primitive antique broad axe hatchet for hand hewing barn beams etc

Antique primitive old broad axe hatchet. This axe from an old farm estate and has a primitive old wood handle. This hatchet is about 16.5" long overall. The iron head measures about 5 1/2" long (over the cutting edge) and 6 1/2" wide. This axe head has a patina of age and is marked with a maker (we think, but we can't make out the mark) and "05".

This hatchet is a broad ax design head, an important tool in any early farmer or pioneer's tool chest and have been used since very early times. Young George Washington's hatchet in the story of the cherry tree was likely a broad axe design. Broad axes are different from ordinary felling or splitting axes, in that they are made to be sharpened from one side only, like a chisel or a smoothing plane iron.

Broad axes were originally intended to be fitted with a wood handle (usually hickory, ash, elm or another strong and tough wood) that has been warped with heat and steam to mount the axe head off center of the ax head. This is because broad axes were used with adzes to hew and shape barn beams, wagon tongues & axels etc from whole logs (mostly in the days before sawmills). The axe head was offset from the handle so that the axe could be used parallel to the beam face to trim it smooth without scraped knuckles etc. The old handle on this axe is straight.