The age-herald., 1901-06-02
ADVENTUROUS LIFE
 OF JAMES BOWIE He Killed Sixteen Men in DuelS With a Knife Made of Old
 Tragic Death

haft When 1t was done James Bowie had weapon 'fit to fight for mans life with" as he said to Governor Wells. It was beautifully balanced, and the artist had hollow-ground it like razor. with a double edge for three or four inches from the point.
 The Original Bowie Knife.
 The knife was fitted with wooden scabbard, covered with leather, and was sharp enough to shave the hair off the back of ones hand. This was the original Bowie knife, though it was somewhat modified subsequently, in shape. Bowie while a student in New Orleans, had studied other things besides the humani- ties, as the dead languages of Greece and Rome were then called. By accident he found in his fencing master a man who could not only use the sword, but was a master in the use of the cuchillo, the Spanish fighting knife, a weapon not un- like the Bowie. Our young student en- tered enthusiastically into the training and science of old Spain in that nation once national weapon. And so he was much better equipped for the deadly nght that was so near at hand.
 Natchez Island, where the fight was to be was midway between the Louisiana and Mississippi shores of the great Fatner of Waters. Therefore it was favorite meeting place for gentlemen who had to adjust affairs that might have fatal ending. as the authorities of neither state could interfere. q stayed all night with James Bowie" said friend of his, who died over twenty years ago, in his nine teenth year. 'On the night before the fight was to take place, I never saw man sleep more soundly than he did nor eat a better breakfast the next morning."
 It was understood that each of the prln- cipals should have but one friend, and certainly not more than two, on the ground. But MT. Wright had five or six present. The fight began with the pistols, One of Bowies missed fire. while both of Wrights bullets took effect upon his an- tagoniSt.
 Thinking he had Bowie at his mercy, Norris Wright sprang upon him. In moment Bowie had drawn his deadly knife, and though two or three of Wrights friends were shooting at him and hitting him, too Bowie made one aw- full slash at Wright's neck. The keen steel hit into the very neck bone. The blood shot out over Bowie. and Norris Wright was dead before he touched the ground.
 Seriously wounded himself, it was for some time very doubtful question whether or not he would ever get we'll But youth, temperate life and an excel lent constitution finally brought him around, and in a year from that time he killed General Grain with the same knife he had used in the first encounter. "The knife doesn't miss fire,' he said to an in- innate friend, MT. Bynum, of the parish of Rapides; the pistol does" This, of course, was long before the perfection of the percussion cap or invention of the Colts revolver, the first revolver ever made.
 James Bowie was engaged in the pur- chase and contest of claims for great tracts of land that had been grants made by the French crown. When Louisiana was ceded to the United States and finally became a state there was good deal of trouble on this account over some of the titles to land along the Red irver and its tributaries A man often had to fight for for his plantation. as frequently he would not give it up to somebody with an old