Shotgun believed to belong to gangster Charlie Birger
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[For many years Samuel Pankey has been keeping an antique shotgun in his gun closet at his home on Blackman Hill Road in Independence Township.
The story passed down in his family is the gun had once belonged to 1920s Harrisburg bootlegger and gangster Charlie Birger.
The family's link to Birger was Pankey's grandfather Sammy Knight who with Tom Pearce operated a barbershop in the basement of what is now Skaggs Electric on the Harrisburg square.
"My grandfather cut hair for the gang. They wouldn't come into town so they went out to his farm to get their hair cut," Pankey said.
Knight's farm was also on Blackman Hill Road.
Webb Mattingly as a young man was in the Blackman Hill area intending to do some hunting. He stopped at Knight's house for shells while Knight was busy cutting the hair of the Birger gang. Birger went to his car, pulled out shotgun shells and the shotgun and gave them to Mattingly.
"He said, 'Here, son. Go hunting,'" Pankey said.
Mattingly frequented Knight's farm being the son of friends of the Knights and eventually married Knight's daughter, Ruby, becoming Pankey's uncle.
Mattingly passed the gun down to his son.
Pankey's cousin, Larry Mattingly, gave the gun to Pankey shortly before his death.
"I have no proof of anything, just what the family has passed down," Pankey said.
Pankey said the gun appears to be made by Sportsman Firearm Company and has the serial number 0363. The stock had been broken at one point and was repaired with a bolt and square nut.
Pankey said his family did not pass down many stories about Birger, only that Knight would line the gang up in the front yard and cut their hair. They apparently did not consider it safe or political to be in Harrisburg. He said Birger also gave Knight the gift of a set of tires on their rims.
Pankey is hoping to get the gun to a museum where its story may be preserved. He invites inquiries regarding the gun at (618) 926-2925.