Nature Bulletin No. 640   May 6, 1961
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
John J. Duffy, President
Roberts Mann, Conservation Editor
David H. Thompson, Senior Naturalist

****:THE AX

The ax was one of the earliest tools used by man. It appears to have 
been invented, independently, by many races. Stone axes were found 
among relics of the prehistoric lake dwellers in Switzerland and the 
Maoris of New Zealand. Copper or bronze axes were used by ancient 
peoples in Asia, the British Isles and Central America. Until the white 
men came, American Indians used stone axes and fire to fell trees and 
fashion dugout canoes.

The European axes brought by our American colonists, and imported 
for trade with the Indians, were heavy clumsy tools that had remained 
virtually unchanged since Roman times. This ax had a square blade but 
no poll or pounding surface above the eye for the handle, which was 
straight and thick.

Sometime before 1750 -- nobody seems to know when, where or by 
whom -- the American chopping ax was perfected. It was light, 
weighing from 3 to 6 pounds, and perfectly balanced. The single bit (or 
blade) ax had a poll, for utility as well as balance, and a slender, 
cleverly curved handle. The double-bitted ax had two identical blades 
and a straight slender handle with a knob at the end. The former is an 
all-purpose tool. The latter is preferred by expert lumbermen. They 
played a vital part in the history of these United States.

The pioneer settlers in this old Northwest Territory were woodsmen as 
well as farmers. They had to be. Except for occasional openings, the 
prairies of Illinois, and parts of Indiana and Michigan, the land was 
covered with trees. From the Appalachians to the Mississippi there were 
vast forests of virgin timber.

Many pioneers and their families came across the Pennsylvania 
mountains to the Ohio river in heavily laden Conestoga wagons. Others 
came through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky, on foot and leading a 
pack horse, with little more than a skillet, a kettle, a hoe, packets of 
seeds, some bedding, and the clothes they wore.

But no matter how they came nor how poor, every man had two 
priceless possessions upon which their lives and livelihood depended: a 
long rifle and an ax. He was, or became, amazingly skillful in the use of 
both. The rifle furnished him with game for food and protection against 
hostile Indians. With the ax he obtained materials for his home, 
furnishings, implements and fuel. It enabled him to clear land and plant 
crops.

A typical pioneer traveled through the wilderness until he found a 
suitable homesite where he built a temporary shelter -- frequently an 
"open-face" lean-to of poles covered with brush. Then he cleared the 
brush and smaller trees from a patch of ground where he planted some 
corn, potatoes and garden seeds. The big trees in this and subsequent 
clearings were usually killed by "girdling" -- chopping a deep notch 
around each trunk. Then those, too, had to be removed. Many were 
dragged into piles and burned.

Crosscut saws were a rarity on the frontier. With only his chopping ax, 
a man would fell huge trees six feet or more in diameter and cut them 
into logs of desired lengths. Some, including those split into clapboards 
for the roofs, were used to build a cabin and sheds. Oak and walnut logs 
were split into rails for fences and a corn crib. Others were laboriously 
fashioned into furniture and implements.

For such purposes he had or acquired other tools. Especially a draw-
knife -- a two-handled blade for shaping and shaving anything from an 
ax handle for a chair to an ox yoke or a wagon tongue. Also wedges, a 
frow to "rive" clapboards, and a broadax -- with a long curved blade, 
like a battle-ax -- for hewing logs and dressing planks.

The pioneer and his ax were mightier than the wilderness.