The Knife that Horace Kephart created......

On Wednesday I will meet My friend Joe Flowers over the ridge in North Carolina to meet with Pam Meister who is the director of The Mountain Heritage Center in Cullowee which is the home of Kephart papers and his personal blade......I hope to get Joe to take Pix..... i am quite excited..... I have been meaning to get over there for years...... I will be taking 129 over there which is the heart of Kephart Country....... More to come.....

E
That is great news E! Make sure Joe gets a ton of pictures.
 

noice

how about this?

IMG_3381-X5.jpg
 
I found an interesting picture online a few days ago. Its the rest of the page that the Kephart knife advertisement came from.


I have wondered what else they were talking about when they said we also make the Kephart sheath knife.



It says western Carolina university on the top. Its is supposed to have come from Horace Kepharts possessions after he died. They said he was filling it out to place an order and in the Colclesser tomahawk add above the knife he wrote the word straight to change it to say "with straight handle".



kephartad3ax_zpsopvcwsws.jpg
 
B.Mauser B.Mauser Nice find!
Says it's crucible cast steel. I wonder which?
I love where it says "Cut Short your knife troubles by ordering..."
$2.00! I'll takem all!
 
I met up with Joe at the Western Carolina University Library & Mountain Heritage Center in Cullowhee NC and spent a delightful time with Pam Meister, the director and Jason Brady who is the Special Collections guy...... And special is right - very right...... Among the treasures he curates are the intact journals and notebooks that Horace Kephart used when writing Camping & Woodcraft, Our Southern Highlander's and his other tomes...... The Kephart display, which will be up until September, is really quite nice.....They have one of his campsites set up with his tent, sleeping bag, cover and air mattress and other accouterments.....The tent, and seeping gear were from Abercrombie & Fitch which at the time was one of, if not the preeminent, outfitters in our country..... They outfitted many a grand expedition before they became just another wussified fashion brand lost in the merchantile swamps......

And then there was the knife........
It was the Four inch version and it was the proto for the production version(I think)...... it was used a LOT...... The Museum thinks the haft is walnut but, I speculate that it might be chestnut..... We could not hold it but my examination shows the haft to be a bit rounder than the production knife and the blade sharpened so often that i am certain that the original convexes have changed quite a bit from when it left the hands of the blacksmith.....

I found it quite special for a whole host of reasons other than it's incredible provenance...... A fine tool designed by a truly brilliant man with more"dirt time" than almost anyone and who could communicate his needs well enough to see it into production...... Wow, just WOW.....

Thanks again to Pam and Jason......

All in all one of the better days of my life........

Pics will be coming from Joe and they will happen..........

Ethan

P.s..... The notebooks, notes and journals are being digitized and many are already available online....Check it out and if you can visit the WCU and enjoy........ e

More to come......
 
That's awesome.
 
We could not hold it...
Be honest Ethan, they were afraid you were gonna run off with it, weren't they? :D

All kidding aside, that had to be an education. It was nice that you could make a comparison with his user, compared to your production model. Where the hell is Joe with the photos, dammit? I'd love to see a spine shot of either blade. Curious about the handle contours.
 
I am quite sure that a Kephart knife is not in my future. But the book, "Camping and Woodcraft" is readily available (reprints). Does anyone know though where I might find a hardback early edition in readable condition?
 
Joe? Oh, Joe?
 
those rascally people named Joe...

updated pix were posted after Blade on the very first page (post #2?) by that Bladite guy. including a very nice spine shot ;)
Crap, I forgot all about that. The scales seem flatish, at best.
 
Back
Top