A Civil War-era silver Tiffany presentation sword that was stolen from the Annmary Brown Memorial at the Brown University back in the seventies, is now being shipped to its rightful possessor.

On June 4, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia certified that Brown is the lawful owner of the Rush Hawkins sword. Magistrate Judge Douglas Miller ordered Williamsburg collector, Donald Tharpe to surrender the sword along with its ornamental scabbard to the Ivy League school. Tharpe purchased the sword for $35,000 from a dealer in 1992 after it had passed on among various collectors for years. On June 7, Tharpe gave the sword to Robert McFarland, a Virginia attorney who represented the university.

"It has been delivered to our attorney who represents us in Virginia and it will be on its way back," said Mark Nickel, a Brown University spokesman. "It will be delivered securely."

During the case's hearing, Miller said that the sword disappeared from the university before 1977. Although Brown could have pursued recovery with greater zeal, its delay in filing this action was due to the deliberate efforts of the collector who acquired the sword before Tharpe and attempted to 'thwart its recovery when the sword first surfaced in 1992.'

The sword was given to Annmary's husband, Col. Rush C. Hawkins, in 1863 'to recognize his service to the country during the first two years of the Civil War.'

"At its heart, the University's case was quite simple and in three parts: We own it; it was stolen; we want it back," said Beverly Ledbetter, vice president and general counsel. "The court ruled in the University's favor on all three points."

According to the court's documents, the sword travelled through at least four private traders, beginning 1979. In 1991, a collector informed the University that he had seen the sword at a show in Baltimore. A university attorney submitted a written request to examine the sword, but it was denied by a private collector's attorney in March 1992.

The university finally found the sword in 2011, after a Civil War historian familiar with the sword and its original presentation ceremony saw the sword on exhibit at the Lee Hall Mansion in Newport News, Va.