MUSEUM LANDS RARE PISTOL

Fredericksburg Area Museum acquires rare pistol made in Falmouth for Revolutionary War

As the 13 colonies prepared to go to war for independence from Britain, craftsmen and laborers at James Hunter's Rappahannock Forge in Falmouth were turning out weapons and other gear to supply George Washington's Continental Army.

Two-hundred and thirty years later, officials from the Fredericksburg Area Museum and Cultural Center discovered that one of the flintlock pistols made at that forge was going on public auction in San Francisco on Feb. 5.

To put things in perspective, only 15 of these pistols, marked with the "Rap a. Forge" stamp, are known to still exist, and according to Mary Helen Dellinger, the museum's senior vice president for collections and exhibitions, it had been 40 years since the last one came up for sale publicly.

This particular gun came with documents that trace its history back through 1908, when it was bought by an "H. Mercer" at a public farm sale in Pennsylvania for $1.25.

Over the years, it had six different owners, one of whom took it to California after buying it in 1967.

An anonymous "friend" of the museum stepped in to front the $170,250 it took to buy the gun at the San Francisco auction, and it returned to Fredericksburg earlier this month in a Federal Express truck.

The museum will be soliciting donations to pay the money back, but Executive Director Edwin Watson said, "I couldn't fathom the idea of letting this thing go."

"In terms of the things we have always wanted for our collection, this is at the top of the list," Dellinger said.

The pistol will be on public display at the museum for a few weeks in April. Then it will go back into storage, and will reappear as part of the "Fredericksburg at War" exhibit in the former bank building the museum is renovating at William and Princess Anne streets.

"Fredericksburg at War" aims to tell stories about what life was like not just on the battlefields, but for everyday residents of the Fredericksburg area during times of war.

That can be hard to do for the Revolutionary period, Watson said, because there are no photos and far fewer written personal accounts from that time than from the Civil War and more modern conflicts.

With the pistol, Watson said the museum can better tell people about the role the Fredericksburg area played in supplying the army that freed America from colonial rule.

The museum also has on exhibit in its existing building two muskets that were made in the area--one from Hunter's iron works that dates to 1780, and is on loan from local gun collector Charles McDaniel, and another from Fielding Lewis and Charles Dick's Fredericksburg Manufactory of Arms, dating to 1776.

Emily Battle: 540/374-5413
Email: ebattle@freelancestar.com