If the overall length is in the 4 - 5 inch range, it could have been the "crank" portion of one of those valve dressing / valve refacing tools used in the late "teens" & early "twenties" to keep the exhaust valves in engines like the Model T Ford functional.
If you use google books advanced book search & look for "valve refacer" with date range 1915 - 1925, the results will give you wide range of examples, and if my surmise is on target, you might even find the right model.