Knife identification

[Pvt. Wing]

Hi comrades. Recently I came into the possession of a knife owned by a soldier of the 5th Maine Infantry. It is an overall 9 1/2 inch folding knife with worn markings.I can see "KNIFE CO. clearly.Above that is tough. It looks like 5- 7 letters beginning with W or AW and the last letter is an N. I've done some searching with no luck. Any ideas? Thanks!


Ed Henry
3rd Maine Co. F
Plug Ugly Mess

[dahoude]

Re: Knife identification

Greetings,

While I cannot be sure without more info, such as pattern, handle material, etc, and a picture always helps, from your description of the stamping it sounds like it may be "WALDEN KNIFE CO.", if so it would be post war, as the Walden Knife Co. did not start producing knives until 1874. This soldier may very well have owned it as you said, but may have not actually come to having it until 1874 or after. They continued to make knives until the mid 1920's. So if it indeed a Walden Knife Co. knife that gives you an idea of the age of what you have. The Walden Knife Co. started out in 1870 as a cutlery firm known as the Walden Cooperative Knife Co. The 18 original knife workers they employed were also members of professional competitive baseball teams who liked to play ball during lunch with rival knife company workers from the New York Knife Co. The higher ups in Walden management looked down on this and ended up firing the workers. The workers then started their own venture in 1874 called the Walden Knife Co. By 1881 they had expanded to 125 employees. By 1911 they had over 600 workers, making over 2,500 different patterns. By this time the Walden Knife Co. was making knives for E. C. Simmons hardware (Keen Kutter), as well as the US Navy during WWI. After WWI, Simmons merged with Winchester Repeating Arms Co., and Winchester took over knife making for Simmons. That spelled doom for Walden as Simmons was their largest customer. After 1920, Schrade Cutlery bought the Walden factory and the Walden Knife Co. was no more. Walden knives were stamped either "WALDEN KNIFE CO"; "WALDEN, N.Y."; or "WALDEN KNIFE CO. MADE IN USA."

Regards;

Dan