Original Flint

[Teacher_of_the_Arcane]

Hi All,

In another post, Bowmaster was asking about hunting with original flint arrowheads.  I do have one.

When I was a kid (50+ years ago) there was an older gent who lived across the street.  He'd been collecting since he was a boy.  I grew up on the Ohio River south of Pittsburgh, between Wheeling and Weirton, West Virginia.  There were two creeks near my hometown that ran into the Ohio, and both the creeks had wintering sites on them; one of approximately eight hundred acres.  The old gent would walk the creeks after the spring rains collecting points, and had several farmers who would call him after they plowed in the spring.  

I finally worked up  the nerve to walk over and ask the gent to see his collection.  He had a small room devoted to his finds.  The walls were covered with framed heads....ten or twenty to the frame, sorted by size and color.  He had map chests (note plural) where the drawers were full of heads laid out on cloth....arrow heads, spear points, tomahawk heads, knife blades, and scrapers. As a kindness from an old gent to a young boy he gave me the arrow head I still have.

One of the benefits of being a Tradganger is that occasionally someone's post will bring back a fond memory.    

[Muleyslayer]

great story teach!  

[JEJ]

Lobo Lohr, and your post brought back a great memory of my dad for me. You sound like you might remember the coonskin cap wearing, "Old Betsy" toting generation I'm from. When I was a youngster my family went back to where my dad grew up in the "hollers" around the Grant Town/Rivesville area (near Morgantown), WV. One of my uncles still had a flint tomahawk my dad found in that area as a boy, and my dad gave it to me. I was not all that interested in that old flint 'hawk since it didn't look at all like what Davy carried, but I kept it with my cap gun Old Betsy, rubber bowie knife and coonskin cap. Still hung on to it over the years since then, and it has only been in the last ten years or so when I got interested in knapping that I realized what my dad had given to me. The flint 'hawk has beautiful bands of white, red, and gray flint, and is bi-faced, with flakes knapped off both sides to give it a "lens" profile, and it has one sharp "chopping" point, and one blunt "pounding" point. It is my favorite artifact in the small collection I have, and it means even more to me than that small Texas chert arrowhead that was the first point I ever found. Thanks for bringing back the memory of that summer vacation to the WV mountains with my dad. John

[Teacher_of_the_Arcane]

To the top....once

[twitchstick]

Heads and such have always been a big part of who I am. My eyes are always looking to the ground for treasures I might find. It was a big part of growing up in my family. I have been lucky enough to view a few collections as your wrote of. The craftman ship and art that was created by those who came before us is amazing,always humbles me. Thanks for sharing your story.