Help me date this axe?

[rich pierce]

I have a small axe bought from an antique shop in Pennsylvania.  It is hand-forged with a wedge inserted by the eye and a steel bit of course.  The handle is very slim but the head is good sized.  I am assuming that hand-forged axes with steel bits welded in etc are pre-1850 at least?  What's the earliest and latest you'd date it?

[Levy]

Rich:

Handforged is obviously one of a kind, but I've seen a lot of small hand axes this size from the wreck of the Maple Leaf in the St. Johns River, just south of Jacksonville, FL.  It was carrying supplies for the Federal troops who fought at the Battle of Olustee (Ocean Pond).  It seems that this size was popular and was either issued or privately purchased by the soldiers for fire building and driving tent stakes.

James Levy

[rich pierce]

That would be Civil War, correct?
thanks!

[tuffy]

Battle of Olustee was fought near Lake City, FL on February 20, 1864. It was the largest battle fought in Florida during the Civil War.

[D. Bowman]

From the research I have done on this style of axe head ,hand forged with a narrow  squared eye  these were made in the late 18th century but some black smiths could have made this style into the mid 19th century.

                                         D Bowman

[JCKelly]

Can't comment on whether it was hand- or machine-forged.
The old Kelly Axe factory in Charlestown, West Virginia drop-forged a blank of mild steel, folded it over & forge-welded in a high carbon steel bit well into the 20th century. When I was there about 1970 they had a wall display showing the steps in forging such an axe. It was some time before they got around to doing it the way Collins Axe patented in the 19th Century, that is, to punch the eye in the one piece of high carbon steel forged into axe shape. The bit and poll were heat treated separately, heated in molten lead, spray water quenched.
Eventually they were bought by TrueTemper, then both by Allegheny Ludlum Steel Co. (I knew them when I was at Allegheny). Kelly Axe made great stuff but the Powers That Be preferred to have their axes/hammers made by more northerly people who were far less appreciative of actually having a job. Gone now.

[JCKelly]

P.S. looks like your axe has both a steel bit and a steel poll.
Guess that would be entirely hand forged, not an early 20th century Kelly Axe or similar factory product.
Don't recall whether Kelly Axe forged-welded a steel poll on as well as a bit.