The history of the Bowie knife

An excerpt from the above article by Jerry LaFleur:

"In reviewing the above entries, one point is clear: the Bowie plantation was the site where the first Bowie Knife was made - regardless if the maker was Rezin Bowie or Jesse Clifft.If one should visit the site today you would see a place drowned in weeds, with trash and litter abound, and a very slow-moving, stagnant Bayou Boeuf that is clogged with downed trees, rotten logs and industrial waste lining the banks. In sharp contrast, however, are beautiful, graceful and magnificent inspiring giant Live Oak trees."

"Last July, the Mayor of Bunkie Gerard Moreau took me to this site. While walking around under these giant Oak trees, we both commented that we sensed an unusual feeling. Something different. Something important. You could easily perceive that this is the place where the first Bowie Knife was forged. (I have to say that if Gerard had not taken me to this site it is doubtful that there would have been a story about the Bowie Knife site; I was so impressed with the location that I immediately began my research about the origins of the first Bowie Knife.) "This instrument (Bowie Knife) which was never intended for ought but a hunting knife was made by an old file in the plantation blacksmith shop of my grandfather's (Rezin Bowie) Bayou Boeuf plantation, the maker was a hired white man named Jesse Clift, he afterwards went to Texas. My mother, Mrs. Jos. H. Moore, then a little girl, went to the shop with her father (Rezin Bowie), heard his directions, and saw Clift make the knife."