This is the small frame Lightning in .22 rimfire caliber, #56944, made in 1901. The rifle has a 24″ octagonal barrel and is missing the buttstock and slide handle. Most of the metal has a dark patina and some fire scale with scattered light pitting, the factory markings are legible. The rifle is wired in an attractive wood shadowbox frame with a photocopy of a wanted poster for Raymond Hamilton put out by the Sheriff of Dallas, Texas. Also in the frame is a copy of a US Department of Justice wanted poster for Bonnie and Clyde, issued by J. Edgar Hoover and dated May 21, 1934 (just two days before their deaths). At the center of the shadowbox is a neatly hand-lettered placard which summarizes the information in an included notarized affidavit dated September 30, 2003. The affidavit states “My name is John Curington. I am 73 years of age and practice as an Attorney at Law. I reside in Big Sandy, Upshur County, Texas…My father’s name was Delbert Z. Curington. I am the owner of a .22 caliber Colt rifle which was given to my father by Bill Decker, Sheriff for Dallas County, Texas. The gun belonged to Raymond Hamilton, a well renowned criminal who was one of the Barrow Gang in the early 1930s…Sheriff Decker and my father were close friends and he told my father that the rifle was used by Raymond Hamilton during an armed bank robbery in Texas. Sheriff Decker reported that the rifle had been seized during a shoot out between Hamilton, Barrow, and Parker and the authorities. Decker told my father that Bonnie Parker tried to burn the rifle by setting an outhouse on fire with the rifle in it.”
On January 16, 1934, Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker, and a young associate named Jimmy Mullins helped Raymond Hamilton and three other prisoners escape from the Easton Prison Farm. During the escape a prison guard by the name of Major Crowson was fatally wounded, which incensed Texas Department of Corrections Chief Lee Simmons so much that it led him to hire retired Texas Ranger Frank Hamer to hunt down Bonnie and Clyde. Raymond Hamilton was known to have robbed the R. P. Henry Bank in Lancaster, Texas on February 27, 1934, but it is not believed that Bonnie Parker was present. On March 6, 1934, Hamilton left the Barrow Gang and carried out two more bank robberies in Texas before the month was out. On April 5, 1935, Hamilton was captured in Fort Worth. On May 10, 1935, Raymond Hamiton was executed in the electric chair (’Old Sparky’) at Huntsville’s death row for his part in the murder of Major Crowson during the January 16, 1934, prison escape.
This transfers as a modern firearm.
Provenance: Raymond Hamilton Sheriff Bill Decker Delbert Z. Curington John Curington Robert E. Davis
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