[MSN] After 16 years, Teddy Roosevelt icon found

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

After 16 years, Teddy Roosevelt icon found
 
BY BILL BLEYER
Newsday Staff Writer

June 3, 2006

It's been 16 years since the pistol Theodore Roosevelt used during the
Spanish-American War was stolen from Sagamore Hill National Historic Site.
And now, because of a tipster with a sense of history, the revolver is
coming home.

After the caller told the site's chief curator that the gun belonged at TR's
Cove Neck estate, the FBI was able to recover it in the South last fall. And
while continuing to investigate the April 1990 theft from a display case at
the Old Orchard Museum, the agency will return the .38-caliber Colt to the
National Park Service June 14.

"The theft of the weapon remains a pending investigation and we're pursuing
all leads," FBI spokeswoman Christine Monaco said Friday. "But we certainly
want to see it returned to its rightful owner."

After the park service turned the lead over to the FBI, investigators said,
agents met with the caller and retrieved the gun. The caller is not believed
to have been the thief.

The pistol, valued at $1 million by police in 1990 but considered priceless
by historians, was salvaged from the battleship Maine after it exploded and
sank in Havana Harbor in 1898. It was given to Roosevelt by his
brother-in-law, Navy Capt. William Sheffield Cowles. When the war broke out
later that year, Roosevelt helped formed a volunteer regiment, the Rough
Riders, which he ultimately led. He used the pistol in the Battle of San
Juan Hill in Cuba, which propelled him to the governor's office and
ultimately the White House. Historians consider TR's Rough Rider uniform and
weapons the most iconic objects at Sagamore Hill.

"It was a very special gun to him and therefore to the family and we're
delighted to have it back," said Tweed Roosevelt of Boston, a great-grandson
of Roosevelt. "I always thought it would come back. These things eventually
do."

Sagamore Hill personnel have not seen the gun. But Amy Verone, the chief of
cultural resources, said that based on FBI photographs "it looks very much
like our gun, but we are going to have two experts look at it. It seems to
be in good shape." The recovered gun has the same inscription above the
grips: "From the sunken battle ship Maine" and "July 1st, 1898. San Juan.
Carried and used by Col. Theodore Roosevelt."

Sagamore Hill Superintendent Greg Marshall said "the National Park Service
would like to celebrate the fact that this cherished artifact is going to be
returned because it helps tell the story that we're trying to tell."

Verone said the tipster called the park on a Sunday and she returned the
call. Verone said he told her that after being shown the pistol by an
acquaintance, he had said, "Gee, that's Teddy Roosevelt's pistol. That
should be at his home."

The park service then contacted the FBI.

The gun was taken from a display case that was slated to get an alarm, but
it had not yet been installed.

Immediately after the theft, alarms were installed in all display cases that
did not have them.

This is the second time the Rough Rider pistol has been recovered after
being stolen. In 1963, a thief grabbed it from the mansion, panicked and
threw it into the woods.

Edward Renehan, chief executive of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, said,
"Luckily nothing like this could ever happen again." 

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