![]() These alleged associations came back to haunt the arms dealer during World War I. He also may have supplied the Japanese during their victorious campaign against the Russians in 1905. He was thought to have outfitted at least one Latin American country with a battleship, and though he vigorously denied ever supplying "revolutionists," many thought they saw Bannerman's weapons in the hands of Panamanian insurgents during their struggle for independence from Colombia. Today, the showroom's 501 Broadway address is a parking lot.Ĭollectors weren't Bannerman's only customers. Bannerman's showroom in Manhattan became famous as a kind of military museum (Bannerman hoped it would someday be known as "The Museum for Lost Arts"). Over the course of 50 years, he single-handedly created the war surplus market, selling obsolete weaponry and military paraphernalia all over the world. Bannerman soon learned that veterans and other collectors already nostalgic for the war were willing to pay good money for the weapons, equipment, and uniforms that he could buy in bulk. ![]() military was decommissioning equipment used in the Civil War. In 1865, a precocious 14-year-old Bannerman got into the scrap-metal business at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The Bannerman name is said to come from the Scottish king Robert Bruce, who bestowed it on the family after one of their own heroically rescued a captured banner at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314. He was a descendant of Francis Bannerman, standard-bearer of Clan Macdonald, who in 1692 barely escaped the infamous massacre at Glencoe, where the Campbells nearly wiped out the Macdonalds. Emblazoned on the castle's north wall are the words "Bannerman's Island Arsenal," a built-in billboard for the world's biggest trader in army war surplus.īegun in 1901, the castle not only made business sense but also celebrated Bannerman's rich heritage. And it isn't really a castle at all but rather the remains of the arsenal and summer home of Francis Bannerman VI, in his time America's best-known weapons dealer. To begin with, it's in the middle of the Hudson River, 50 miles north of New York City and a few miles upriver from West Point. But once the fog lifts, it becomes clear that the castle is not all that it seems. On a misty morning, it's a bewitching sight-an abandoned Scottish castle with a soaring tower and crenelated battlements rising from a forested, six-acre island. Long neglected and devastated by fire in 1969, the castle is now the focus of local preservation efforts. Built in the style of a Scottish castle, the arsenal featured a gateway once outfitted with a drawbridge. ![]() Unable to store the cache at his New York City showroom, Bannerman constructed an arsenal on an island in the Hudson River. Army's decommissioned weapons and an estimated 30 million rounds of ammunition. Volume 56 Number 1, January/February 2003Ĭrumbling ruins are all that's left of the arsenal and summer home of an enterprising American arms dealer.Īfter the Spanish-American War, arms merchant Francis Bannerman bought 90 percent of the U.S. ![]()
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