UPDATED: Knives Out

 

UPDATE: See below for an update from Mike Fenlon about the twin to the knife I have!

This Thanksgiving Day blog post is about a pocket knife that originally belonged to my grandfather, Emmett Martin Fenlon.  This knife was given to me by my Dad, Mark Fenlon. He and Helen found it when they were clearing out the second floor of the Falls Road homestead after they bought it from Great Aunt Clara Fenlon in 2001. The provenance of the knife is a mystery however. On one side it has "Emmett Fenlon, Marcellus Falls, N. Y." and on the other it has "SYRACUSE JOURNAL". The Syracuse Journal  (Figure 1) was a newspaper published in Syracuse NY between 1899-1939. Its own origins can be traced back to 1845 and it became the Syracuse Herald Journal following a merger with the Herald orchestrated by William Randolph Hearst in 1939.  The latter paper was published until 2001. 

Figure 1. Front page of the Syracuse Journal from 13 October 1923. 

The knife appears to be a gift of some kind.  The question is, why did Emmett receive it?  My original theory was that he was a paperboy for the Journal and the knife was something like a Christmas bonus. However, oral family history does not support this theory. Uncle Brian speculated that it might have been a gift given to students for an achievement, such as honor roll or perfect attendance. If you have any theories please email me or leave them in the comments.  The knife itself is ~3.5 inches long and was made by the Canton Cutlery Company, Canton, Ohio (Figure 2). 

Figure 2. Knife with the blades open and a quarter for perspective. 

The Canton Cutlery Co. specialized in knives that could be monogrammed / personalized with a company's name and the recipient. The knife shown in Figure 3 is essentially the same as Emmett's, but it was given to one I. N. Hay of Brookville, Ohio. 

Figure 3. A Canton Cutlery knife similar to Emmett's.

The company also touted its CAR-VAN steel which was made by a special heat treating process.  In their advertisements they demonstrated how tough the blade was by showing it cutting through a nail! (Figure 4). 

Figure 4. Ad from 1916 in The American Stationer touting the photo handled Car-Van steel blades of Canton Cutlery pocket knives.

It is perhaps odd that the knife that Emmett received came from Canton, Ohio when one of the largest and most famous knife manufacturing factories in the US was the neighboring Camillus Cutlery Company. Some advertisements for Canton and Camillus Cutlery are shown in Figure 5. 

Figure 5. Ads for the Canton and Camillus Cutlery Companies. Bottom ads from 1923 (L) and 1922. 

Finally, the title to this post comes from the recent movie Knives Out which was one of the last movies we saw in the theater before the Covid-19 pandemic hit. If you saw the film, you know there is a reference to the New Yorker magazine. Here is the New Yorker review of the film written by Anthony Lane. 

I hope everyone has a safe and tasty Thanksgiving.

UPDATE

My dad's first cousin Mike Fenlon, son of Edward J. Fenlon, Jr., sent me an email and told me that he has the twin knife to the one I have. That is, the twins Edward and Emmett Fenlon both had Syracuse Journal knives with their names on them!  Even more amazing is that Mike also has the package the knife came in and the warrantee card which has a date: FEB 26 1923. Edward and Emmett would have been 13 years old at that time, probably a similar age as they are in the photo on the left. 

The postage from Canton, Ohio to Marcellus Falls, NY appears to only have been 5¢ which is after accounting for inflation is only 81¢ in today's dollars, a pretty reasonable cost. Mike took the knife to a knife store in Camillus a few years ago and the owner wanted to buy it from him, but he did not sell it. He also thought it might have been newspaper subscription promotion that had the knives as a bonus. When Covid improves Mike plans to take the knife to the Onondaga Historical Society to learn more about Syracuse Journal aspect of the knives. Below are photos Mike sent for this update.

Edward Emmett Fenlon 

(initial post 26 Nov 2020)

(update 6 Jan 2022)