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This French-made weapon dates from the 17th century. Helmeted soldiers made of brass decorate the hilt and the pommel. The owner could use it as a dagger or wedge it into a musket gun barrel for a bayonet. In European-style battles, the bayonet allowed groups of soldiers to take on cavalry attacks. The plug bayonet was little used in American warfare, however. The family history of the owners stated that a relative got this plug bayonet about the time of King Philip's War (1675-1676). They claimed that it "was taken from the hand of an Indian chief who was killed while in the act of scalping a white man he had killed in one of the skirmishes between colonists and indians."

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