Fort Meigs Hand Forged Axe

This axe from Hoffman Reproductions is styled after an original found on the site of Ft. Meigs in Perrysburg, Ohio. The fort withstood two British sieges in 1813 and became a turning point in the war for the American forces. Small axes like this were carried by many of the eastern longhunters from the French and Indian war period up through the early 19th century. Hand forged head flat hammer poll and oblong eye.4 1/2 inch's long and with a 2 inch blade makes it a handy camp tool or formidable weapon often worn on a belt or attached to a shooting bag. 13 and a half inches long straight grain hickory handle. There is a very similar axe described by Carl Russell in his Firearms, Traps & Tools of the Mountain Men, which is in the Audubon Museum, Henderson, Kentucky. It belonged to Gen. Samuel Hopkins, soldier in the Rev. War and state legislator, who later lived in Henderson. The description of that axe fits the "Meigs" axe very closely. These are unique axes that were used by the frontiersmen and the modern day hunter to hastily break through the chest bone and the pelvic bone when field dressing a deer, or take the lucky foot off a rabbit or to assist in cutting brush and twigs when preparing a clear harvest zone.