News – Page 5 – Brant & Cochran

Feb 14, 2017

The Story of Lemuel Cotton and the "Ebonoak Handle"

Following the trend of our last blog posts on axe handles we thought we would share the story of Hiram, Maine’s Lemuel Cotton and his “Ebonoake” handles. It is a story about unintended discovery, Yankee ingenuity, and clever marketing. Lemuel...

Jan 16, 2017

Get A Handle On It! - Part 2

Continuing the topic of axe handles from our last blog post we are going to look at the different types of axe handle patterns, handle length, the preferred wood to make the wedge put into the kerf, and finally tackle...

Dec 30, 2016

Get A Handle On It! - Part 1

"Without a handle, an ax is only an awkward chuck of steel." D. Cook, The Ax Book Many of you have heard our griping about finding proper axe handles to hang on our axes. Given the amount of time we...

Nov 30, 2016

Secrets of the Emerson & Stevens Company - Part 2

Tucked away in the Oakland Public Library are numerous treasures which shed light on that city's extensive axe making past. One such find is a letter dated April 20, 1965 from Harold York, the last general manager of the Emerson...

Nov 02, 2016

Exclusive! Color Photos of the Emerson & Stevens Axe Factory from the 1960’s

At this point we are all familiar with Peter Vogt’s iconic 1965 film “Pioneer Axe” depicting work inside Oakland’s Emerson & Stevens company. In our research at the Oakland Public Library we found a number of rarely seen color photographs...