By RICK MILLER
Olean Star
LITTLE VALLEY — The third time’s a charm.
The third annual Village of Knives celebration continues Saturday at the Corporate Building at the Cattaraugus County Fairgrounds.
The corridor from Little Valley to Cattaraugus was once filled with local cutleries — the most famous of which include Cattaraugus Cutlery, Case Cutlery and Kinfolks.
John Burrell, the Ellicottville mayor and last of the Case descendents making knives locally; and his cousin Brad Lockwood, brought the Village of Knives Knife Show back to Little Valley for a third year.
Over the past year, Burrell, owner of Top Flight Early American Cutlery, and Lockwood, local author of “The Case Cutlery Dynasty: Tested XX,” fascinated by the area’s cutlery history, helped craft replicas of two historic cutlery pieces made for the Nation’s Centennial celebration. The knife was over 10 feet tall and the fork just over 7 feet tall.
The originals were crafted by the Beaver Falls Knife Co., of Pennsylvania. When Cattaraugus Cutlery purchased the Pennsylvania knife-maker, the giant knife and fork were part of the deal. They stood on either side of a doorway at Cattaraugus Cutlery for many years before their display in Buffalo as part of the Centennial.
The replicas were designed by Walter Baranowski, a Forged in Fire champion and owner of Baranowski Metalworking and Fabrication, and cut out of steel using a water jet at Springville Manufacturing. Burrell, Lockwood and Claude Case spent hundreds of hours polishing the giant pieces. The handles were crafted by an Amish woodworker. The originals were carved from ivory.
Unfortunately, the originals disappeared after their centennial display in Buffalo, according to Lockwood.
Both giant cutlery pieces are on display at the Village of Knives. The knife took three people to carry it into the building.
The knife and fork replicas will soon be on display at sites across the country, Lockwood said.
Burrell and Lockwood, along with Johnnie Mitchell, a well-known knife collector from Tennessee knife, came up with the idea after last year’s Village of Knives show, which focuses national attention on the area’s cutlery history.
Mitchell has more than 8,000 knives in his collection, many of which are Case. On Friday, he showed Burrell a very rare elephant toenail pocket knife that has been in his family for 75 years. Visible on the blade is the Case XX.
Burrell continues to make commemorative knives under his Top Flight Early American Cutlery brand.
His latest model is designed to mark the Nation’s 250th birthday. He calls it the Model 1776. The handle includes bone that has been dyed red, white and blue. The blade is Damascus steel. The knife will come with its own sheath and glass-topped box.
Burrell’s next project involves a replica of a Kinsfolks knife, MY-65 that features a unique butterscotch handle. Ironically, Burrell’s father, the late Dean Burrell, was a salesman for Kinfolks Cutler back in the 1930s, when the MY-65 was being manufactured. The Little Valley company was started by Kent Champlin, Russ Case and Dean Case.
Burrell also has an assortment of commemorative knives he has built dedicated to members of his family.
There are 110 vendors at this year’s Village of Knives show. They come from all around the country. So do the people attending the show, looking for some knives to add to their collections.
Knife Magazine writer Mark Zalesky came from Eastern Kentucky to attend the Village of Knives show. “I love coming up here,” he said. “I’ve been a knife collector my whole life.”
Zalesky said a book on the history of knife-making he first read as a child included Cattaraugus County’s famous cutleries. “It talked about all the towns around here. I’ve known these towns for 50 years. There were little cutleries in all of them. They are steeped in history. All these names mean something to me.”
Zalesky also participated in some metal detecting around old cutlery sites in Little Valley with Lockwood. He showed some of “the tiny pieces of history” he found, including melted metal from knives at one cutlery that burned to the ground. His best find was the rusty remains of a rare Case canoe knife, which resembled the curving shape of a canoe.
Besides celebrating the country’s 250th birthday, the Village of Knives is celebrating the Little Valley Fire Department’s 100th anniversary. A chicken barbecue to benefit the fire department’s fundraiser for a new roof Saturday begins at noon.
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