{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/2/context.json","@type":"sc:Manifest","@id":"https://iiif.quartexcollections.com/ncdcr/iiif/329f653d-711c-44f8-825b-209fc1de6b84/manifest","label":"Williams_Carbine_Letters_PC1753_Final","metadata":[{"label":"Title","value":"Carbine Williams Letters, 1927-1934"},{"label":"MARS ID","value":"5320"},{"label":"Digital Collections","value":["Legacy Finding Aids Collection"]},{"label":"Identifier","value":"Williams_Carbine_Letters_PC1753_Final"},{"label":"Digital Format","value":["application/pdf"]},{"label":"Hosted By","value":["State Archives of North Carolina"]},{"label":"Metadata Creator","value":["Cusick, Aaron"]},{"label":"Type","value":["Text"]},{"label":"Notes Public","value":"If you have questions about this collection, please contact the State Archives of North Carolina at archives@ncdcr.gov."},{"label":"Local Call Number","value":"PC.1753"},{"label":"Source","value":"Carbine Williams Letters. Private Collections. State Archives of North Carolina"},{"label":"Language","value":["English"]},{"label":"Description","value":"David Marshall (\"Carbine\") Williams (1900-1975), firearms inventor, was born and grew up on the farm of his family near Godwin in Cumberland County. The three manuscript letters comprising the collection were written to or from Williams� family members. Each letter is accompanied by typed notes furnished by the donor.    Having been involved in the defense of some illicit liquor stills in which a deputy sheriff was shot to death during the course of a raid, Williams was sentenced to prison for second-degree murder. While incarcerated at Caledonia State Farm he worked in the prison machine shop where his mechanical inventiveness was observed and fostered by the superin�tendent.While in prison Williams came to the attention of the Colt Patent Firearms Company. When at liberty once more, Williams continued to develop and perfect his firearms--related inventions. His floating chamber was used in various small arms (Colt's semi--automatic pistol, the Remington rifle, and the machine gun employed by the U.S. Army). The first model of the carbine using his short-stroke piston, the Ml, was the rifle of standard issue and use by the United States Army through the whole of World War II and until the time of the Vietnamese Conflict when it-was replaced by a later model, the M16.    He is known as the designer of the short-stroke piston used in the M1 Carbine as well as the floating chamber operating system for firearms. His floating chamber was used in various small arms (Colt's semi--automatic pistol, the Remington rifle, and the machine gun employed by the U.S. Army).     [See H. G. Jones, \"David Marshall (Carbine) Williams.\" Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, Vol. 6; p. 205-206. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.]      The first letter was written on the evening of Christmas Day, 1927, by Robert Wesley Williams (1905--1972), to his brother David Marshall Williams while at the State Farm at Caledonia. He speaks to his brother of Christmas at home, to which he has returned for the holiday from Elon College, and tells him of a young man he is expecting to come by to see him at Godwin. The young man, Paul \"Hardrock\" Simpson, was about to enter a cross--country race from Los Angeles to New York in which Wesley Williams was to act as his trainer.    The second letter, dated from Godwin on October l, 1929, was written by Laura Susan (Kornegay) Williams (1874-1947), mother of \"Carbine\" Williams, to her son Robert Wesley Williams letting him and his wife know that her husband, James Claudius Williams (1860--1943), and two of his sons had gone to pick up Marshall upon his release from prison.    The third letter was written by David Marshall Williams from Springfield, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1934, to his brother Wesley saying that he would go on to Colt's at Hartford and from there to Remington's at Bridge� port before going on to Washington, D.C. The reverse of the letter contains a note from Margaret Isabel (Cook) Williams to Wesley, his wife Melba (Grogan) Williams, and their family.    Each letter is accompanied by typed notes furnished by the donor. Xerox copies of the envelopes for the 1929 and 1934 letters are in the collection (the original envelopes being returned to the donor)    Williams died in 1974 in Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh."},{"label":"Digital Characteristics","value":"2 pages"},{"label":"Format","value":["Finding aids"]},{"label":"Rights","value":"The SA of NC considers this item in the public domain by U.S. law but responsibility for permissions rests with researchers."},{"label":"Source Collections","value":["Carbine Williams Letters. Private Collections. State Archives of North Carolina"]}],"description":"Carbine Williams Letters, 1927-1934","sequences":[{"@type":"sc:Sequence","canvases":[{"@id":"https://iiif.quartexcollections.com/ncdcr/iiif/329f653d-711c-44f8-825b-209fc1de6b84/canvas/_1","@type":"sc:Canvas","label":"Williams_Carbine_Letters_PC1753_Final-1","height":1692,"width":1272,"images":[{"@type":"oa:Annotation","motivation":"sc:painting","resource":{"@id":"https://iiif.quartexcollections.com/ncdcr/iiif/d5857e87-543d-4315-bf54-a3a158735c74/full/full/0/default.jpg","@type":"dctypes:Image","format":"image/jpeg","service":{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/image/2/context.json","@id":"https://iiif.quartexcollections.com/ncdcr/iiif/d5857e87-543d-4315-bf54-a3a158735c74","profile":"http://iiif.io/api/image/2/level2.json","tiles":[{"width":512,"scaleFactors":[1,2,4]}]},"height":1692,"width":1272},"on":"https://iiif.quartexcollections.com/ncdcr/iiif/329f653d-711c-44f8-825b-209fc1de6b84/canvas/_1","metadata":[]}],"thumbnail":{"@id":"https://iiif.quartexcollections.com/ncdcr/iiif/d5857e87-543d-4315-bf54-a3a158735c74/full/500,500/0/default.jpg","@type":"dctypes:Image","height":500,"width":500}},{"@id":"https://iiif.quartexcollections.com/ncdcr/iiif/329f653d-711c-44f8-825b-209fc1de6b84/canvas/_2","@type":"sc:Canvas","label":"Williams_Carbine_Letters_PC1753_Final-2","height":1704,"width":1286,"images":[{"@type":"oa:Annotation","motivation":"sc:painting","resource":{"@id":"https://iiif.quartexcollections.com/ncdcr/iiif/c01135ff-7cb5-4261-8bda-eb0d49d68c58/full/full/0/default.jpg","@type":"dctypes:Image","format":"image/jpeg","service":{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/image/2/context.json","@id":"https://iiif.quartexcollections.com/ncdcr/iiif/c01135ff-7cb5-4261-8bda-eb0d49d68c58","profile":"http://iiif.io/api/image/2/level2.json","tiles":[{"width":512,"scaleFactors":[1,2,4]}]},"height":1704,"width":1286},"on":"https://iiif.quartexcollections.com/ncdcr/iiif/329f653d-711c-44f8-825b-209fc1de6b84/canvas/_2","metadata":[]}],"thumbnail":{"@id":"https://iiif.quartexcollections.com/ncdcr/iiif/c01135ff-7cb5-4261-8bda-eb0d49d68c58/full/500,500/0/default.jpg","@type":"dctypes:Image","height":500,"width":500}}]}],"thumbnail":"https://iiif.quartexcollections.com/ncdcr/iiif/d5857e87-543d-4315-bf54-a3a158735c74/full/300,300/0/default.jpg","logo":"https://iiif.quartexcollections.com/ncdcr/iiif/logo"}