Not many years ago there were several substantial old houses standing on
the north side of Market Street, east of Tenth, in the city of
Philadelphia. These structures, which then wore an air of respectable old
age, have been in recent years either totally destroyed or so extensively
altered that the serene atmosphere of antiquated gentility no longer
lingers about their busy exteriors.
On a morning in April, 1869, the present writer had occasion to call at
one of these buildings,--No. 927. Several broad and weather-stained marble
steps led up to an old-fashioned doorway, where the modern bell-pull and
the antique brass knocker contended for recognition. Alike rusty as these
were, it became a problem as to which would best secure communication with
the interior. While the matter still seemed indefinite, it was set at rest
by the advice of an obliging street-urchin, who volunteered his
information with appropriate brevity and directness:
"Try the door. If it's loose, Daddy Mickley's home, sure. If it's locked,
'taint no use of knockin', for he's out."
Thus instructed, I tried the door. It happened to be "loose," and ushered
me into a long dark entry, at the farther end of which a wide flight of
heavy oak stairs led to the upper rooms in the rear of the building. Among
these rooms, one of the first to be reached was evidently a workshop; and
here was encountered the only living being as yet visible in the spacious
old mansion. Upon entering, I was met by a dignified and placid old
gentleman, whose appearance was very much in keeping with the house in
which he dwelt. He was quite evidently of the old school, and his pleasant
voice gave me an old-school welcome. A fine broad forehead rested above a
pair of the most kindly eyes that can be imagined, and belonged to a
splendidly-shaped head, which was totally bald, save for a slight fringe
of white hairs about either temple. The mouth was, in its expression, even
more prepossessing than the eyes, and the whole bearing of the old
gentleman--who had evidently reached his three-score and ten, but who, as
was equally apparent, carried the warmth and vigor of youth still with
him--was calculated to please and impress the least observant visitor.
The late Joseph J. Mickley comprised qualities at once more attractive and
more unusual than are often met with in one person. He was distinguished
throughout the world, during more than a generation, for the diligence and
success of his numismatic researches, and his collection of rare coins was
for a long time the most valuable in this country. As a collector of
scarce books and autographs he was hardly less noted or less successful.
But in Philadelphia he was most of all admired for his delightful social
qualities and his extensive information on a surprising variety of topics.
During forty years his house was a rendezvous for a numerous group of
specialists,--not alone in his own favorite pursuits, which, indeed, were
both many and diverse, but in any and every department of art or learning.
Coin-hunters, autograph-dealers, historical students, philosophers,
musical-instrument-makers, noted performers, and performers of less note,
all the way down to "scratch-clubs," were his constant visitors for years.
It is probable that no private house in Philadelphia has entertained a
greater number of intellectually distinguished people than the old mansion
just referred to, where Mickley resided from 1842 to 1869. Musical
celebrities from every country hastened to make his acquaintance, and such
was the magnetism of his personality that acquaintances thus formed seem
never to have been lost sight of by either host or guest. During his
European tour, which lasted from 1869 to 1872, the then venerable
traveller was continually meeting friends among persons who had called
upon him at various times, dating back in one case as long before as 1820.
They always appeared to have known beforehand of his coming, and he always
remembered them and the circumstances under which he had first met them.
The social reunions at Mickley's were informal to the last degree, and the
accommodations correspondingly primitive. They usually took place in his
workshop. Crazy stools or empty piano-boxes generally served for seats.
The surrounding furniture comprised barrels, cases, and chests, filled to
overflowing with the host's ever-increasing antiquarian treasures. If a
quartette were assembled,--and many times the musical party was enlarged
to a quintette or a septette,--an adjournment was necessary to a room less
crowded, but equally sparse of conventional furniture.
Mr. Mickley was always happy to join in these impromptu musical assemblies,
when occasion offered, although performing music was one of the few
things which he never succeeded in doing well. He invariably played the
viola on these occasions,--perhaps, as Schindler hints about Beethoven,
because indifferent playing on the viola is not so noticeable as on other
instruments. As was to have been expected from so pronounced an
antiquarian, he had small sympathy for modern music. He even rebelled
against the gentle innovations of Mendelssohn, contending, not without an
approach to accurate judgment, that Haydn and Mozart had completely
covered the field of chamber-music. While in the midst of numerous and
always congenial pursuits during his long life, quartette-playing remained
a favorite pastime of very many days in very many years.
Mr. Mickley's intellect was so many-sided and so evenly balanced that it
is difficult to name his predominant bias. It is very nearly safe, however,
to say that this was his historic faculty. In the writings, still chiefly
unprinted, which were left behind him, he was at once the most minute and
the most compact of historians. Emerson never condensed his rare thoughts
into smaller compass, not even in his "English Traits," than Mr, Mickley
has condensed his facts and observations. There is a small pamphlet extant,
the manuscript of which was read by him in 1863 on the occasion of the
centennial anniversary of a noted Indian massacre in Northampton County,
Pennsylvania, where several of his ancestors perished. It contains
historic material enough for a volume. To indicate his early passion for
amassing reliable data, the same sketch shows that a portion of its facts
had been obtained, while he was still a boy, from then aged eye-witnesses
of the affair, nearly fifty years before its story was thus put into
permanent shape.
He mastered the Swedish language, after having passed his seventieth year,
chiefly that he might write a correct history of the first settlement of
Swedes on the Delaware River below Philadelphia. At the age of seventy-two
he spent several months in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, and while
there placed himself in communication with every prominent librarian of
the country, besides scholars in Denmark, Holland, and Germany. He
personally inspected a great mass of documents and ancient volumes. Yet
the result of all this is contained in a manuscript of less than thirty
large folio pages, literally crowded with invaluable data. This was read
before the Historical Society of the State of Delaware in 1874. It has
never been put in type, and is almost wholly made up of material which has
no existence elsewhere in the English language.
A single instance will serve to show the minuteness and persistence of his
investigations. In one of the public libraries of Stockholm Mickley
discovered an ancient Dutch manuscript signed by Peter Minuit. No scholar
within reach could master its contents. The private secretary of the
ambassador from Holland, who was appealed to, asserted beforehand that he
"could read anything that ever was written in Dutch." Yet, after a long
inspection, he frankly owned his inability to decipher a single word of
it. Mr. Mickley was determined to ascertain the contents. As the document
could not be bought at any price, and could not even be removed over-night
from its place of keeping, he caused photographs to be taken of it. One
such copy was sent to a very learned acquaintance in Amsterdam, and
another to a noted scholar at Leipsic. In the course of subsequent travels
he found accurate translations awaiting him from both sources. The
importance of the manuscript in this connection will be the more
appreciated when it is remembered that Peter Minuit commanded the first
expedition ever sent to the shores of the Delaware River.
Being thus by nature an historian, it is but natural that Mr. Mickley
should have left behind him ample materials for telling the story of his
own life. From these we learn that the family name was originally
Michelet. It dates back to the French Huguenots who, after the revocation
of the Edict of Nantes, settled in Zweibrcken, a Grerman province. The
first foothold of the family in this country was established in that
portion of Pennsylvania which has for more than a century been thickly
peopled by that enlightened and art-fostering sect, the Moravians. It was
from the Moravian influence that Joseph J. Mickley first experienced a
fondness for music and its appropriate artistic surroundings. He was born
March 24, 1799, at South Whitehall, a township then in Lehigh County, but
originally comprised in Northampton. At the age of seventeen he went to
Philadelphia as apprentice to a piano-maker. At that time the method of
building a piano-forte was as different from the advanced art of these
days as was the instrument itself. The piano-maker had then to work from
the legs upward. His necessary duties demanded knowledge which is now
distributed among several entirely distinct sets of artificers. That young
Mickley satisfactorily completed his apprenticeship may be inferred from
two facts: he started in business for himself in August, 1822, and in
October, 1831, the Franklin Institute awarded him a prize for skill in the
manufacture of pianos.
From this time on, his business life, though of long duration, was
uneventful, and may be summed up in very few words. From his original
starting-place at No. 67 North Third Street, he removed, four years later,
to a store on the site now occupied by a portion of the publishing house
of J.B. Lippincott Company. Here he remained until 1842, and then
established himself in the building mentioned at the beginning of this
article, where he continued to live until the final closing up of his
business in 1869.
It does not appear that Mr. Mickley was ever actively engaged in the
manufacture of piano-fortes. He continued, however, to tune pianos to the
end of his life; and it is reported that he could never be induced to
alter his terms from the original fee of one dollar which was customary
forty years ago. He also became noted far and wide as a repairer of
violins and other stringed instruments. At one time, a violin which had
belonged to George Washington was sent to him for this purpose. Ole Bull,
who happened to be in town at the time, hearing of the circumstance,
hastened to the shop for the purpose of examining and playing upon the
historic instrument. Mickley also became an authority in regard to the
value and authenticity of these instruments, although he never indulged in
the passion of making collections in this field. His minuteness of
observation was frequently manifested. While stopping at Venice in 1870 he
notes down in his diary, "A man came to the hotel with some violins for
sale. Among them was a Hieronymus Amati. It was a good one, but the head
and neck were not genuine." At another time, a violin was sent to his
place from a distant locality for repairs. The instrument was preceded by
a lengthy letter beseeching his special care for its welfare, and setting
forth in extravagant terms its great intrinsic value and its peculiarly
interesting "belongings." Anticipating a treasure, Mr. Mickley sent for
some violin-connoisseurs to enjoy with him a first sight of the precious
instrument. On opening the express-package a very worthless "fiddle" was
revealed. After the laugh had gone round, he said dryly, "I think the
value of this must be in its 'belongings.'"
In the old house on Market Street Mr. Mickley was not alone popular among
prominent people from afar. He was equally loved by his neighbors on all
sides. Many of the more unconventional of these knew him best by the
familiar title of "Daddy." To the better-educated class of young musicians
he was almost as much a father as a friend. Nor were his close friendships
confined to the young. Among his most steadfast admirers was an
old-bachelor German musician by the name of Plich. Herr Plich was a
piano-teacher, and it was under his tuition that the afterward favorite
prima-donna Caroline Richings made her first public appearance as a
pianist in 1847. This old teacher induced Mickley to take him as a boarder,
and he lived for a number of years in one of the upper back rooms of No.
927. One night a fire broke out in a building directly contiguous with the
rear of the Mickley mansion. There was great consternation, of course, and
busy efforts on the owner's part to gather together the manifold contents
of his treasure-house. When all had been at length secured in a place of
safety, he bethought himself of Herr Plich. Hastening to the upper room,
he discovered the old man in a state of semi-insanity, marching up and
down the apartment, and carrying in his hands only a valuable viola. So
confused was he with fright that main force was required to get him out of
the room. After seeing him safely out of the front door, Mickley went back
and secured a considerable sum of paper money which had been totally
overlooked for the sake of the beloved viola. Plich at his death
bequeathed the viola to Mickley, and it was the only instrument which the
latter always refused to part with during his lifetime. The entire savings
of Plich were also left in trust to Mickley, to be distributed for such
charitable objects as he should consider most worthy, and for about
twenty-seven years Mr. Mickley carefully administered this trust.
Mr. Mickley's most remarkable success in life was obtained as a
numismatist. His habit of collecting coins began almost in childhood. It
has been stated that at the age of seventeen he first became interested in
coin-hunting, owing to his difficulty in finding a copper cent coined in
1799, the year of his birth. Every student of numismatism knows that this
piece is exceedingly rare. The one sold in Mr. Mickley's collection after
his decease brought no less than forty dollars. The taste thus formed
continued a prevailing one for sixty years. It is surprising to find how
speedily he became a leading and recognized authority. Although as
guileless as a child and the easy victim of numerous thefts throughout his
life, he was scarcely ever deceived in the value of a coin, token, or
medal. Once, at Stockholm, in 1871, he visited a museum where rare coins
were exhibited. "The collection," says his diary, "is very, very rich in
Greek and Roman, but particularly in Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon. There
are not many United States coins, but among them I was astonished to find
a very fine half-eagle of 1815." The known rarity of this coin thus on
exhibition in a far country very naturally attracted the keen eyes of the
aged collector.
These researches, continuing year after year, grew to be more and more
valuable, until they became widely celebrated. By the time he had reached
middle age he was as well known among the guild of antiquarians as a
Quaker is known by his costume. Before his death he had been elected a
member of all the prominent societies in numismatics, history, and
archaeology throughout the world. The last honor of this kind, which
reached him in his eightieth year, was a notice of his election to
membership in the Société Française de Numismatique et d'Archéologie. His
great collections in this department of knowledge were not confined to
coins, but extended also to the literature of the subject. This was
splendidly illustrated in his famous library, which comprised many works
of the utmost value and scarcity.
A taste thus developed in early youth naturally became in the course of
years a habit, a sentiment, a leading passion of Mickley's nature. By the
year 1867 his coin-collection had become the most extensive in this
country. By this time also the entertainment of curious visitors absorbed
a good share of the collector's daily duties. He was naturally proud of
his treasures, and took a great delight in showing them to all who came.
Utterly devoid of suspicion, he was a ready victim to designing persons.
The following memorandum, which was found among his later papers, will
show how he suffered from this source:
"I have become rather indifferent about numismatics, or, at least, about
collecting coins. It was a great source of amusement for a period of over
fifty years. But, having been so unfortunate at different times with my
coins, it is, as it were, a warning to desist from collecting any more. In
the year 1827 the United States dollars from 1794 to 1803, all good
specimens, together with some foreign coins, were stolen. In 1848 about
twenty half-dollars were taken. In 1854, after showing my collection to
three Southern gentlemen (as they called themselves) I missed three very
scarce half-eagles. The great robbery was in 1867. In Jaffa, Palestine, a
small lot, worth about one thousand francs, with a collection of Egyptian
curiosities, was stolen at the hotel; and, finally, last winter, at
Seville, Spain, some old Spanish coins were missing while I was showing
them to some persons."
The "great robbery" above alluded to occurred on the evening of April 13,
1867. It was of such magnitude as to cause a wide sensation at the time,
and enlisted the sympathies of his coin-hunting brethren the world over.
Mr. Mickley's chief precautions, notwithstanding his previous warnings of
danger from another source, had been against fire. In a third-story room
was his cabinet. This had been long since filled, chiefly with an unbroken
and historic list of American coins. The additional accumulations of years,
nearly all foreign, and many of great rarity, had been stored in an old
piano-case in his bedroom, where, as he said, in the event of fire they
would be close at hand. On the evening in question Mickley was alone in
his workshop, engaged in repairing a musical instrument. He had then been
living entirely alone for a number of years. A single servant, who
provided his meals, had gone home. About nine o'clock the loud barking of
his dog in the yard below called him to the window. It was afterward found
that a pair of old shoes thrown from an upper room by the burglars had
thus called away the attention both of dog and master from what was going
on inside. An hour later a caller discovered several pieces of money lying
in the hall. An investigation disclosed the startling loss which he had
sustained. The entire contents of the piano-box had been carried off. A
private desk had also been broken open and despoiled of a few medals,
although its chief contents were intact. A gold pencil, the gift of Ole
Bull, and other keepsakes, remained undisturbed. But the larger portion of
a collection of foreign coins, one of the most complete in the world, and
the product of a lifetime's intelligent research, was gone!
It was a heavy calamity, and one from which the old collector never fully
recovered. Sir Isaac Newton's historic Fido did not do nearly the amount
of irremediable damage when he overturned the lamp upon his master's
papers. The actual pecuniary loss, reckoning at cost prices, was in the
neighborhood of nineteen thousand dollars. The market value of such a
collection was of course vastly greater, and increasing all the time at a
good deal faster rate than compound interest. It was somewhat of a
coincidence that Mr. Mickley had received and refused what he records as a
"tempting offer", for the entire collection only a short time before the
robbery.
The ardent passion of a lifetime was now chilled, and his one desire
seemed to be to get rid of his remaining coins and of the responsibility
which keeping them entailed. Such, however, was the completeness of
Mickley's literary methods of condensing, that an entry of three or four
lines made in his diary on the night of the robbery is all that he had to
write about the appalling loss. A week or two afterward he records in the
same volume the disposal of all the remaining coins, with an air of great
relief, as he adds, "I do not doubt I should be robbed again if I kept
them." A large box full of the most valuable had been taken, for
safe-keeping, to the Mint just after the robbery; but these were sold with
the rest. It is understood that this remnant of the original lot was
disposed of for about sixteen thousand dollars, the largest purchaser
being Mr, Woodward, of Roxbury, Massachusetts. The dollar of 1804 went to
a New York collector for the enormous sum of seven hundred and fifty
dollars.
Efforts to restore the lost treasure were not wanting. It might be
supposed that the possession of such rare tokens of value would have
speedily led to the discovery of their whereabouts. Mr. Mickley himself
intimated that he suspected the quarter from which the depredation had
come. Yet from that day until the present the secret has been as securely
kept as that of the rifling of Lord Byron's letter from a vase at
Abbotsford, or of the Duchess of Devonshire's portrait from the London
Art-Gallery. In fact, the same mild generosity which had always
characterized Mr. Mickley still came uppermost in the face of this trying
disaster. He frequently sought to overlook the misdoings of petty thieves.
A London pickpocket who had successfully practised upon him Oliver Twist's
little game was only prosecuted because his testimony was insisted upon by
the authorities. At the foot of the Pyramids he deplored the chastisement
inflicted by an Arab sheik upon one of his native servants who had
committed a similar depredation. His life-long friend the late William E.
Dubois, of the United States Mint, has stated that "eight or nine years
after the robbery a few very fine gold pieces of English coinage were
offered for sale at the Mint cabinet-rooms. I was so well convinced that
the labels were in his handwriting that I sent for him to come and see
them. He could not deny the likeness, but seemed reluctant to entertain
the subject at all."
During these years of study and research Mr. Mickley must not be thought
of as a strict specialist. Side by side with his fascinating collection of
coins there was an ever-growing library, the extent and value of which
were never appreciated until his death. This accumulation was in itself an
example of his cosmopolitan tastes. It was copious in local history, in
biography, in music, in general literature, in costly and well-preserved
black-letter editions, in illuminated missals dating back to the
thirteenth century, and, above all else, in autographs. Of the latter,
space cannot be spared here for anything approaching a full description.
As some indication of their value, it may be mentioned that a letter of
George Washington (the last he was known to write), dated six days before
his death, was bought by George W. Childs, Esq., for one hundred and
fifteen dollars. A letter of Abraham Lincoln to General McClellan fetched
nearly one hundred dollars. There were also signed autograph letters of
all the governors of Pennsylvania, of all the Presidents, and of all the
signers of the Declaration of Independence. The latter group is rarely met
with complete; and three of the scarcest names alone sold for as much as
all the others put together. There were signatures also of about forty
generals of the Revolutionary war, of both the British and American armies,
and including Lafayette and Kosciusko. Both Napoleon and Josephine were
represented; and the lovers of poetic justice will be glad to know that
the latter name brought double that of the great emperor. In autographs of
literary and musical celebrities the collection was extraordinarily rich,
those of Goethe and Schiller, Beethoven and Mozart, being conspicuous. But
the chief rarity was a large album formerly owned by Babet von Ployer.
This contained, among other treasures, a manuscript of Haydn, believed to
be the only one ever offered for sale in this country. It also contained
an India-ink sketch of Mozart, drawn by his wife Constance. At the sale in
1878 this album was knocked down for one hundred and twenty-six dollars,
although three hundred dollars had been previously refused for it. The
Mozart letter, a particularly interesting specimen, was sold for fifty-two
dollars to M.H. Cross, Esq.
Turning from the autographs to the books, we find still greater value and
variety. The historical portion, especially where it referred to local
subjects, was almost phenomenal. One precious lot comprised a complete set
of the first daily newspaper of the United States, beginning with the
"Pennsylvania Packet" in 1771, and continuing unbroken, through several
changes of title and proprietorship, for one hundred and seven years. An
amusing incident is related in connection with Mr. Mickley's purchase of
the larger portion of this series,--"Poulson's Advertiser" from 1800 to
1840. When the wagon was driven to his door, loaded with the purchase, the
housekeeper exclaimed, "What ever is to be done with all this truck?" Yet
this "truck," a mine of wealth to the future historian, was sold after
Mickley's death for eight hundred dollars. There were city directories of
several editions for ninety-three years. The black-letter list was quite
large, and there were more than thirty editions of the Bible, some of
great rarity, and nearly all in a fine state of preservation.
From the time of the coin-robbery the older acquaintances of Mr. Mickley
noticed a decided change in him. On the subject of coins, once so voluble,
he grew very reticent. His business, which had for many years appeared
rather a pastime than a task to him, grew irksome. After a period of
uncertainty, he finally decided to close up his affairs and spend some
years in foreign travel. In spite of advanced age, he was both physically
and mentally well equipped for such a journey. His health had always been
good. His temper seemed never to be ruffled. Of the French and German
languages he was a master, and he had some knowledge of the Spanish,
Italian, and Swedish. His previous extensive acquaintance with men of many
nations and habits was kept fresh in mind by a remarkable memory. With all
these advantages, the period of his travels was the most interesting of
his life.
Mr. Mickley set sail on the 5th of June, 1869, being at that time a few
months past his seventieth year. He remained abroad for three years,
visiting every country in Europe, ascending the Nile to the first cataract,
passing through the Suez Canal, and across a portion of Asia Minor and
Palestine. He made two trips to Northern Sweden to behold the spectacle of
the midnight sun. Being a week too late on the first season, he tried it
again the following year. Passing through the entire length of the Gulf of
Bothnia, and ascending the Tornea River, he entered Lapland, crossing the
Arctic circle and penetrating the Arctic zone in a sledge-journey of
seventy miles. The indomitable old traveller pushed on until he reached a
small lumber-village named Pajala. On the night of June 23, 1871, crossing
the river with a small party of Swedes and Finns, he ascended Mount
Avasaxa, in Finland. At this altitude, he says, "the sky happened to be
clear in the direction of the sun, and he shone in all his glory as the
clock struck twelve."
During this prolonged absence he visited almost every considerable town in
Germany, Holland, Italy, and England. The instant that he arrived at a
town, he seemed to know the shortest cut to its museum. If there was an
antiquarian in the place, he knew of it beforehand, and hastened either to
make or renew an acquaintance. In the larger cities he was surrounded by
these people, and he expressed unaffected surprise and pleasure at their
attentions. He made visits of inspection to nearly every mint in Europe,
having been commissioned by the Philadelphia Mint to make purchases of
rare coins for its cabinet. Here the old passion appears to have blazed up
again for a little while. It was an entire surprise to his family to
discover among his possessions at his death the nucleus of a new
collection, which was sold for about two thousand dollars.
Mr. Mickley made at this period some valued acquaintances. Among these was
the Italian composer Mercadante. At the time of Mickley's visit, in April,
1870, the composer, who was also president of the Conservatoire in Naples,
had been blind for eight years. "The old gentleman," says Mickley (who, by
the way, was only two years his junior), "held out his hand and bade me
welcome. I told him it would be a lasting pleasure to have shaken hands
with so highly distinguished a man, whose name had long since been
favorably known in America. At this his face brightened; he arose from the
sofa, shook my hand cordially, wishing me health, happiness, and a safe
voyage." Later, at Brussels, he called on M. Fétiss, the famous French
musical critic and biographer. At that time, in his eighty-eighth year,
Fétis was a fugitive from Paris, owing to the troubles of the
Franco-Prussian war. Mr. Mickley's picture of the veteran _littérateur_
and critic is an engaging one. He says, "Considering his great age, Mr.
Fetis is very active. He climbed up the stepladder to get books and to
show me such as he considered the most rare and interesting. He is not
only active in body, but he retains all the faculties of his mind. He
appears to have a very happy disposition. While I was with him a continual
smile was on his face, and it seemed to give him great pleasure to show me
his books. He has been engaged in collecting them for over fifty years,
and they have cost him a sum equal to three hundred thousand dollars,
exclusive of a great many presents. The first book on music was printed in
1480." At Trieste he spent some time with the United States consul there,
Mr. Thayer, of Boston, best known to musical and literary people as the
author of an exhaustive Life of Beethoven, which has been under way for
nearly thirty years and is not yet finished. Mr. Thayer showed his visitor
all the historic data and personal relics which he had collected for the
book, of which at that date only one volume had been published. Since then
Mercadante and F?s have been gathered to their fathers. Their genial guest
is also gone. The industrious Mr. Thayer lives, with three volumes of the
Life completed, and every American, either literary or musical, will wish
him well on to the conclusion of his _magnum opus_.
Mr. Mickley's plain personal habits remained almost unchanged by the many
unforeseen exigencies of foreign travel. Once, at Rouen, six months after
leaving home, he says, "Tasted wine for the first time in Europe, as the
water here did not agree with me." A little later, at Munich, he remarks,
"Drank beer for the first time." His pockets remained as accessible as
heretofore to the nimble-fingered gentry. Upon his first visit to Naples,
he records very naïvely, "Three silk handkerchiefs have been stolen from
me here,--which is one more than in London." At Jaffa, on his way from
Egypt to Palestine, besides the robbery of coins alluded to some time back,
he lost a choice autograph manuscript of Mozart which had cost him two
hundred and fifty francs at Salzburg. If careless in these particulars, he
was very watchful and jealous of opportunities to uphold America's
position in the world. He took special pains to inform the mint-masters at
various points concerning the superior appliances and machinery of the
Philadelphia Mint. On the way back from Lapland, while steaming southward
along the upper waters of the Gulf of Bothnia, he writes, under date of
July 4, 1871, "This being our national holiday, I put up my flag on the
door of my berth, but was obliged to explain the meaning of the holiday to
nearly all the passengers." While in England, he met at Manchester a
barrister who had formerly been his guest in Philadelphia. This gentleman
proposed to introduce him to an American lawyer then practising there. "I
asked the name. He said it was Judah P. Benjamin. I declined the
invitation."
Wherever Mr. Mickley journeyed, so long as any fresh acquisition of
knowledge was to be gained the old traveller appeared insensible to
fatigue. When halfway up the Great Pyramid an English group who were in
his company stopped and insisted upon going no farther. He resolutely
continued, and they, unwilling to see so aged a man out-distance them,
followed reluctantly, until all reached the summit and congratulated each
other on the famous view. In St. Petersburg, Moscow, and other Russian
cities, which he visited in the winter season, he was equally untiring and
undaunted. As a specimen of his accuracy of observation, he writes during
his first journey in Italy, "I counted forty-six tunnels between Pisa and
Bologna." Several severe accidents fell to his lot. In Rome, while
exploring a dark, arched passage, he fell into "Cicero's Well," receiving
severe bruises. In a street in Constantinople, where there are no
sidewalks, he was knocked down by a runaway horse and taken up for dead,
remaining insensible for several hours. The former of these mishaps
occupies three lines in his diary; the latter, twelve lines. On his third
visit to Leipsic he was confined in his room for several weeks with an
attack of smallpox. But in regard to none of these accidents, although an
aged man, thousands of miles from home, and entirely alone, does he betray
any symptoms of apprehension. He merely adds, on the date of his recovery
from the attack at Leipsic, "This sickness has detained me much longer
than I had expected to stay."
In one of Mickley's trips he made a not unimportant contribution to
musical history. Almost every student of instrumental music is acquainted
with the name of Jacob Steiner or Stainer, the most successful of
violin-makers outside of the Cremonese school of workmen. Of Steiner's
life but little is known, and no biography of him extant in either French,
German, or English contains either the date or place of his death. The
account commonly given is that he separated from his wife and died in a
convent. Mr. Mickley, with his accustomed perseverance, started out to see
if this matter might not be cleared up. At Innspruck he inquired in vain
for information. As Fétis and Forster both fixed his birthplace at Absom,
a small village some twelve miles from Innspruck, Mickley repaired
thither. For some time his errand was fruitless. He stopped in at a little
shop where an old woman sold photographs, etc. "I asked her, 'Did you
never hear of Jacob Steiner, the violin-maker?' She replied, 'There is no
Steiner nor violin-maker living in this town.' I then said that a
celebrated violin-maker of that name, of whom I desired some information,
had lived there two hundred years before. She replied, quite seriously, 'I
am not two hundred years old.'" A few minutes later, in the course of his
walk, his eye fell upon an old church, the outer wall of which contained a
number of stone tablets with inscriptions. A search of five minutes
revealed the desired information. On a plain tablet Steiner's name was
found, together with the information, given in very old-fashioned German,
that he had died there in 1683, "at the rising of the sun."
The closing field of Mr. Mickley's travels covered Southern France and
Spain, Lisbon, where he passed the winter of 1871-72, and Madrid. The
weather being very severe, he was detained two months at Lisbon, where he
engaged a teacher and took daily lessons in Portuguese. He had done the
same at Stockholm the previous winter with the Swedish language, which he
mastered pretty thoroughly. At Madrid he examined what he emphatically
pronounced the finest collection of coins in the world, numbering one
hundred and fifty thousand specimens. He adds, "This is the only place in
Europe where the subject is properly understood. Alfonzo V., King of
Aragon, in the fifteenth century, was the first person known to have
collected coins for study or amusement, and Augustin, Archbishop of
Tarragona, was the first writer on the subject. The science of numismatics
is, therefore, of Spanish origin."
Mr, Mickley left Madrid in March, crossing the Pyrenees and arriving in
Paris on the 24th of that month, his seventy-third birthday. He "made the
tour of three hundred and sixty-three miles in twelve hours, without being
in the least fatigued." After a few weeks passed in Paris and in
revisiting friends in England, he sailed for home, arriving in
Philadelphia June 5, 1872, exactly three years from the date of his
departure.
It was surprising to his friends how little change the lapse of years and
the somewhat rugged incidents of travel had made in Mr. Mickley. He
quickly settled down, and, as nearly as possible, resumed his old habits.
He bought himself a residence, but followed the Paris custom of taking his
meals elsewhere. In the house he was entirely alone, even without a
servant. After a time he showed some disposition to concede to "luxuries"
which he had previously ignored. Carpets he had never used in his life,
but he now admitted that they were very pleasant and comfortable, and
ordered his house to be carpeted throughout. The arrangement of his
library in the new quarters was a great pleasure, and took some time. Mr.
Mickley was in no sense of the word a politician, but he voted pretty
regularly. An incident connected with his last visit to the polls was
amusing. Having been three years absent, a patriotic Hibernian, who kept
the window-book and knew nothing of him, demanded to see his tax-receipt.
The old gentleman went quietly home and brought back the desired document.
He was next asked if he could read and write, which question, however, was
not pressed. The last scene in Mr. Mickley's life was as quiet and
peaceful as its whole tenor had been. On the afternoon of February 15,
1878, Mr. Carl Plagemann, the well-known musician and a friend of many
years' standing, called at his house. While he waited, Mr. Mickley wrapped
for him some violin-strings, the last work of his hands. He requested Mr.
Plagemann to go with him that evening to visit another old friend,--Oliver
Hopkinson, Esq., at whose house there were to be some quartettes. "I have
a letter," he said, "from the Russian ambassador, a part of which I am
unable to translate. A Russian lady is to play the piano there this
evening, and I shall ask her to help me out." Mr. Plagemann could not go,
and, as so often before, Mr. Mickley started out alone. Just before
reaching the house of Mr. Hopkinson he was taken suddenly ill, and,
chancing to be close by the residence of his physician, Dr. Meigs, he
stopped there and rang the bell. As the door opened, he said in husky
tones, "I am suffocating." He walked in and ascended the stairs without
assistance. Then he said, "Take me to a window." As this was being done,
he fell back insensible into the arms of the attendants, and, a few
minutes later, breathed his last.
Thus, on the very western edge of fourscore years, ended this long and
industrious, this peaceful and beautiful life. In our land of busy and
constant action there have been few like it,--surely none happier. Serene
at the close as it was placid in its course, its lot had been cast ever
between quiet shores, which it enriched on either hand with its
accumulated gifts of knowledge and of taste. And at the close of it all
there could be no happier eulogy than the one modestly yet comprehensively
delivered by his old and congenial friend William E. Dubois, himself since
summoned to take the same mysterious journey. "In fine," says he, "Mr.
Mickley seemed superior to any meanness; free from vulgar passions and
habits, from pride and vanity, from evil speaking and harsh judging. He
was eminently sincere, affable, kind, and gentle: in the best sense of the
word he was a gentleman."