SUMMERVILLE — A small room in the corner of Harrison Street Antiques in Summerville has become a treasure chest of history for anyone interested in Civil War weaponry.
Chuck Corbett and Cindy Simonton will hold the grand opening of their Civil War Museum Saturday, July 4.
When Corbett bought the building to create an antique shop four years ago, he “had a vision.” That vision has expanded to include the museum, which features a large part of his collection of Civil War items.
“Everything in here is authentic,” he said. “I have no reproductions.”
Corbett said he started collecting as a young kid.
“Clair (Clancy) Sweitzer had a gun museum behind Bowser’s Store and I would hang out in there. I was 12 or 14 when I started hanging out there. I collected old bullets and stuff like that.” When he was older and started collecting antique guns, “you couldn’t buy ammunition for them. He would help me and we would make the ammunition in his shop. Clancy found me some old rounds. We would take bullet molds, melt the lead, make the bullets and put the powder and primers in. I would go and shoot the bullets and bring them back and we would reload them.”
Corbett said he has always been interested in antiques, especially guns, and decided to open his museum when he “started cataloging what I have. This is who I am.”
Simonton said, “We had a lot of fun putting it together; this is another of his dreams.”
Those visiting the museum will see and learn about experimental ammunition from the 1850s, residential and military, pouches for bullets from the Indian War and the very late Civil War, pouches for musket caps, with one on an original Civil War belt; belts from the Indian Wars, Civil War and War of 1812 swords, Civil War carbines, Civil War medical supplies, paper bullets and much more.
One of the carbines is a Burnside.
“President Lincoln made Ambrose Burnside general over the whole Army of the Potomac during the Civil War. He was a gun designer, but he didn’t build them. He sold his patent to a company that built them. They got a government contract and built 250 of them and they tried them out as a trial.” Corbett’s is No. 251, “the very first Burnside rifle made.”
His collection includes Indian War guns and bayonets, with one inscribed with NGP.
“That is National Guard of Pennsylvania and is one of my prize possessions,” Corbett said. Another prize possession is a Shenefelt rifle, made in Clarion around 1845. “This has been in a family in Summerville for generations and it was about to leave town, so I bought it. This was considered one of the best target rifles in Pennsylvania. Everyone wants to call them Kentucky rifles, but they were invented in Pennsylvania. I don’t ever want it to leave Summerville,” he said.
Also featured is a small collection of authentic Hudson Bay jewelry from the late 1700s.
“It was made by French silversmiths and they would trade these and guns to the Indians for beaver pelts.”
The grand opening of the Civil War Museum will be held Saturday, July 4. The museum will then be open during regular business hours, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday.