There is so much legend interwoven with facts that........
..............the appearance of the actual knife that Bowie had with him when he met his death in the Alamo may be forever lost to history.
Even a brief effort at research will take you through miles and years of knives attributed to the Bowies. you will also find folks who are very passionate in their particular beliefs about the origins, and authenticity of various knives.
Here is an article about one knife, in this lengthy legend, that resides in Arkansas.
May be more info than some care to read, but some will find it worth while.
October 1978 Chronicle, p. 2-9
The Knife Bowie Made Near Batesville - 1833
by Craig Ogilvie
A knife displayed in the Saunders Memorial Museum in Berryville, Arkansas, serves as evidence of an intriguing story linking the legendary James Bowie with Independence County.
As every student of American history knows, the knife that made Jim Bowie famous was crafted by a blacksmith at Washington, Arkansas, in 1830. However, according to information not so widely known, the adventurous Bowie traveled to near Batesville in 1833 and assisted his brother in making several knives to be used by the Texas Volunteer Army. The knife in the Saunders Museum is believed to be one of those personally crafted by Colonel Bowie and given to Arkansas pioneer Thomas Todd Tunstall.
Col. C. Burton "Buck" Saunders spent more than fifty years traveling the nation and world in search of treasures for his private collection. A world champion marksman and gunenthusiast, Saunders assembled one of the finest firearms collections in the world, including some once owned by the Old West's most colorful characters.
In 1940, Colonel Saunders purchased a knife from Williams Brothers Cutlery Shop in San Francisco. The engraving on the blade proclaimed:
"Made and presented to his friend, Capt. Thos. Tunstall by Col. Bowie, White River,
Arkansas Ter., near Batesville, -- 1833."
This alone was not enough proof of authenticity for Saunders, who was a qualified historian of such items. But, Saunders was convinced when a yellowed diary was presented which detailed part of the knife's history. Thus, the knife became part of the Saunders collection. Today, it is displayed alongside of Buffalo Bill Cody's knife, which was used in hand-to-hand battle with Chief Yellow Hand.
When Saunders died in 1952, at age 89, his famous collection became the property of the City of Berryville. Under the terms of his will, a $150,000 museum was erected and opened in 1956. The white marble used in part of the stately building came from Independence County.
In 1958, Chronicle Editor, A. C. McGinnis noticed the Bowie-Tunstall knife while visiting the museum and inquired of the curator for more information. He was shown a photostatic copy of a section of the Sheldon I. Kellogg diary which convinced Saunders that the knife was genuine. McGinnis copied parts of it and later wrote an article in the September 9, 1958 edition of the Batesville Guard. a few years later, McGinnis again visited the museum and inquired about the diary copy and was told that it was not in the museum.
(This writer visited the museum June 16, 1978 to photograph the displays for a travel feature article. Upon inquiring about the diary, former curator Bill Fitzpatrick was summoned from his nearby home to speak with me. Mr. Fitzpatrick said that he had talked with several persons who knew about the Kellogg Diary, but it apparently disappeared prior to his tenure as curator. He added that he was sure the diary copy existed at one time and that the knife was authentic.)
To further his information about the knife, McGinnis interviewed E. W. "Watt" Tunstall of Newark, last surviving grandson of Thomas T. Tunstall, in 1958. In the McGinnis interview and later with writer Ray Rains of Pangburn, Arkansas, Watt Tunstall said that his father had told of several visits by the Bowie brothers to the Tunstall farm. He also recalled family stories of the knife Bowie made and gave to his grandfather. The story handed down through the Tunstall generations compared very closely with the Kellogg Diary version McGinnis had read in Berryville. Watt Tunstall is now deceased.
To get a better understanding of the characters in this story, let us review each:
JAMES BOWIE was born April 10, 1796 in Logan County, Kentucky, the son of Resin (pronounced "Reason") and Elvira Jones Bowie, both natives of Georgia. A soldier in the American Revolution, Rezin was married in 1782 and their first six children, including John J., were born in Burke County, Georgia. The Bowies moved to Tennessee and Rezin P. Bowie, named for his father, was born there September 8, 1793, just a few weeks before the family moved to Kentucky.
The elder Rezin and family moved to Louisiana about 1800, stopping in Catahoula Parish, then moving to Bayou Eeche, and later settling in Opelousas, where Rezin died in 1819. Elvira and Rezin had ten children, but four died young.
The three Bowie brothers mentioned were almost inseparable during their early manhood years. John J., the eldest, was a good businessman. Rezin P. was a political counselor and a dependable friend. James was a natural leader and carried through on any project undertaken. In 1818, the trio entered into an arrangement with Jean Lafitte whereby slaves were purchased from Lafitte, smuggled into the nation, turned over to the United States government for bounty, then repurchased by the Bowies for legal sale in the United States. This business made $65,000 for the Bowies. The brothers turned to land speculation and all three remained active in real estate trade most of their lives.
James was an outdoorsman who loved hunting and adventurous trips into the unknown wilderness. And, like all frontiersmen, he carried at least one knife at all times. Bowie agreed with his contemporaries that the trusty blade was more dependable than an unreliable firearm in a life or death situation. John J. Bowie wrote in later life that a blacksmith named Snowden crafted one of Jim's early knives and Rezin P., writing in the "Planters Advocate" August 1838, claimed that during the famous "Battle on Vidalia Sandbar" on September 19, 1827, near Natchez, Jim was carrying a knife that he (Rezin) had made. Bowie killed a man with his knife that day after almost being killed himself.
Jim owned a plantation on the west bank of the Mississippi, near Natchez in 1829, but continued his carefree ways. He made several trips into Texas (Mexico Territory) during the mid- and late 1820's and on October 5, 1830, Bowie was granted special citizenship by the Mexican government on condition that he build a textile mill in Texas. Bowie made the move and did establish the factory as required by the terms of citizenship
In December 1830, James Bowie rode up the Chihuahua Trail to Washington, Arkansas Territory, and commissioned James Black to made a new knife for his use. After placing the order he traveled on to visit his brother Rezin. In January 1831, Bowie returned to Black's shop and picked up his knife. Not far down the trail, Jim was attacked by three men, reportedly hired by Bowie's enemies in Natchez. Bowie killed all three men with the new knife. Word spread and the Bowie knife soon became part of American lore.
James returned to Texas and on April 22, 1831, married Maria Ursula (god-daughter of General Santa Ana) of San Antonio de Bexar. Marriage did not slow Jim's adventurous ways. In November 1831, a party of silver prospectors led by Bowie was attacked by Indians 100 miles west of San Antonio and Jim was wounded during the battle. In 1832, Bowie traveled to Washington, D.C. by stage. The purpose of his trip is unclear but he was back in Texas in August of that year and led an attack on a small Mexican garrison as a prelude to the Texas War of Independence, which was to come.
In 1833, Bowie's wife and children died of cholera while visiting her parents in Monclove. During that year he again returned east to visit his brothers. Rezin headquartered in Louisiana where he served three terms in the legislature. John J. stayed in Arkansas, settling first in Chicot County, then moving to Helena aabout 1835, then back to Chicot County where he died on June 22, 1859.
Both Rezin and John J. Bowie owned property in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas, including Independence County. James, acting as his brother's agent, may have visited here on occasion. Book C, Independence County and Land Records Index, lists Richard Searcy and William D. Ferguson as persons having power of attorney in land dealings for John J. Bowie in 1828-1829. When James made his visit in 1833, John J. was living in Chicot County and may have been the brother who accompanied Jim, although Tunstall tradition holds that it was Rezin, who was known to have been a knife-maker.
Jim spend much of 1834 "exploring" Texas and no doubt fanning the flames of independence. On October 20, 1835, he again led a group of volunteers in repulsing Mexican forces two miles south of San Antonio and again on November 26, in what became known as the "Grass Fight" of San Antonio. In December 1835, Bowie received his rank of colonel from General Sam Houston. Two months later, the Alamo was under seige.
During the construction a scaffold in the old adobe mission, Bowie fell to the ground, breaking his hip. He was placed in a wooden box from the waist down to help brace his body. While stretched out flat on his back, Bowie was among the last of some 187 volunteers to die during the fall of the Alamo on March 6, 1836. His body was among those piled in the church plaza and burned. Mexican accounts of the scene declare that Bowie's famous knife was hurled into the blazing fire.
Captain Thomas Todd Tunstall was born in 1787 in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, the son of Thomas Jr. and Mildred Todd Tunstall. Young Thomas moved with his parents to Kentucky in 1794 and became an apprentice cabinet maker.
He served in Simrall's Division, Kentucky Dragoons, during the War of 1812 and later started his adventures in the lower Mississippi Valley. When Tunstall made his first trip up the White River has been blurred by the passing of time. Family tradition places his first visits prior to 1820 and some written histroies say Tunstall started his plantation aabout 1819. However, the 1850 U.S. census notes that Capt. Tunstall's first child, William W., was born in 1819 in Indiana. A daughter, Margaret, was born in 1822 in Illinois, and court records indicate the family was in Jefferson County, Illinois in 1825.
It appears that Tunstall moved his growing family to Chicot County, Arkansas Territory about 1827. His name appears on local tax rolls there between 1829-1833. The 1830 census places the Tunstall home in Chicot County. While this may have been his mailing address, Tunstall was roaming the river throughout the Mississippi Delta during this period. No doubt, it was during this time that the Bowie-Tunstall friendship developed. Tunstall also became acquainted with blacksmith James Black, who had a small shop at Bayou Sara in Louisiana. (It is reported that Captain Tunstall provided free transportation aboard the steamer "Waverly" when Black decided to move his shop to Washington in January 1824.)
Tunstall was pilot on Capt. Phillip Pennywit's "Waverly" when the vessel became the first steamboat to ascend the White River to Batesville in January, 1831. He returned in 1833 as captain of his own paddlewheels, "The William Parsons," and founded the town of Jacksonport. Captain Tunstall soon moved his home to Dota Creek in Independence County and became the first postmaster f Sulphur Rock on March 14, 1834.
Hisstorian-writer Ray Rains, who has authored several papers on James Black, Jim Bowie, and Thomas Tunstall, says he has learned that when Black and his love, Anne Shaw, ran away from her father to be married, they came to the Tunstall farm where the ceremony was performed.
Captain Tunstall led an exciting life. He was a steamboat owner, sportsman, racehorse owner and promoter, and gentleman farmer. He amassed and spent several fortunes. During the Civil War, his fine home on Dota Creek was burned. Tunstall moved to a house he owned on Paroquet Bluffs on Black River, east of Newark. He died there of pneumonia on November 7, 1862, and was buried in Pleasant Hill Cemetery, near his old homestead east of the present site of Sulphur Rock.
The knife Tunstall received from his friend, Jim Bowie, was not the one crafted by James Black. That has never been the claim on the weapon. There is considerable evidence that the Bowie brothers visited th Tunstall farm in 1833 and, working in the farm shop, made about 30 knives for use in Texas.
Captain probably considered the gift a nice gesture, but apparently didn't realize its possible significance, because in November 1834, he gave the knife to a traveler who became ill on the Southwest Trail (Old Military Road), which passed by the Tunstall farm.
Sheldon I. Kellogg was the traveler on his way to Cincinnati, Ohio. Kellogg kept a diary of his journey and the long stay at the Tunstall home recovering from his illness. He recorded that after he became well enough to travel, Tunstall gave him the knife because he had no weapon to carry on the trail. Tunstall warned him of the dangers along the road and briefly detailed the short history of the knife he was receiving. Kellogg noted that he was forced to take the land route because low water had brought river transportation to a near standstill. He also mentioned that "the fever" was raging on the lower White and Arkansas rivers. Kellogg resumed his journey by water from Cape Girardeau.
The engraving on both sides of the knife blade was added years after Bowie died a hero's death at the Alamo and his fame swept the nation and around the world. One indication of this is that the word "Col." appears, but Bowie was not given that title until two years after the gift to Tunstall. On the reverse blade is engraved, "Sheldon I. Kellogg - from his friend Thomas Tunstall, Nov., 1834." The styling of the blade engravings are similar and were probably made by the same artist.
S. I. Kellogg, Jr. apparently received the knife from his father on June 28, 1886, as his initials and that date are inscribed on one hilt of the weapon. The styling here is much different and was probably applied by another artist. And, finally, Col. C. B. "Buck" Saunders had his initials and date of purchase, February 7, 1940, engraved on the other hilt.
The knife is a little over eleven inches in length with a 1 1/4 inch wide blade that sweeps up gently to a point, which is sharp on both sides in the traditional Bowie knife style. The handle is one piece of dark wood (species unknown) with a metl cap wrapping the end. There appears to be little or no wear to the handle, which may be a replacement of the original. There is no thumb guard which experts agree was the case with most knives of the 1830's. (It is interesting to note that Bowie's famous knife was similar in design but probably aabout 13 inches long.)
After the fame of Jim Bowie spread, Jim Black received and filled hundreds of orders for knives "like Bowie's". Soon the expression became "make me a Bowie knife," but the name also became a catch-all for many categories of knives.
First, there was the original, as made by Black and accepted by Bowie as his favorite weapon. (Some so-called Bowie knife historians believe James ordered one or two copies of the original from Black after seeing the fine workmanship, but this has not been proven.)
Second, there were those knives made by Black from the same Bowie pattern for those wanting knives "like Bowie's." Third, there were the Bowie knives made in the East and England or other countries and roughly patterned after the famous knife. And, finally, there were and remain the versions which bear little or no resemblance to the Bowie, but use the name for publicity.
There are many collectors around the world that are sure they have the original Bowie knife. Col. Saunders never made that claim or that Bowie ever carried it into battle. Saunders purchased the Bowie-Tunstall knife because it was a unique, one-of-a-kind item. He was convinced that Jim Bowie made it and gave it to a friend in Independence County and records once owned by the museum and the family history handed down through the Tunstall generations give strong verification that the museum's claim is justified.
SOURCES:
Batesville Guard, September 9, 1958
Conversations with A. C. McGinnis and Ray Rains.
Articles appearing in Small Publications: Spring 1958 and Summer 1978.
"Bowie Knife" by R. W. Thorp, University of New Mexico Press, 1948.
"Of Race Horses and Steamboats," by Duane Huddleston, Chronicle, January 1973.
Desha County Historical Society publication, Volume 1, No. 2, 1976.
