Clearing Bannerman’s Island: Tales from the Golden Age of Surplus

The Bannerman family decided to sell Bannerman’s Island tot he state of New York in the 1950s, but the sale required that they first clear all the ordnance off it. That was no simple task, and the military was not interested in the job. Instead, the family found Val Forgett Jr, a demolitions expert who happened to be looking for seed money to start a business making reproduction black powder revolvers. His offer to do the cleanup work was accepted, and he spent a summer doing the job and put the proceeds into the first Navy Arms reproduction 1851 Colt Navy revolvers.

This video includes the talk given by Forgett to the Armor and Arms Club of New York in the 1990s explaining the process of clearing out the ordnance from the island…