The Federal Bureau of Investigations, on Monday, helped return dozens of artifacts that had been stolen from museums and historical societies from all across the country.
During a ceremony held at the Museum of the American Revolution, the agency returned fifty items -- including many valuable firearms -- to 16 different museums and historical societies after they were stolen more than 50 years ago.
"I'm a little bit speechless about describing the wealth of what we see here from our American History," Jacqueline C. Romero, U.S. Attorney for Eastern District of Pennsylvania, said, as she viewed the items.
According to law enforcement officials, the investigation that would end in the recovery of these artifacts began in 2009 when Upper Merion Township detectives and the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office re-opened a cold case investigation.
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They wanted to follow up on the thefts of valuable antique firearms and other items that occurred between 1968 and 1979 from the Valley Forge Historical Society Museum in Valley Forge and other museums, officials noted.
During that investigation, law enforcement officials said, a confidential source turned over several antique firearms believed to have been stolen from museums in Pennsylvania, including an 18th century flintlock musket stolen from the Valley Forge Museum in 1970 and a 1775 musket that was stolen from a museum in Schoharie, NY.
Further investigation, officials said, led to the discovery of more stolen antique firearms and other items at a home in Newark, Delaware in May of 2017.
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In 2021, the man who lived at that home, an antique dealer named Michael Kintner Corbett, was indicted by a grand jury for possession of firearms and other items stolen from museums in the 1970s.
Police said these items included an 1847 Mississippi rifle stolen from a Mississippi museum, a World War II battlefield pickup pistol belonging to General Omar Bradley stolen from the U.S. Army War College Museum, and 19th century Pennsylvania rifles stolen from Pennsylvania museums, including the Daniel Boone Homestead.
Corbett entered a guilty plea to that charge and, as part of the plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, officers said he agreed to turn over other stolen firearms to which he had access.
Officials said that the groups who saw items returned were: The Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, as well as Blair County Historical Society at Baker Mansion in Altoona, Delaware County Historical Society in Chester, Nitre Hall - Haverford Township Historical Society in Havertown, The Hershey Story Museum in Hershey, Tuscarora Academy Museum/Juniata County Historical Society in Mifflintown, Longmeadow Historical Society in Longmeadow, Mass., Mississippi Department of Archives & History in Jackson Miss., Museum of Connecticut History in Hartford, Conn., Old Stone Fort Museum in Schoharie, NY, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in Harrisburg, Springfield Armory National Historic Site in Springfield, Mass., Belchertown Historical Association/Stone House Museum in Belchertown, Maine, and the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center/U.S. Army War College in Carlisle.
Some of the items returned during the ceremony included a 1758 powder horn carried by Ensign Justus Dwight during the French and Indian War, a 1775 Revolutionary War-era American-made Brown Bess style musket, 18th Century English and Scottish pistols, 18th and 19th Century Pennsylvania long rifles made in Bedford, Berks, Huntingdon and Lancaster counties -- including a long rifle stolen from the Daniel Boone Homestead in Birdsboro and a number of other weapons.
The items were recovered following a joint investigation by the FBI Art Crime Team along with law enforcement officials in Upper Merion Township and Montgomery County.
