The Carbon County news. [volume] (Red Lodge, Mont.) 1924-1931, 1929-08-01

Bowie. 1t was intended to answer the
purpose of blazing trees and of hunt
ing knife. The colonel carried this
weapon for five or six years, when the
dreadful conflict yet fresh in the reeol-
leetions of many, took place in the
state of Mississippi. circumstance
which at once gave ii an unrivaled
reputation. All the steel In the country
was Immediately converted into bowie
knives.
Several years ago in a Centennial
Edition" of the Arkansas Gazette there
appeared an article called 1.-The True
History of the Bowie Knife, with
biographical sketch of its inventor,
James Black" written by Dan w
Jones, governor of Arkansas from 1891
TO 1901, who knew Black intimately for
80 years. This, in brief, is his story:
Black was born in New Jersey In
1900. ran away from home at the age
of eight to Philadelphia where he was
apprenticed to a manufactures of sill
yer plate. After serving his appren-
ticeship and becoming expert at the
trade he emigrated to the West in 1878
eventually coming to the town of Wash
ingt0n, Ark, where he found employ
ment with a blacksmith. Washington
was a frontier town, where all men
went armed, the favorite weapon being
knife. Black began manufacturing
knives which soon became famous for
the temper of their steel. He was ac-
customed to make them to order from
a pattern of the exact size and shape
desired by the customer. He plated
them with gold or silver and his price
ranged from So to $50, depending upon
how they were plated. But the quality
of the tempered steel was always the
same, according to Jones, who con
tinues:
About 1881 James Bowie came to
Washington, and gave Black an order
for a knife, furnishing a pattern, and
desiring it to be made within the fol-
lowing 60 or 90 days, when he would
call for it. Black made the knife ac-
cordng to Bowies pattern. He knew
Bowie we'll and had high estimation
of him as a man of good taste as we'll
as of unf1inching courage. He had
never made a knife which suited his
own taste in point of shape and con-
cluded this would be a good opportun-
! ity to do so.
Consequently, after completing the
knife ordered by Bowie, he made an
/ other, AMI when Bowie returned Black
| showed both of them to him and ex-
/ planned the difference, at the same time
! giving him his choice at the same
price. Bowie promptly selected Blacks
pattern.
Shortly after this Bowie became in
volved in difficulty with three des-
peradoAs who assaulted him with
knives He killed them all with the
knife Black had made. After this,
| when anyone ordered a knife from
Black, he would order 1t to be made
like Bowie's, which finally was short
ened INTO make me a Bowie-knife"
Thus this famous weapon acquired its
name. Bowie himself was not a me-
chanc of any kind, He was killed in
| the Alamo with Davy Crockett, and the
| legend runs that his body was sur
rounded by dead Mexicans whom he
had killed with that same knife.
Other men made knives in those DAYS
and they are still being made, but no
| one has ever made the Bowie knife"
/ except James Black Its chiefest value
was in its temper Black undoubtedly
possessed the Damascus secret. 1t
came to him mysteriously and it died
with him in the same way.
Such is one story of the invention of
the Bowie knife, which sounds au.
thentic. But, says another story, the
| real inventor of the knife was Jesse
Cliffs, a blacksmith employed by the
elder Resin Bowie Gather of the three
Bowie boys). Some time after the
invention of the knife James engaged
in an alteration with Mai. Norris
Wright which resulted in Wright shoot
ing al James. The latter was saved
when a silver dollar in his pocket de-
Elected the bullet. Drawing his own
pistol James aimed at Wright but the
trigger snapped. His father then gave
James the knife, saying, "This will
never snap" 1t was this circumstance
that led James Bowie always to carry