All About Pocket Knives

Here are a couple of additional photos. One is of the 107th U.S.C.T., in front of the guard house at Fort Corcoran on Nov. 1865. The soldier on the left has his sword out. The other is a photo of the execution of negro Pvt. William Johnson of the 23rd U.S.C.T., in front of Petersburg, on June 20, 1864. Unable to find out why Pvt. Johnson was executed but there were quite a few soldiers executed during the civil war.

It is always exciting to find artifacts like that for me Jim. I started about 7 years ago and will probably do it until I can't walk anymore. I love those old photos you are putting up.

s-k, I love that collection of corkscrews you have. That is something I would never have thought of collecting!

Smoke,
Great reading on the site you posted http://www.mobeetie.com/pages/flipper.htm

Does your museum have a website, or is this it ?

Fran

I don't have any artifacts to display - but here's an interesting story about Civil War cutlery... Pop told me this story, more than a couple of times.

Back when he was a kid, (late 20's - no later than 1930), Pop had a buddy, whose father owned a Civil War sword/sabre/thing. Their "play-time" would, I guess, be considered unsupervised, nowadays. Neway, the other kid would get his father's sword and sneak it out to the barn, to fight imaginary battles, etc.

Pop said they would take turns, chopping an anvil with that old sword, and actually cut small (tiny, I'm sure) chunks out of the anvil, with no apparent damage to the blade. Eventually, the hilt/handle got real loose (wonder why ?), and then his buddy's family moved away, so he never saw it again.

All he could remember, was that the blade was marked "New Orleans", but he couldn't remember any name. I did some research, later on, but all the names I gave him didn't "ring a bell".

At any rate, there must have been some pretty good technology back then, in the cutlery industry. Today's swordmakers would be hard-pressed to pass that test !

That's the kind of information they don't teach in schools....

JR

Fran , the museum I am a board member on is one county over from Mobeetie in Wheeler county. We do have a website however, it is http://www.museuminpampa.org Kelley