icon for Home page
icon for Kid's Home page
icon for Digital Collection
icon for Activities
icon for Turns Exhibit
icon for In the Classroom
icon for Chronologies
icon for My Collection

Things To Do
Dress Up | 1st Person | African American Map | Now Read This | Magic Lens | In the Round | Tool Videos | Architecture | e-Postcards | Chronologies | Turns Activities

Send an E-Postcard of:
Hunting and Skinning Knives manufactured by J. Russell & Company Green River Works

front
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
Contact us for information about using this image.

In 1840, with the advent of the pioneer migration westward, John Russell began the manufacture of hunting and skinning knives along the banks of the Green River in Deerfield, (later annexed to Greenfield), Massachusetts. The knives had a nine inch steel blade and a wooden handle and were shipped dull so their owners could sharpen them as they wished. The knives' reputation grew rapidly as the demand for them increased with the western migration and trade with Native groups. Between 1840 and 1860, Russell's Green River Works produced 720,000 knives for the American west. Disputes were often settled with a Green River knife, the personal weapon of nearly every scout, hunter, miner, and trapper. To "give it to 'em up to the Green River" meant to bury a knife in your opponent's belly up to the trade mark stamped on the blade.

 

top of page

Share this image with a friend.
Simply enter their e-mail address below and we'll send them this image in an e-mail greeting, along with a link to see the image on our site.

To E-Mail Address *
From E-Mail Address *
From Name
Message

* = Required


button for Side by Side Viewingbutton for Glossarybutton for Printing Helpbutton for How to Read Old Documents

 

Home | Online Collection | Things To Do | Turns Exhibit | Classroom | Chronologies | My Collection
About This Site | Site Index | Site Search | Feedback