Historical Society offers $500 reward for return of stolen flintlock

WARWICK - Someone stole a part of Warwick history and it may have been an inside job. On Jan.11, volunteers were putting away Christmas decorations at the Warwick Historical Society's Baird Tavern building on Main Street when they discovered a French Flintlock Charleville Model 1763 musket with bayonet was missing. During the Revolutionary War, a member of the local Pelton family had used the weapon, one of thousands left over from a previous European conflict and shipped from France to the Colonial army. Museum buildings owned by the Historical Society of the Town of Warwick include six historical properties in the village. And last summer, three guns were found wrapped in a towel, rusting away in the Shingle House, which is one of the buildings in the museum group. All three guns, including the missing musket, were cleaned up and displayed for the first time last fall. According to the Smithsonian Institute, the weapon most widely used by the Colonial army during the Revolution was the "Charleville" musket. Although it is sometimes referred to as a rifle, the term is technically incorrect since it is a smooth