Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1899-03-15
STORY OF A VIOLIN.
ONE FOR WHICH FABULOUS SUMS
HAD BEEN OFFERED.

The Queer Disclosure That Was Mads
and Its Owner Were Caught In q
Railroad SmDsS IN.
Among the fallacies tenaciously chung
to by persons who fancy themselves to be
possessed of what is called the artistic
temperament is that one which portrays
the soulful man as an invariable scrub
when it comes to business propositions, u
said well known Washington violinist.
"This is an amiable delusion which am
about to punctlire to some small extent by
relating IA story of very recent occurrence
as to its finale, with the details of which ]
am perfectly familiar.s It's story of a
violin and Of the gcnuinely gifted owner
thereof.
This man is and has been for the past
90 years or so one of the finest Of Ameri.
can violinists. He is afBostonian and has
lived in Boston all OF his life, except when
he has been concert touring the country,
ana he gave that up some years ago. He
is II man of fine family, and he traces his
ancestry very directly indeed back to the
Mayfiowcr and beyond. There has been
violinist in his family ever since the
Mayflower got over to this SIDE and also q
violin. The violin brought over by the
Mayflower progenitor of the Massachusetts,
family was a genuine and very valuable
Stradivarius. In fact, it is one of the
great violins of the world today. 1t was
handed down by him to his eldest son,
whom he made into yiolinist and thus
transmitted from sire to son, going always
ia the con who ybibitaJ III, .rra,tncf a,t;
tude for the violin.
1T fell into the hands of this Boston
violinist of whom / am speaking more
than 30 years ago, when he was IL young
lad. 1t was a beautiful Instrument in fin
lsh, and its tone was magnificent. 1t was
the one heirloom of the family regarding
which the greatest amount Of space was
consumed in the many wills made by its
owners since the early days Of Massachu-
sets, and it has been cared for through
out its long life-well, as an orchid is
cared for during its short life. Fabulous
sums We're offered for it by great European
violinists who came to the United States
early in this century. Ole Bull made an
enormous offer for it upon his first visit
to the United States, and he wrote to the
father Of the Boston violinist increasingly
with regard to it from Europe, renewing
and simplifying his offers. A deaf ear was
turned to all Of these offers. 1t was in
tended that the violin should always re-
main with the descendants of the man
who brought it over in the Mayfower
"Well, some time ago this Boston violin
list, while travelling from Boston to New
York to take part in q concert, got into a
railroad smash up. HeIwas in the sleeper
at the time of the collision, with his violin
alongside of him. He was pretty badly
hurt before he got ott of the mass of
wreckage, but not completely disabled
When he found himself lextricated and an
onlooker at the wrecking proceedings, he
suddenly bethought him of his precious
Strad. He had to be held to prevent him
from climbing back on top of the wreck
to get at his instrument. After seven or
eight hours, during which he hung about
the wreck like a crazy man, his violin was
handed to him in its leather case. Tho
case was crushed in. The Boston violin
ist had the heartbreak Of opening the case
and of seeing his glorious instrument
crushed in. He took it back to Boston
with him and carefully picked out the
pieces of the wrecked violin. Inside of it
up near the neck he found pasted some
writing, done very small and fine, in the
penmanship of the last century and dated
1859
'This bit of writing was a confession.
1t stated that this was not the great Strad
that had been brought over in the May
flower. The writer, who had inherited
the violin before the middle Of the last
century, had been hard up for money, the
pasted note went on to say. So on one of
his European trips he had a precise dupli
cate of his glorious Strad made in Italy
by an accomplished violin counterfeiter.
The genuine Strad he had sold to great
French violinist, and this instrument was
but a perfect Duplicates replica. With
the statement that he could not die and
hand down to posterity perpetual fraud,
the writer of the pasted note went on to
say that he had had the top of the coun
terfeit Strad removed and had pasted the
confession within, thus to in some meas
ure salve his guilty conscience.
''This was hard blow to the Boston
violinist, as you may well believe. He
went secretly to work to trace the original
Etrad that had been brought over by his
ancestor in the Mayflower, and it did not
take him long to ascertain that the Strad
is now the cherished and priceless posses
sion of an aged German viOlinist. Then
the Boston violinist had his broken coun-
terfeit Strad patched up by an expert, and
when it was put together again it was
found not to have lost u particle of its for
1ner glorious tone. The Boston violinist
put himself in correspondence with one Of
the violin collectors who had yearned for
his instrument stating frankly that the
violin's outer appearance had been dam
aged in the RAILROAD accident, but that its
tone was uninjured, and Offering it for
sale at slightly reduced figure-a matter
still of several thousands Of dollars. OF
course the Boston violinist had carefully
removed the pasted confession from the
inside of the counterfeit Strad before hay
ing it patched up.
1.-The collector came on to Boston and
took the instrument at the Boston violin
lists figure, and it is now the collectors
most highly priced instrument. The
beauty of the story is that it's true down
to the very last detail, just as have told it.
Wherefore guess the artistic temper
ament is able to take care of itself, even
when it gets mixed up in matters Of bust
ness. "-Washington Star.