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John Brown pike
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This pike was confiscated in connection with John Brown’s
raid at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, October 16–18, 1859.
Two and a half years before, Brown had contracted with
Charles Blair, a forgemaster in Collinsville, Connecticut,
to make 950 pikes for a dollar a piece. Brown intended
to issue these inexpensive weapons to his army of slave
insurgents. He had the pikes designed in the fashion of
a Bowie knife he had taken from a captured Missourian
in the border war against the slave power in Kansas. |
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Division of the History of Technology, Armed Forces
History
National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Behring Center
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