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From the Houston Chronicle
Texas History goes on the auction block
The old knife with the scratched blade and the cracked wooden handle stared down the Mexican army at the Battle of San Jacinto, but a family feud proved too much for it.
The Bowie knife that Gen. Sam Houston carried into the battle for independence remained a revered artifact in Texas for 166 years. Now, it is in a vault at Little John's Auction Service in Orange, Calif., where it will be sold Sunday to the highest bidder.
Some Texans are not happy about the development. "If there is one common thread of all people in Texas, it's their pride in state history. There's just no denying that," said Tom Wancho, an exhibits planning assistant at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin.
Other curators were more staid but just as adamant in their reaction to the news.
"I think things that are important to Texas and important to the heroes of Texas should be available to and enjoyed by the public," said Mac Woodward, curator at the Sam Houston Museum in Huntsville.
For 60 years the knife was on public display.
Sam Houston gave it to Solomon Fisher, the 10-year-old son of his neighbor. The knife was passed from generation to generation of the Fisher family.
In 1940, the Fisher family lent the knife to the San Jacinto Museum of History in La Porte, where it stayed until it went on display at the Bob Bullock Museum when it opened last year.
Today, there are four descendants of Solomon Fisher, some in the Houston area, some elsewhere.
A descendent who asked not to be identified because "a lot of people are upset about (the knife) being taken from Texas" said the family put it up for sale because they didn't know what to do with it.
The heirs knew they owned some items on display at the San Jacinto Museum, but they never thought much about them until they were contacted by curators two years ago.
The museum was cataloguing its collection and wanted to clarify the agreements it had with artifact owners, said museum President George Donnelly.
"We asked them, `What's your pleasure? Do you want to donate it to us? Do you want to keep it on loan? Do you want us to return it?' " Donnelly said.
The Fisher family couldn't decide.
"I think it was just too many of us to decide what to do with it," the woman said.
So they chose to sell it and let someone else worry about where it should go.
For what it's worth, the Fisher family member said she hopes "it comes back to Texas."
There is some precedent for that.
When a portrait of Jim Bowie, whose name is forever linked with the big, rough-hewn knives used on the frontier, went up for sale at a California auction last year, the Texas Historical Commission and the State Preservation Board got together and paid $321,875 for it. The painting is on display in the Capitol.
Auctioneer John Gangel, owner of Little John's, said there is a lot of interest in the knife, including from some museums and collectors. Gangel expects the knife to sell for between $25,000 and $75,000, but bidding could drive the price higher, he said.
Museum curators are hoping the high bidder has ties to Texas.
Wancho said the Bob Bullock Museum frequently receives telephone calls from Texans with significant artifacts who offer to lend them to the museum.
"We've actually got some objects on display right now that came from people who visited the museum and who called," Wancho said. "There are real serious collectors who don't want to share, but there are also people who have had things passed down from generation to generation."
Gangel said Bowie knife collectors also are interested in the knife.
The old knife certainly has character. It is huge, 20 inches long with a blade that is 13.5 inches long and more than 2 inches across. It is so big that museums called it a short sword, an inaccurate description, Gangel said.
"It's the kind of knife Texicans would have carried," Gangel said. "He wouldn't have had a frilly knife made in England. He wasn't going to spend what would've been three months pay at that time when virtually every blacksmith could make a knife."
Woodward of the Sam Houston Museum said the knife is a significant piece of Texas history.
"I think Sam Houston still stands as the most important figure in Texas history," he said.
Sam Houston IV of Huntsville, the general's great-grandson, said he, too, would like to see the knife displayed in a museum. He has donated his artifacts, including one of Sam Houston's famous walking canes, to the Sam Houston Museum.
Still, Houston doesn't begrudge the decision to sell the knife.
"We're a country where we can buy and sell things. That's the great thing about our country. (The sale) is just one of those things that happens," he said.
