Tomahawk again

[spencer]

I wasn't through but when I hit the TAB key it sent the message. ....Anyway, intrigued by this information I drove up to The State Historical Society in Madison and inquired as to if the artifacts still remained. The tomahawk is still there but the bowie knife disappeared in 1911.

The curator brought me back to a small room under the stairway and had me sit down in a crowded room with heat ducts running along the walls and over his desk. After putting on white Cotton gloves he took from a white cardboard box a French or English trade tomahawk. The hickory handle measured 16 inches and was studded along both sides with brass tacks. The sinister looking tomahawk's head was only about the size of a ball pine hammer but the three inch curved blade was razor sharp and had serrations in it.

My only problem is that I have never read of Olmstead as being one of the militia at the Battle of the Pecatonica. Has anyone any more information?

[Robert Braun]

My guess is that Olmstead was the donor. There is no doubt in my mind that tomahawks were present on both sides. The tacks make me think of original native ownership.

[Larry Koschkee]

I too have not seen Olmstead associated with the Battle of the Pecatonica, but Charles Olmstead was a private in Fortunatus Berry's Company stationed at Fort Gratiot. He is enumerated in the Wisconsin Historical Society's website...Wisconsin Muster Rolls of the Black Hawk War 1832. Perhaps he traveled through the area after the battle and found the tomahawk.