“Turning the Grindstone” – Daniel Boone Commemorative Silver Half Dollar Coin

Today, the Daniel Boone Commemorative Silver Half Dollar Coin remembers a vintage article from 1816 that included both humor and sarcasm.

Through the years, people attributed Boone as an accurate ax thrower.

This article, on the other hand, talks of sharpening the axe.

Is this the origination of “ax to grind” or just a man’s story?

You decide.

From the Providence [Rhode Island] Gazette of June 15, 1816:

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From a New York Paper.

“Turning the Grindstone!”

When I was a little boy, I remember one cold winter’s day, I ws accosted by a smiling man, with an axe on his shoulder.

“My pretty boy,” said he, “has your father a grindstone?”

“Yes, Sir,” said I.

“You are a fine little fellow,” said he, “will you let me grind my axe on it?”

Please with his compliment of “fine little fellow,” “O yes, Sir,” I answered, “it is down in the shop.”

“And will you, my man,” said he, tapping me on the head, get a little hot water?”

How could I refuse?

I ran and soon brought a kettle full.

“How old are you, and what is your name?” continued he, without waiting for a reply, “I am sure you are one of the finest lads that ever I have seen; will you just turn for a few minutes?”

Tickled with the flattery, like a fool I went to work, and bitterly did I rue the day.

It was a new axe, and I toiled and tugged, till I was almost tired to death.

The school bell rung, and I could not get away, my hands were blistered, and it was not half ground.

At length, however, the axe was sharpened, and the man turned to me, with “now you little rascal, you’ve played the truant, scud to school, or you’ll rue it.”

Alas! thought I, it was hard enough to turn the grindstone this cold day, but now to be called “little rascal” was too much.

It sunk deep in my mind, and often have I thought of it since.

When I have seen a man of doubtful character, patting a girl on the cheek, praising her sparkling eye and ruby lip, and giving her a sly squeeze—beware my girl, thought I, or you will find to your sorrow, that you have been turning the grindstone for a villain.

When I see a man flattering the people, making great professions of attachment to liberty, who is in private life a tyrant; methinks, look out, good people, that fellow would set you to turning grindstones.

When I see a man holding a fat office, “sounding the horn on the borders,” to call the people to support the man on whom he depends for his office; well, thinks I, no wonder the man is zealous in this cause, he evidently has an axe to grind.

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The Daniel Boone Commemorative Silver Half Dollar Coin shows with an image of a man sharpening an axe with a grindstone, circa 1919.

Daniel Boone Commemorative Silver Half Dollar Coin