Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1899-03-17
STORY OF A VIOLIN.

NJ O4VA vi "A IL
ONE FOR WHICH FABULOUS SUMS
HAD BEEN OFFERED.
The Queer Disclosure That Was, made
When This Rare Old Instrument
and Its Owner Were Caught IN 0
Railroad Smash Tn.
Among the fallacics tenaciously chung
to by persons who fancy themselves to DO
possessed of what is cnllcd the artistic
temperament ia that one which portrays
the soulful man as an invariable scrub
when 1T III to business propositions"
said a well known Washington violinist.
"This Is IN amiable delusion which I am
about to puncture to some small extent by
relating u story of very recent occurrence
as to it's finale, with the details of which I
am perfectly familiar. It's a story of u
violin and of the genuinely gifted owner
thereof.
"This mar is and has been for the past
30 years or SO ono of the finest Of Ameri-
can violinists. He is u Bostonian and has
lived in Boston all of his life, except when
he has been concert touring the country,
SSAA~ SAY obNo OiAtO uP oOlAAC yNfbIS tAO. L6
is a man Of fine family, and he traces his
ancestry very directly indeed back to the
Mayflower and beyond. There has been
a violinist in his family ever since the
Mayflower got over to this side, and also q
violin. Tho violin brought over by the
Mayflowcr progenitor of the Massachusetts,
family was q genuine and very valuable
S~tradivariua. In fact, it is one Of the
great violins Of the world today. It was
handed down by him to his eldest son,
whom he made into a violinist and thus
transmitted from sire to son, going always
to the son who exhibited the greatest apti-
tudc for tho violin.
ut fell into the hands of this Boston
violinist of whom I am speaking more
than 30 years ago, when he was young
lad. 1t was u beautiful instrument in fin
ish, and its tone was magnificent. It was
the n heirloom Of the family regarding
which the greatest amount of space was
consumed in the many wills made by it's
n since the early days of Massachu-
setts, and it has been cared for through
out its long life-well, as an orchid is
cared for during it's short life. Fabulous
UNI were offered for it by great European
violinists who came. to tho 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
md amplifying his offers. A deaf eur was
turned to all of these offers. 1t was in
tended that tho violin should always re-
main with the descendants of tho man
who brought it over in tho Mayflower.
"Wcll, some time ago this Boston violin
ist, while travelling from Boston to New
York to take part in a concert, got into a
railroad smash up. He was in the sleeper
ut the time Of tho collision, with his violin
alongside of him. He was pretty badly
hurt before he got out of the mass of
wreckagc, but not completely disabled.
When he found himself extricated and an
onlooker at the wrccking proceedings, he
suddenly bcthought 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 q crazy man, his violin wa
handed to him in Its leather case. The
case was crushed in. The Boston violin
list 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
oonf,,rx, ho1 hoon hor1 nm Gov ,~1-o~ kho
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 a great
French violi1ist, and this instrument was
but a perfect Duplicates replica. With
the statement that he could not die and
hand down to posterity a perpetual fraud,
tho 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 u hard blow to the Boston
violinist, rs you may we'll believe. He
went secretly to work to trace the original
Strad that had been brought over by his
ancestor in tho Maylower, 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 M expert, and
when it was put together again it was
found not to have lost a particle Of it's for
mer 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 it's
tone was uninjured, and Offering it for
sale ut a slightly reduced fgure-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 hav-
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 toldit.
"Wherefore I guess the artistic temper
>~nook l., oL1o 20 %nLo o.~o Sk1o1f ar,o-