Hand Grenades In The Fur Trade

There may be some of you unaware of it's existence so I would like to point out the Museum Of The Fur Trade in Chadron, Nebraska. An article from their recen quarterly magazine deals with the subject of hand grenades as well as freight markings, checkers or draughts, Northwest Gun ancestry and source material.

Apparently hand grenades were ‘fully developed by the seventeenth century’. The article states that the ‘first mention of a hand grenade with a fur trade connection’ was made of birch bark and used in combat during an altercation with Native Americans in 1659. The article goes on to say that during excavations as Fort Albany fifteen grenades ‘of two types’ were recovered. Diameters seem to range between 2 5/8” and 3 5/8”. The grenades were apparently made of iron.