In 1840, John Russell began manufacturing hunting and skinning knives along the banks of the Green River in Deerfield, Massachusetts. The knives had a nine-inch steel blade and a wooden handle and were shipped dull so their owners could sharpen them as they wished. The knives’ reputation grew rapidly as the demand for them increased with western migration and trade with Native American peoples. Between 1840 and 1860, Russell’s Green River Works produced 720,000 knives for the American West. Disputes were often settled with a Green River knife, the personal weapon of nearly every scout, hunter, miner, and trapper. To “give it to ’em up to the Green River” meant to bury a knife in the opponent’s belly up to the trademark stamped on the blade.