In honor of Alamo Day – Free Preview of “Bowie No. 1” by James L. Batson PhD

In 1902, former Arkansas governor Daniel Webster Jones wrote: “About 1833 or 1834, perhaps earlier, James Bowie came to Washington and gave [James] Black an order for a knife, furnishing a pattern and desiring it to be made within the following 60 days, when he would call for it. Black made the knife according to Bowie’s pattern. He knew Bowie well and had a high estimation of him as a man of good taste as well as of unflinching courage. He had never made a knife which suited his own taste in point of shape and concluded this to be a good opportunity to do so. Consequently, after completing the knife, Black made another. When Bowie returned, Black showed him both knives and explained the difference between them, at the same time, giving him his choice at the same price. Bowie promptly selected Black’s pattern.”
In this time frame, 1833-1834, James Bowie lived in the portion of Mexico that is now Texas. On April 25, 1831 James Bowie married Ursula Veramendi in San Antonio de Bexar, Mexico. She passed away from cholera on September 10, 1833 while James was on his sickbed at Angus McNeil’s home in Natchez, Mississippi. James would travel to Phillips County, Arkansas by way of the Southwest Trail that ran through Washington, where James Black lived, to visit his brothers John J. Bowie and Rezin P. Bowie.
After losing his eyesight and becoming a ward of the state, James Black lived with Daniel Webster Jones off and on from 1848 to Black’s death in 1872. Jones would have known, as well as anyone, the stories that Black told about his knifemaking heyday and his encounter with the famous James Bowie.

A Guardless Coffin Handle Bowie Knife
Today, we associate a certain style of guardless coffin handle bowie knife with the 1830s work of James Black in Washington, Arkansas. The wood-to-metal finish on all of his knives was impeccable. The knives’ escutcheon plates are inlaid into the wood perfectly and secured in the handle with an invisible silver pin at each end. Silver wraps cover the ricasso, the front and rear ends of the handle and the exposed edges of the tang. Precision and skill are evident on all the work.
Now, if James Black made a special knife for James Bowie, as Jones’ story goes, was that the knife we know as Bowie No. 1? Bowie No. 1 is the most deadly and eloquent of all the knives that James Black is thought to have made. For this knife, Black forged the longest of his blades, 133/8 inches long, and added four more domed silver pins/washers on each side as compared to his typical knives, to make ten domed studs on each side of the handle. Black covered every inch of the exposed steel tang with silver and filed an elaborate silver covered rope pattern over the edges of the tang, top and bottom. When James Bowie chose Black’s knife, according to Jones’ story, Black may have suggested that Bowie have “Bowie No. 1” engraved on the long escutcheon plate. Bowie could also have had this knife with him when he was killed at the Alamo.

Chasing Down the Story
According to Joe Musso, a bowie knife collector and historian, the discoverer of Bowie No. 1 was Walter O’Connor, a reputable antique arms and powder horn collector from Pennsylvania. O’Connor purchased the knife from a gentleman in the Northeastern United States. The ancestor that owned the knife was a Mexican teamster or “mule skinner” that participated in John C. Fremont’s Expedition to California in 1845.
Mark Zalesky, editor and publisher of KNIFE Magazine, told me that Bill Wright had asked Walter O’Connor about Bowie No. 1. Bill Wright is an antique bowie knife collector and has personally discovered three of James Black’s coffin handle knives. I first met Mr. Wright at a knife show in Louisville, Kentucky in 1988. Since then, he and I have been good friends. I asked Bill about his conversation with Mr. O’Connor and told him that I would quote him in this article. Here is what he wrote.