Despite such strong assertions, it would appear that Judge Pope based his judgment on a false premise. The classic Arkansas story comes from Dan W. Jones, governor of Arkansas from 1897 to 1901. According to Governor Jones, the James Black, who alone made the only “genuine� Bowie knife, also designed it. Black was born in New Jersey and, after having served as apprentice to a Philadelphia silver-plate manufacturer, came South in 1818, settling that year at Washington, Hempstead County, Arkansas.
Here he found employment with Shaw, the village blacksmith. Shaw was an important man with high ambitions for his daughters. Consequently, when Anne fell in love with the young smith, only a hired hand, Shaw objected. The young people married nevertheless, and James Black set up a smithy of his own.
He specialized in making knives, and very soon they had won a reputation. Governor Jones’s story continues:
“About 1831 James Bowie came to Washington and gave Black an order for a knife, furnishing a pattern and desiring it to be made within the next sixty or ninety days, at the end of which time he would call for it. Black made the knife according to Bowie’s pattern. He knew Bowie well and had a high regard for him as a man of good taste as well as of unflinching courage. He had never made a knife that suited his own taste in point of shape, and he concluded that this would be a good opportunity to make one. Consequently, after completing the knife ordered by Bowie, he made another. When Bowie returned he showed both the knives to him, giving him his choice at the same price. Bowie promptly selected Black’s pattern.
“Shortly after this Bowie became involved in a difficulty with three desperadoes, who assaulted him with knives. He killed them all with the knife Black had made. After this, whenever anyone ordered a knife from Black he ordered it made ‘like Bowie’s’ which finally was shortened into ‘Make me a Bowie knife.’ Thus this famous weapon acquired its name.
“Other men made knives in those days, and they are still being made, but no one has ever made ‘the Bowie knife’ except James Black. Its chiefest value was in its temper. Black undoubtedly possessed the Damascus secret. It came to him mysteriously and it died with him in the same way. He often told men that no one had taught him the secret and that it was impossible for him to tell how he acquired it.�
The death of the secret is a part of the story. About 1838 Black’s wife died. Not long thereafter Black himself was confined to his bed by a fever. While he was down, his father-in-law, who had all along been jealous of Black’s growing reputation, met up with him and beat him over the head with a stick. Probably he would have killed him had not Black’s dog seized Shaw by the throat. As it was, inflammation set up in Black’s eyes and he was threatened with blindness. As soon as he had strength enough to travel he set out for expert treatment. A quack doctor in Cincinnati made him stone-blind.
Black returned to Arkansas to find his little property gone and himself an object of charity. A Doctor Jones, father of the future Governor Jones, gave him a home. When Doctor Jones died, the blind man went to live with the son.
“Time and again,� recalls Governor Jones, “when I was a boy he said to me that, notwithstanding his great misfortune, God had blessed him in a rare manner by giving him such a good home and that he would repay it all by disclosing to me his secret of tempering steel when I should arrive at maturity.