A butcher knife is a knife esigned and used primarily for the butchering and/or dressing of animals. During the late 1700's to mid 1840's, the butcher knife was a key tool for mountain men. Simple, useful and cheap to produce, they were used for everything from skinning beaver, cutting food, fighting adversaries, and scalping. During this time, I. Wilson, of Sheffield, England was a major exporter of this type of knife to the Americas. In the 1830's an American company named J. Russell became the major producer of inexpensive, high quality cutlery. They soon became a name in every household and in the mountain man mythos.