FINE HAND MADE HUNTING KNIFE WHICH LEGEND STATES BELONGED TO GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUSTER.

This knife was given to William F. Haight, the Monroe, MI Fire Chief by George Custer’s brother, Neven, in 1906 with the story that it had belonged to Gen. Custer and that it had been made from a file by Elija F. Frasier for Gen. Custer. A very famous picture of Gen. Custer, taken August 1874 during the Black Hills expedition, depicts Gen. Custer with three Indian scouts and a white scout in front of a tent with two large dog sin the foreground and Gen. Custer’s rifle alongside with a knife and a sheath that resembles, and probably is, the handle on the knife being sold here. This is a medium sized thin blade hunting knife with 6-7/16″ slight clip point blade, 1″ at the handguard with 1/8″ thick oval steel handguard and handle made from one piece of elkhorn stag secured with two iron pins. Overall length 10-5/8″. Handle has a thick copper ferrule at the handguard that is decorated with a variety of zig-zag engraved symbols referred to as “rocker engraved”. The interpretation of one symbol is “soldier kill my horse”; another “soldier horse I ride”; another “soldier fight hard my brother and father”; a fourth “my brother and father kill soldier they thought I dead I no dead brother give me horse”; and final “my dead horse”. Consignor, who is a retired bridge and highway construction company owner from South Dakota, who employed many local Native Americans over the years, and became extremely friendly with them, states that he has studied these symbols and has interpreted them as Indian markings applied by a Santee Sioux Indian named Gray-Earth-Track. Gray-Earth-Track was at the Little Big Horn camped with the Sansarc Sioux when the battle began. Gray-Earth-Track mounted his horse and chased a single soldier on a sorrel horse riding east across the deep Coulee. He was about to club the soldier when the soldier turned and shot Gray-Earth-Track’s horse with a pistol. As his horse was falling, he grabbed the soldier, pulling him off his horse and the two men rolled over and over with Gray-Earth-Track being knocked unconscious. When he awoke, he found that his brother and father had killed the soldier and were shooting arrows into his body. His brother, White-Earth-Track, caught the soldier’s sorrel horse which had a blaze face and four white stockings and gave it to Gray-Earth-Track to replace the one killed. This horse still had the soldier’s saddle bags in which the warriors found field glasses, a hunting knife, a leather map case and some personal items. By this time, they noticed that the shooting had stopped so they rode toward the battlefield and when they arrived they saw that women and children were stripping the soldiers and mutilating their bodies. They didn’t stay around and returned to camp. Later that night they left with Sitting Bull for Canada. In a 1923 interview of Spotted-Bear, a Hunkpapa Sioux, by Judge Frank Zahn, Spotted-Bear stated that he had seen Gray-Earth-Track riding a sorrel horse with blaze face and white stockings in Sitting Bull’s camp in Manitoba (source information: Camp, Custer and the Little Big Horn, Hardoff). Apparently the soldier’s body was discovered a whole year later by Gen. Miles east of the battlefield and forensically confirmed to have been the body of 2 Lt. Henry Moore Harrington of Company C 7th Cavalry. It is believed that Custer had ordered Harrington to ride to Major Reno for help and that the only horse available was Custer’s horse “Vic”. Gray-Earth-Track surrendered at Fort Keough in 1881 and at that time relinquished Custer’s leather map case. The story of the knife being given to Fire Chief Haight is recounted on pg 91 of Custer Legends, Frost. Dr. Lawrence A. Frost of Monroe, Michigan, a preeminent authority on anything Custer, owned what was probably the most extensive collections of Custer artifacts & relics ever assembled and authored 13 books, mostly about Custer’s life. Apparently consignor and Dr. Frost became close acquaintances through their mutual interest in Custer memorabilia and Indian history. PROVENANCE: Wendell Grangaard Collection. CONDITION: Blade is well worn with fine pitting; stag handle is equally well worn; copper ferrule has a dark copper patina. 4-49349 JR531 (3,000-5,000) – Lot 2261

Auction: Firearms - Spring 2014

Please Note: All prices include the hammer price plus the buyer’s premium, which is paid by the buyer as part of the purchase price. The prices noted here after the auction are considered unofficial and do not become official until after the 46th day.

Image	Lot	Price	Description
	2261	$11,500.00	FINE HAND MADE HUNTING KNIFE WHICH LEGEND STATES BELONGED TO GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUSTER. This knife was given to William F. Haight, the Monroe, MI Fire Chief by George Custer’s brother, Neven, in 1906 with the story that it had belonged to Gen. Custer and that it had been made from a file by Elija F. Frasier for Gen. Custer. A very famous picture of Gen. Custer, taken August 1874 during the Black Hills expedition, depicts Gen. Custer with three Indian scouts and a white scout in front of a tent with two large dog sin the foreground and Gen. Custer’s rifle alongside with a knife and a sheath that resembles, and probably is, the handle on the knife being sold here. This is a medium sized thin blade hunting knife with 6-7/16″ slight clip point blade, 1″ at the handguard with 1/8″ thick oval steel handguard and handle made from one piece of elkhorn stag secured with two iron pins. Overall length 10-5/8″. Handle has a thick copper ferrule at the handguard that is decorated with a variety of zig-zag engraved symbols referred to as “rocker engraved”. The interpretation of one symbol is “soldier kill my horse”; another “soldier horse I ride”; another “soldier fight hard my brother and father”; a fourth “my brother and father kill soldier they thought I dead I no dead brother give me horse”; and final “my dead horse”. Consignor, who is a retired bridge and highway construction company owner from South Dakota, who employed many local Native Americans over the years, and became extremely friendly with them, states that he has studied these symbols and has interpreted them as Indian markings applied by a Santee Sioux Indian named Gray-Earth-Track. Gray-Earth-Track was at the Little Big Horn camped with the Sansarc Sioux when the battle began. Gray-Earth-Track mounted his horse and chased a single soldier on a sorrel horse riding east across the deep Coulee. He was about to club the soldier when the soldier turned and shot Gray-Earth-Track’s horse with a pistol. As his horse was falling, he grabbed the soldier, pulling him off his horse and the two men rolled over and over with Gray-Earth-Track being knocked unconscious. When he awoke, he found that his brother and father had killed the soldier and were shooting arrows into his body. His brother, White-Earth-Track, caught the soldier’s sorrel horse which had a blaze face and four white stockings and gave it to Gray-Earth-Track to replace the one killed. This horse still had the soldier’s saddle bags in which the warriors found field glasses, a hunting knife, a leather map case and some personal items. By this time, they noticed that the shooting had stopped so they rode toward the battlefield and when they arrived they saw that women and children were stripping the soldiers and mutilating their bodies. They didn’t stay around and returned to camp. Later that night they left with Sitting Bull for Canada. In a 1923 interview of Spotted-Bear, a Hunkpapa Sioux, by Judge Frank Zahn, Spotted-Bear stated that he had seen Gray-Earth-Track riding a sorrel horse with blaze face and white stockings in Sitting Bull’s camp in Manitoba (source information: Camp, Custer and the Little Big Horn, Hardoff). Apparently the soldier’s body was discovered a whole year later by Gen. Miles east of the battlefield and forensically confirmed to have been the body of 2 Lt. Henry Moore Harrington of Company C 7th Cavalry. It is believed that Custer had ordered Harrington to ride to Major Reno for help and that the only horse available was Custer’s horse “Vic”. Gray-Earth-Track surrendered at Fort Keough in 1881 and at that time relinquished Custer’s leather map case. The story of the knife being given to Fire Chief Haight is recounted on pg 91 of Custer Legends, Frost. Dr. Lawrence A. Frost of Monroe, Michigan, a preeminent authority on anything Custer, owned what was probably the most extensive collections of Custer artifacts & relics ever assembled and authored 13 books, mostly about Custer’s life. Apparently consignor and Dr. Frost became close acquaintances through their mutual interest in Custer memorabilia and Indian history. PROVENANCE: Wendell Grangaard Collection. CONDITION: Blade is well worn with fine pitting; stag handle is equally well worn; copper ferrule has a dark copper patina. 4-49349 JR531 (3,000-5,000) – Lot 2261 Auction: Firearms - Spring 2014 Please Note: All prices include the hammer price plus the buyer’s premium, which is paid by the buyer as part of the purchase price. The prices noted here after the auction are considered unofficial and do not become official until after the 46th day.

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FINE HAND MADE HUNTING KNIFE WHICH LEGEND STATES BELONGED TO GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUSTER.