Nahant pulls out the big gun

NAHANT-Area residents lined up Sunday afternoon to have their photographs taken with an old World War I artifact that had been locked away in the attic of the library for decades. A Maxim machine gun originally captured and retrieved by the 17 survivors of Sgt. Alvin York’s platoon is about to embark on what may be its final journey to the Museum of Appalachia in Norris, Tenn. and Sunday was the last chance for Nahanters to view the gun in town.The gun was surrendered among other weapons in 1918 when 132 Germans were taken prisoner. The gun was sent to Nahant by Mayland Lewis, an Army clerk serving in France who took the first shorthand report of the battle from York. The gun was exhibited as a trophy of war in the town’s 1919 welcome home parade. It was placed in a red wagon that was pulled by Boy Scouts and, following the parade, Lewis presented the weapon to the Nahant Public Library. The gun was relinquished to the attic of the public library and it was rediscovered in 2003 when Library Director Daniel deStefano literally tripped over it. The Board of Library Trustees looked into selling the weapon at auction but found itself in a Catch 22. The gun had never been registered so it is classified as an unregistered automatic weapon, which means the library could not sell it or keep it. After the gun was rediscovered, it was transferred to an evidence locker at the Nahant Police station where remained until now.The library and Nahant Historical Society tried to find a way to keep the historic gun, which is fully functional, in town but that proved impossible. The only option open to the library was to destroy the gun or to transfer it to a museum that receives federal funding so the Board of Library Trustees entered into an agreement with the Museum of Appalachia, which is building an exhibit around the weapon.But before the weapon is shipped off to Appalachia, area residents had one last opportunity to see the historic Maxim and to have their picture taken with the historic weapon in exchange for making a $5 donation to the library.