Page 10 Knife World June 2014

Last month we saw ads for the “Big HuskySheath Knives” offered for sale to boys whosubscribed to the magazine The Open Road forBoys in the early to mid 1930s. The knives hadsaber-ground, clip-point, push-tang blades, andturned hardwood handles painted a dark color(I suspect black). The earlier model, shown in1932, had a domed ferrule reinforcing the frontend of the handle. The later model replaced theferrule with a flat steel guard, and added atransverse pin or nail anchoring the end of thetang. Here is the 1932 version.

In that May column, I speculated about pos-sible manufacturers of these knives, consider-ing R. Murphy, J. Russell, D. Harrington,Lamson & Goodnow, and Ontario KnifeCompany. But I had no evidence connectingany of them, or anyone else, to those knives.

At least I thought I had no evidence. Afterthe May issue went to press, I recalled a knifethat had been offered on eBay about a year ear-lier. Happily I had saved the pictures.

It looks just like the 1932 Open Road knife,except its blade is marked by the manufactur-er, RICHARDS. That firm was the StephenRichard Company, a neighbor of Harrington’sin Southbridge, Mass. Not only was the knifemade by S. Richard, the design of the distinc-tively shaped handle had been patented by Mr.Richard’s son back on August 22, 1916. Thisdesign patent had a term of 14 years, so itexpired in 1930, not long before The Open Roadfor Boys began its promotion.

This puts the lie to the claim in the OpenRoad ads that “We didn’t just get this knife inthe open market. Its design was worked outcarefully by Deep-river Jim himself.” Furtherevidence of Jim’s mendacity can be found in the1916-1917 Catalog No. 66 of the New York

Sporting Goods Company, the Sportsman’sHandbook.

The company was located at 15 & 17 WarrenStreet In New York City. On page 199 of thatcatalog, in among Collins No M22 machetesand No 17 bush knives, and among Marble’sIdeal, Expert, Canoe, Woodcraft, and De Weesehunting knives, we find this humble “utilityknife.” The manufacturer is not mentioned, butStephen Richard, Jr., owned that distinctivehandle design, new in 1916, which the catalogcalls “Ebonite suction grip handle.” Price withsheath was 50 cents, half the price charged byDeep-river Jim in 1932.

Stephen Richard was an interesting man,and he ran an interesting company. He wasFrench Canadian, born on Christmas day,1837, in Saint-Denis-sur-Richelieu, Quebec,Canada -- at the height of the Lower CanadaRebellion, which had begun in Saint-Denis amonth earlier. He was the oldest boy, third ofeight children. According to a 1907 account(later accounts vary), the family moved toCharlton, Mass. when he was a boy, so he hadboth English and French schooling. In 1852 hewent to Worcester, and worked in a box factory.

WHUT IZZIT?by Bernard Levine www.knife-expert.com

June 2014 Knife World Page 11

Then he worked on a farm for two years, whileattending night school. Then he began work ina shoe factory, but soon relocated toSouthbridge, Mass., still in the shoe trade.Then he changed jobs again, finding work atthe T. Harrington cutlery factory, where helearned that trade. In 1861 (or 1862) he beganhis own knife manufacturing business,Stephen Richard Company.

Stephen Richard was a Roman Catholic, alifelong Democrat, and a former working man,so his sympathies lay with the growing tradeunion movement. His company was perhapsthe only union shop among all the various knifefactories in the U.S. Of course as a maker ofknives used in some of the most unionizedskilled trades -- notably cigar making, hatmaking, and shoemaking -- his union affilia-tion was good for his business, and he promot-ed it aggressively. Nearby is an ad from theSeptember 1905 American Federationist, mag-azine of the American Federation of Labor,edited by its president, Samuel Gompers. Andanother ad from a May 1906 cigar makers’ peri-odical. I have two S. Richard push-tang breadknives, stamped in the blade with the MetalPolishers union label (shown in a long-agoinstallment of this column).

Having the only union shop in an industrymade for some complicated jurisdictional dis-putes. For example, in January 1906, S.Richard hired three members of theBlacksmiths Union. This required lengthynegotiation, mainly between that union andthe Metal Polishers. Eventually, after boardvotes in both unions, the men were allowed tochange membership without penalty.

Using Google, I tried to track down the ulti-mate fate of the Stephen Richard Company.

the Open Road Pioneers. The knife has threedistinctive features. First is the short clip mas-ter blade, instead of the usual spear blade.Second is the fancy etch on that blade: THEOPEN ROAD. Third is the special shield,matching the lapel pins of the Open RoadPioneers (which as far as I know, was set up in1927).

Only oneproblem. Theknife does notseem to exist.I have neverseen (orheard) of one.Mr. Ellingsenhas neverseen one.None of thescout collec-tors andRem in g t o ncollectors hec a n v a s s e d

has ever seen one. Have you seen one? If youhave one, please send in nice sharp pictures.

Why no knives? I have a theory -- basedupon a story told to me in 1991 by Albert M.Baer.

In the 1920s and 1930s, when he was travel-ing the country, selling cutlery for Kastor andCamillus, Baer’s home office was in New YorkCity, quite close to Boy Scouts of America head-quarters. Whenever he was in town, he wouldcall on them, offer to make Official ScoutKnives for them -- New York Knife, Remington,Ulster, Cattaraugus, and LF&C were all mak-ing Official knives then. The BSA folks said,sure -- but only if Kastor would stop selling‘generic’ unofficial scout knives. Well, Baer didthe math. Kastor was making a lot more moneyselling generic scout knives than they couldever hope to make by selling a minor fraction ofthe total Official knives. So nothing came of allthose friendly sales calls... at least not untilWWII, when the BSA had to come to Baer onhis terms, if they wanted to have any Officialknives at all.

So my theory about the Open Road Pioneersknife by Remington is, that the folks at BSAgot an early look at this ad (or whatever it is).They picked up the phone, called Remington,and said (speculating here) -- You can maketheir knives, or your can make our knives. Youcan’t make both. So Deep-river Jim got deep-sixed. At least his pocketknife did.

*If you have a metal handled pen knife with

an applied three-dimensional shield in theform of a logo, please send in clear sharp pic-tures of the whole knife.

*Please send me an email to brlevine@ix.netcom.comor mail paper correspondence to Whut Izzit,

c/o Knife World, Box 3395, Knoxville TN 37927.Be sure to enclose either an email address, or along self-addressed stamped envelope withyour letter, and also a flatbed scan, photocopy,or photograph (taken on plain LIGHT GRAY orWHITE background please) of your knife. Donot write directly on the picture. Indicate theknife’s handle material and its length (lengthCLOSED if it is a folder). Make enlargedimages of all markings and indicate where theyappear. Because of the large backlog, it usuallytakes me at least six months to answer a letterto the column. p

His family home has been restored, and wasplaced on the U.S. National Register of HistoricPlaces in 1989.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Richard_House

I soon discovered that contemporary knife-maker Mr. Raymond Richard of Gresham,Oregon, is a fourth generation descendant ofEtienne (Stephen) Richard. On his website hehas quite a bit of family background, includingpictures of an S. Richard factory building, andof Stephen Richard himself.

http://www.hawknknives.com/aboutme/_aboutme.shtml

Linked from that site are pages from PhilPankiewicz’s book, New England Cutlery. Oneof these is a lengthy newspaper account ofStephen Richard’s 89th birthday gathering, in1926. Raymond Richard reports that the S.Richard knife factory in Southbridge closed in1928, and the building then became a wire fac-tory.

*

But wait! There’s more! Not about S.Richard, but about The Open Road for Boys.

Mr. Dennis Ellingsen writes for Knife World,and he collects scout knives, especiallyRemington scout knives. When he learned ofmy new interest in Open Road, he dug into hisfiles and came up with the nearby ad. At leastI think it’s an ad. Maybe it’s a press release.Most likely it was from The Open Road forBoys. But he doesn’t recall where his copy camefrom, and he never could discover the source ordate of the original.

The document shows, larger than life, a spe-cial Remington scout-utility knife designed for