Stolen Civil War guns aren’t the only historic guns Pennsylvania city is missing
I am a bit of a history buff, and I would love to get my hands on a set of historic pistols like these.
So of course this story caught my attention. Plus, I REALLY love a good mystery. Gets my inner Sherlock Holmes all antsy.
The pistols are still missing, and then Harrisburg officials find there was a second set of pistols that are closely linked historically to the missing set, that mysteriously sold at auction without the consent or knowledge of the town. “Come Watson!!!! The Game is afoot!”
So who has the first set of pistols? Who put the second set up for auction? How did they get the second set of pistols? Why did the former Mayor use $195K of city funds to buy them in the first place?
ARRGGHH!!! SO MANY QUESTIONS?
The stolen guns once belonged to Simon Cameron, who was Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of war and were owned by the city of Harrisburg, Pennlive.com reports. The theft has not been solved.
After the burglary city officials found a 1995 letter indicating that the city also owned a pair of pistols that once belonged to Cameron’s brother, James Cameron, who died on the battlefield after receiving the engraved firearms from gunmaker Samuel Colt, according to Pennlive.
But what has city officials baffled is how those guns wound up being sold for $132,250 at an auction in 2015 after the former Harrisburg Mayor Stephen Reed had purchased them for the museum two decades ago.
Reed bought the James Cameron firearms with city funds for $195,000.
Pennlive reports that earlier this year Reed pleaded guilty to charges that he stole historic artifacts from the city.