen. Butler was killed. He had been mortally wounded early in the battle, and carried to his tent; and, determined to sell his life as dearly as possible, was there placed in a reclining posture, with a pair of pistols by his side. In pursuing our troops, retreating in their turn, two warriors at once espied him, and both anxious to plunder his person, as well as to take his scalp, rushed forward; the one only a few feet in advance of the other. The foremost Indian had but just entered his tent, when the general, leveling one pistol, shot him dead; but while in the act of presenting the second, received the stroke of the hurled tomahawk of the other, and instantly expired.”

Spence
 
I've driven wooden tent stakes several times with a shingling hatchet with no problems.
Works better than most tomahawks and belt axes with elongated, narrow hammer faces.
 
Huh?

Dude use the hammer side of the hawk not the sharp side!

How else would you pound in a wood stake? Rock? Big log? Your big foot?

Been pounding in wood tent / tarp stakes with a hammer/hawk or sledge splitting occurs when I use the sharp side of the axe/hawk/hatchet.

At least pound them in using the side.
 
necchi said:
Elnathan said:
There are a number of surviving pipe hawks that can be traced to whites.
Maybe you could put that in proper context?
Like;
There are a number of surviving pipe hawks that are in possession of whites

Kind of scratching my head here.

There are a number of surviving hawks that were owned by an man of European descent during the period under discussion. Like Squire Boone and Richard Calloway, for example. There are others whose original owner is unknown but have inlays, engraved slogans, or other decorative features that indicate that they were originally made for a man of European descent and not an Indian. You can find examples in the two sources I mentioned earlier.

Hopefully that clears up any confusion over what I was intending to convey.
 

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