By RICK MILLER
Olean Star
ELLICOTTVILLE — The Village of Knives Celebration this weekend at the Cattaraugus County Fairgrounds is 150 years in the making.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s there were more than 60 cutleries within 50 miles of Little Valley, according to John Burrell, who was president of Burrell Cutlery in Ellicottville until 2006 and is co-sponsor of the Village of Knives.
Thirty-two of the 62 cutleries in the region were Case Family-related, said Burrell, who is Ellicottville mayor, and a descendant of the founders of Case Brothers in Little Valley in 1899. His grandmother was a Case.
Twenty-tix of the cutleries were located in Little Valley
The Village of Knives celebration starts Friday at the Corporate Building at the fairgrounds in Little Valley. It runs through Sunday.
“This is going to be one of the biggest knife shows in the country this year,” Burrell said. Of all the knife collections, more than 70% focus on Case knives and its “family tree.”
Burrell said that some of those early knives made by Case Brothers at the turn of the 20th century sell for $5,000 to $10,000 today, depending on rarity and condition. “Be sure to check old tool boxes and junk drawers” for these old W.R. Case knives,” he added.
Bradford oil money lured Case from Little Valley to Bradford with a new manufacturing facility.
“I was the last family member to manufacture knives,” said Burrell. Before he closed his shop in 2006, he had 80 employees on two shifts making knives. Much of the work was for other manufacturers including Cutco in Olean.
Burrell’s partner in the three-day knife show ios Brad Lockwood, who wrote a book on the Case Cutlery Dynasty. “It’s the most accurate book about the Case Family,” Burrell said.
Another Case brant, Cattaraugus Cutlery in Little Valley, closed in 1963, the last knife manufacturer in the village, Burrell said. Another local cutlery was Kinfolks, where Burrell’s grandfather worked in the 1940s. They made barber’s straight razors.
When President William McKinley imposed a tariff on European steel around 1900, Little Valley became an epicenter for knife manufacturing. It was a boon for U.S. cutleries and soon European knife makers came here to ply their craft.
“In the early 1900s, Little Valley made more knives than Germany and England combined,” Burrell said.
Burrell said the idea for Village of Knives stemmed from a desire to utilize the knife parts remaining after he closed his Ellicottville manufacturing shop. The idea came to him while he was recovering from a bone marrow transplant several years ago.
The Village of Knives at Corporate Building is open 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday. It is part museum and part marketplace. There will be 80 vendor tables filled with knives.
Forged in Fire champion Walter Baranoski of Springville plans to attend and will forge four commemorative knives, “the first knives to be made in Little Valley in 61 years,” Burrell said. He plans to keep one for himself, one will be donated for permanent display at the Little Valley American Legion. The other two will be auctioned at a banquet at the legion Saturday night.
Burrell will be selling a large number of knives at his display at Village of Knives this weekend.
He has dedicated various knives to honor family members including his late father Dean and his late wife Sheila who died in February. He also has a Model 1943 dedicated to his late brother Dean.
Burrell gathered knives he made as well as his wife’s, shined them up and placed many of them in specially made glass-covered rosewood cases. They are laser engraved with the Top Flight brand made popular by Kinfolks Cutlery of Little Valley.
Another item that will be in the museum area of the show is a replica of the glove with knives used by Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street movies series. They are made from old P210-S Case knife blades that had been made by Burrell Cutlery in Ellicottville, Burell said.
For more information, go online to villageofknives.com.
