Forgery in the Music Library: a cautionary tale.

Anderson, Gillian ; Haines, Kathryn Miller ; Root, Deane 等

In the 1920s and 1930s the celebration of four anniversaries--the centennial of the birth of Stephen Foster (1826-1864), the bicentennials of the births of George Washington (1732-1799) and Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791), and the sesquicentennial of the founding of the United States--increased interest in related antiquarian artifacts, and brought the musical contributions of two Pennsylvania composers to the attention of a general audience. (1) While increased knowledge and pride in the American musical tradition resulted, the anniversaries also inspired unscrupulous dealers to take advantage of a new market for old manuscripts. Their fraud is still having repercussions today.

As one of the centers of American musical activity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Pennsylvania was renowned for illustrious composers--Francis Hopkinson, Stephen Foster, William Henry Fry, and Francis Johnson to name just a few--and celebrated organizations like the Mendelssohn Club, the Musical Fund Society, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. By the 1930s, their accomplishments had become part of the state's history, and their documents began to be collected by libraries, museums, and antiquarian dealers. Among the dealers in Philadelphia were Harry Dichter, the brothers Henry and Paul Woehlcke, Charles Nagy, and Charles Weisberg, who was the owner of a rare-book store on Walnut Street called Folios.

Weisberg was considered one of Philadelphia's most colorful characters and was nicknamed "the Baron" due to his meticulous appearance. (2) While a student at the University of Pennsylvania, he had been proclaimed a "master mind," with a "remarkable faculty for concentration, an excellent memory, unusual command of the English language, keen perception, and extreme facility in the development of new habits." (3) By the time he left Penn (he never graduated), he had achieved the best scholastic record in the university's history.

In the mid-1930s, he was using that intelligence to con art connoisseurs and collectors, selling some $2,258 worth of nonexistent rare books and prints to people and institutions all over the United States. His activities did not extend just to fanciful texts; Weisberg also passed dozens of forged checks, and he doctored otherwise insignificant editions of books with faked signatures of such American luminaries as Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, and Katherine Mansfield. (4) Most fortuitously, he purchased a significant amount of old paper and documents from the Philadelphia Custom House sale in 1938. His involvement in tampering with materials acquired from that sale led to the entire contents (some forty tons of genuine documents, including many significant records of United States history) being viewed as of questionable authenticity. (5) Yet as audacious as these frauds may seem, Weisberg's greatest confidence scheme involved music manuscripts.

THE MUSICAL FUND SOCIETY (MFS)

Founded in 1820, the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia is the oldest music society in continuous existence in the United States. To support its activities, the society acquired a significant collection of printed and manuscript scores dating from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century. (6) Among the items the society collected was a group of manuscripts by Francis Hopkinson, signer of the Declaration of Independence, designer of the American flag, poet, satirist, inventor, and one of America's first composers. (7)

On 16 February 1933, the MFS board authorized the purchase of thirteen Hopkinson manuscripts for $5,000 (later reduced to $3,500) from Hungarian emigre Charles J. Nagy. (8) Two years later, on 8 February 1935, Dr. Edward Brooks Keffer (9) reported to the MFS board that he had submitted the Hopkinson materials purchased from Nagy to manuscript specialist Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach, (10) who believed they were not genuine. In a letter written immediately after the board meeting, the secretary of the MFS, Spencer P. Hazard, wrote to Dr. Keffer, requesting details of the authentication with a view to the society's counsel taking action. On 19 February 1935, Keffer wrote in reply to Hazard:

 Mr. John Tasker Howard, at my house, first doubted the authenticity of
 these holographs--but Nagy did not believe him, as members of the
 Hopkinson family passed on them--the Historical Society passed on the
 paper and my father had them passed on by some sources unknown to me.
 It was only on Howard's insistence, and then on my own, directly with
 Nagy, that I got him to go to Washington for a check up.... Mr. Nagy
 finally got a written opinion from the Treasury Department, which I
 saw. It meant ruin to him, as all his funds were in more fake
 holographs.... (11)

It is difficult to understand why Keffer went to Rosenbach. He already had heard from both musicologist John Tasker Howard (12) and the U.S. Treasury Department that the manuscripts were fakes. In an unpublished memoir written in the 1950s, Howard described in great detail why he questioned their authenticity. (13) He had been invited to talk about the significance of the manuscripts at a public announcement of their purchase planned for May 1933. By way of preparation, in April of that year he examined the fourteen "Hopkinson" manuscripts owned by the MFS, and a number of "autographs" Nagy still had in his possession:

 I had received a letter from Dr. E. Brooks Keffer, a Philadelphia
 dentist, on behalf of the Musical Fund Society of that city. He
 explained that shortly before his recent death, his father had been
 instrumental in acquiring for the Musical Fund Society eight [recte
 fourteen] manuscripts in the handwriting of Francis Hopkinson.... At
 the Society's annual Collation in May [1933] the acquisition of the
 manuscripts would be announced, and Dr. Keffer asked if I would be the
 speaker to explain the significance of the documents....
 On my arrival in Philadelphia in early April, I called on my friend,
 Mr. Edward Hopkinson, great-grandson of the composer. He had seen the
 newly discovered manuscripts and felt the handwriting seemed genuine.
 He offered to go with me to the offices of the Musical Fund Society
 where we could examine them and on the way we stopped to see [Henry]
 Woehlke [sic]. We had a more or less general conversation with him
 until I mentioned that we were on our way to look at some newly
 discovered Hopkinson manuscripts. "I've heard about them," he said,
 "and my only advice to you is to look carefully at the paper they are
 written on".... [begin strikethrough]He added that Nagy, the dealer
 who had sold the manuscripts to the Musical Fund Society, had been in
 his place a few months earlier trying to buy 18th century music paper
 from him; blank sheets torn from bound books.[end strikethrough] (14)
 We found the manuscripts exhibited at the Musical Fund Society....
 Remembering Woehlke's [sic] caution I looked carefully at the paper
 on which the manuscripts were written. Each had a watermark that
 corresponded with those of other contemporary manuscripts I knew. It
 occurred to me that all the manuscripts of Hopkinson compositions I
 had seen were in bound books that contained his transcripts of works
 by European composers and a few of his original compositions. The
 latter always bore the initialled inscription, "F.H." The eight
 Musical Fund manuscripts were each on a separate sheet. If genuine,
 these manuscripts would pose a gold mine for the historian. While
 several pieces were copies of those already known to be by Hopkinson,
 among them his first known song, others were startling discoveries.
 One was a march popular during the Revolution and of hitherto unknown
 authorship: "Washington's March at the Battle of Trenton." If this
 manuscript proved that Hopkinson was its composer a baffling mystery
 was solved. Another piece was a musical setting to The Battle of [the]
 Kegs, a poem by Hopkinson that had been printed in contemporary
 newspapers....
 Another discrepency appeared. One of the pieces was dedicated to
 Benjamin Carr, (15) an immigrant musician from England who had been
 one of the founders of the Musical Fund Society. Carr came to America
 two years after Hopkinson died.
 Mr. Hopkinson and I agreed that we would call on Woehlke [sic] again
 and ask him why we should be suspicious of the paper. We remarked to
 Wohlke [sic] that it seemed genuine, the watermarks appeared to be OK.
 "Sure they are," said Woehlke [sic], "but that doesn't mean they were
 written on a hundred and fifty years ago. There's a lot of blank pages
 in old music books, and all you have to do to write on them with ink
 is to re-size them with corn starch. We've been selling quite [a lot]
 of these during the past few months."
 That evening I had dinner at Dr. Keffer's home in Overbrook. He had
 arranged that the dealer, Charles Nagy, who had sold the manuscripts
 to the Musical Fund Society would call and discuss them with us. Nagy
 was a Hungarian refugee who in spite of his difficulty in learning the
 English language had become interested in early American composers and
 was engaged in buying and selling historic sheet music. Dr. Keffer's
 father had been an ardent collector of such items and he had bought
 many of them from Nagy. Shortly before the elder Dr. Keffer's death
 Nagy had been approached by a man who said that he knew of the
 existence of a number of Francis Hopkinson manuscripts. A number of
 them were produced and both Nagy and Dr. Keffer were excited. They saw
 no reason to doubt their authenticity and Dr. Keffer brought them to
 the attention of the Musical Fund Society and urged that the Society
 purchase a group of them. Despite the opposition of several members
 who felt that the Society's funds could not be used for such a
 purpose, the elder Dr. Keffer persuaded a majority of the board to
 make the purchase....
 When Nagy called at young Dr. Keffer's house that evening he had
 with him other Hopkinson manuscripts, which, if authentic, would form
 one of the most important collections in American music history. There
 was not only Washington's March at the Battle of Trenton, but also
 another Washington's March, that had been highly popular in its day
 and had so far remained anonymous. More interesting than these
 occasional pieces were two lengthy works. One was the music for The
 Temple for Minerva. It had been stated on numerous occasions that if
 the music for this "grand oratorial entertainment" were ever found, it
 might prove to be the first American opera....
 There was nothing about the Temple of Minerva music to excite any
 particular comment. It was undistinguished, but so was most of
 Hopkinson's music, even though some of it had an ingenuous charm. The
 other major work was a Commencement Ode. The words, but not the music,
 of this work were contained in Hopkinson's published Miscellaneous
 Essays and Occasional Writings, and they too were reprinted in
 Sonneck's book. (16) ... The music for the Commencement Ode as
 contained in the newly discovered manuscript had a melody that could
 not conceivably have been written in the 18th century, unless
 Hopkinson had been a daring original and used chromatic intervals that
 were unknown to those who wrote in the style of Handel and Arne. In
 fact, the melody of the Ode was almost identical with Rubinstein's
 Melody in F, composed almost a century later. (17)
 After examining these alleged treasures, I talked at length with
 Nagy. He was rather vague about the source of the manuscripts. He had
 purchased them, he said, from someone connected with descendants of
 one of Hopkinson's associates. He did not know which one. This
 confusion was far different from the circumstances surrounding the
 Hopkinson Toast that Woehlke [sic] had acquired from direct
 descendants of Michael Hillegas, known to be a contemporary of
 Hopkinson. (18) When I pointed out that the dedication of one of the
 pieces in the Musical Fund Society collection to Benjamin Carr was
 puzzling, Carr having come to America several years after Hopkinson's
 death, Nagy said that this proved Carr came to America several years
 earlier than had been commonly supposed. He ignored the fact that the
 date of Carr's arrival was fully documented.
 For the similarity of music of the Ode to Rubinstein's Melody in F
 Nagy had an ingenious explanation. It is well known, he said, that
 Francis Hopkinson spent some time in London. He most certainly visited
 the British Museum while he was there, and probably presented that
 institution with a copy of his Ode. Years later, when Rubinstein went
 to London, he, too, visited the British Museum, saw Hopkinson's piece
 there and copied it.
 Remembering this conversation, I was not surprised when I learned
 several years later that Nagy finally landed in a mental institution.
 His attitude at this time was that he had bought the manuscripts in
 good faith and that he had found no reason to doubt their
 authenticity. If, however, he had been victimized he was as anxious to
 know it as the Musical Fund Society would be.
 After Nagy had left I told Dr. Keffer that I was more than skeptical
 about the manuscripts. I felt certain that someone very clever had
 read Sonneck's writings on Hopkinson thoroughly, and had proceeded to
 manufacture the choice items that had never been found among
 Hopkinson's papers. Moreover, I could not talk about the acquisition
 of newly discovered Hopkinson manuscripts at the Musical Fund Society
 in May. If the directors still wanted me to speak, then I would have
 to confine myself to talking about the glorious history of the Society
 itself. Dr. Keffer agreed to this.
 After I had visited Pittsburgh and Indianapolis I came home by way
 of Washington where I talked to Carl Engel, chief of the Music
 Division of the Library of Congress, and his assistant W. Oliver
 Strunk. Nagy had been there a few days earlier with his manuscripts.
 Both Engel and Strunk were as doubtful of the documents' authenticity
 as I was, but Strunk felt that Nagy was probably an innocent victim
 and most gullible. [begin strikethrough]He showed them a letter Nagy
 had received from a mysterious source of the papers, advising him not
 to trust the opinions of ink and paper experts.[end strikethrough]
 A few days later I received from Woehlke [sic] clippings from two
 Philadelphia newspapers, telling of the arrest of a man known as "the
 Baron," who had been charged with passing worthless checks and forging
 Hopkinson manuscripts. When I went to Philadelphia on May 2 for the
 Musical Fund Collation I heard more about the "Baron" whose real name
 was Weisberg. It was he who sold the manuscripts to Nagy, and when Mr.
 Hopkinson and I, together with Strunk from Washington, called at
 Nagy's house, Nagy showed us some further correspondence. Weisberg
 claimed to be merely an agent for a man named Malloy, who had written
 him a letter telling him not to submit the manuscripts to
 experts. (19)
 Before the dinner I had a few moments to tell Dr. Keffer what we had
 learned from Nagy. He said that Samuel Laciar, music critic of the
 Philadelphia Ledger, was planning to open the proceedings by
 announcing the acquisition of the manuscripts, and he doubted that he
 could talk him out of it. Laciar did make his announcement and in my
 speech, which followed. I would have done credit to any issue-
 straddling political candidate.
 After the dinner Strunk and I had the opportunity to talk with
 Laciar and Dr. Keffer at Dr. Keffer's house. Laciar was much disturbed
 by our doubts and finally agreed there must be further investigation.
 Why not submit the manuscripts to the Library of Congress for an
 opinion?
 This was accomplished a few weeks later.
 At the Treasury Department the process was brief and simple. An
 expert looked at the writing through a microscope and announced that
 it had been made with a steel pen. In Hopkinson's day only quill pens
 were used.
 It is said that the realization that the Hopkinson manuscripts were
 forged contributed to Nagy's mental breakdown. He died a number of
 years later, hopelessly insane.

Although the Hopkinson manuscripts were declared unequivocal forgeries, the MFS did not take any legal action. (20) It labelled the manuscripts forgeries and gave them to the Free Library of Philadelphia. (21)

THE FOSTER HALL COLLECTION (FHC)

Six years after Howard's encounter with the Hopkinson manuscripts, Weisberg, out of jail and operating under the alias "Charles Levitt," wrote to John Wilson Townsend, owner of the Graceland Book Shop in Lexington, Kentucky:

 I have five songs in manuscript by Stephen Foster, which I wish to
 sell. (22) They were left in the possession of George Cooper, a
 dipsomaniac friend of Foster's who was also a songwriter, when Foster
 died; subsequently they were in the possession of a niece of Cooper's
 who lived in Philadelphia, and whose books and papers I bought at
 storage sale auction.
 I want $25 for these five items and will be glad to send you a
 complete description if you are interested. Also, I have some other
 intimate Foster material. (23)

Townsend was a part-time book dealer and a full-time employee for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). While he might have seemed easy prey for Weisberg, Townsend was a friend of the Foster Hall Collection at the University of Pittsburgh's Stephen Foster Memorial, the principal repository for materials pertaining to Stephen Collins Foster. (24) Townsend notified curator Fletcher Hodges Jr. of Weisberg's offer. In his reply, Hodges warned Townsend about a recent increase in the number of "phony Foster items" on the market and urged him to send the materials so that he could determine if they were genuine. (25)

By 2 June, Townsend had forwarded the materials to Hodges. By remarkable coincidence Harry Dichter, a Philadelphia rare book and music dealer, had just days earlier warned Hodges about forgeries of Foster manuscripts being sold by an unscrupulous dealer who went under the names of Charles Weisberg or Charles Levitt. (26) Hodges asked Townsend if the Philadelphia supplier of the Foster autographs was either of these men. Four days later, Townsend confirmed that it was Levitt. (27)

Among the forged items that Townsend forwarded to Hodges were a check, a letter, and four pages of verse supposedly in Foster's hand, and an unpublished music manuscript allegedly by Foster. He also offered items purportedly from Foster's collaborator, George Cooper, including a copy of Gottschalk's "The Dying Poet" with Cooper's "autograph" on the title page. In the letter accompanying the shipment, Weisberg repeated his claim to have many more items in Foster's hand, including manuscripts of the composer's "more noted songs." (28) He would send these on after the first batch of items was returned to him.

On 21 June 1939, Hodges forwarded the items to Evelyn Foster Morneweck, Foster's niece and biographer, for her examination. On 23 June Morneweck responded to Hodges, detailing her findings:

 I must say whoever did [the forgeries] was no amateur. I would have
 accepted the "Stephen Foster" letter, I am sure, if the handwriting
 had been smaller, and if the forger had not copied it from a letter
 with which I was familiar. It is a very slick job--but, as you say, it
 is just a little too good. (29)

After determining that none of the manuscripts were in Foster's hand, and theorizing about what the forger had used as the model for his "work," (30) Morneweck turned her attentions to those items allegedly by George Cooper:

 And here is where our handwriting expert made a funny slip. Where our
 bright boy wrote "Geo Cooper" on the sheet music of "The Dying Poet"
 arranged by Gottschalk, it is apparent--to me at any rate--that he
 copied his Geo Cooper signature from the telegram that George sent to
 Morrison Foster on January 14, 1864, saying "Stephen is dead. Come
 on."!! Just compare the Geo Cooper on The Dying Poet with George's own
 handwriting in his letter to M.F. dated Jan. 12, 1864--then look at
 the name of George Cooper signed by the telegraph operator at
 Cleveland, Ohio! (31)

Morneweck's main concern was not proving the items fraudulent, but deciding what to do with them now that they had been identified as such: "If this [forgery] is returned unmarked, it may be saved for some future victim, and may bob up years ahead, to plague your successor at Foster Hall, or some successor of your successor, in 1996." She was also greatly concerned that the existence of the forgeries would call into question the validity of genuine Foster holographs, especially those she had sold to the collection.

After receiving Townsend's consent, (32) Hodges wrote directly to Weisberg to let him know that the materials, which he did not list or describe, were now in his possession. (33) On 14 July Weisberg replied, complaining about his very unsatisfactory dealings with Townsend who by then had stopped payment on his check and had told Weisberg of their suspicions about the materials. Feigning legitimate intentions as a dealer, Weisberg then began an intricate charade with Hodges, intending to obscure the issue of fraud while holding out the bait of additional Foster materials. Meanwhile he was selling Foster fakes to other people.

On 15 July Dichter wrote Hodges that Weisberg had just sold fake Foster manuscripts to a party in New York. (34) A few days later Townsend received a notice from Weisberg's attorney demanding money to cover Townsend's stopped check and protest fees. (35) In a letter of 30 July to Hodges, Weisberg resorted to blackmail:

 Such arbitrary behavior must be punished.
 I am holding two government franked envelopes (WPA) which Mr.
 Townsend used to mail private letters to me, and I shall be tempted to
 report this if the fails to repay me and make an apology. (36)

On 1 August 1939, Hodges sent Weisberg a telegram offering him forty dollars for all the materials originally sent to Townsend. (37) Weisberg, however, had to agree to immediately drop his action against Townsend and had to promise to deal hereafter only with Hodges. On 4 September Weisberg replied, agreeing that when Hodges purchased said material he would, "drop every claim against Mr. Townsend now and forever." (38)

While it might seem odd that Hodges would willingly purchase materials he knew to be forgeries, his reasoning was quite clear. Echoing Evelyn Foster Morneweck's concerns, Hodges explained in a letter to Townsend:

 Even though the actual value of this junk is about 30 cents (more or
 less) I am anxious to have examples of faked manuscripts and letters,
 and other fraudulent and phony Fosteriana in the collection. Such
 items are of indirect Foster interest, and at the same time our having
 them keeps them off the market. (39)

With the matter of the Foster forgeries presumably cleared up by their purchase, Hodges spent the fall of 1939 contacting buyers of other fraudulent Weisberg offerings and sending out a mass mailing warning collectors and dealers in Americana of the various frauds and forgeries "recently called to our attention." (40) Over the next eight months, Hodges periodically asked Dichter about Weisberg's activities. He also collected information about Weisberg's criminal record by contacting the chief post office inspector, the Philadelphia police, district attorneys in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and the FBI. (41) The forger appeared to be lying low, until 26 March 1940 when Townsend received a letter from another attorney demanding money on Weisberg's behalf for the 1939 stopped check. (42) Townsend forwarded this letter to Hodges, and on 16 April Hodges wrote to Weisberg, with a copy to his counsel. After reiterating their agreement of 1939 and expressing outrage at Weisberg for so cavalierly breaking his pledge, Hodges carefully documented what he knew of Weisberg's character.

 You have an unsavory reputation among your fellow-dealers and music
 collectors, Mr. Levitt. I can not vouch personally for the accuracy of
 this reputation as yet, but it has interested me to the extent of
 carrying on correspondence with a number of people who have known you
 or your former associate, Charles Weisberg.
 A copy of a letter written by Mr. Weisberg several years ago is
 before me now. I have given it careful study. Its signature is
 interesting.
 I have compiled a large file of Levitt-Weisberg information over the
 last several months. It includes letters from dealers, collectors,
 district attorneys, police chiefs, and government bureaus. The
 information about Mr. Weisberg's career is such that I am surprised
 that any reputable dealer would ever be associated with him....
 Now, Mr. Levitt, I have tried to do the decent thing by you in a
 pretty rotten mess. I do not feel that the majority of your
 correspondents would have done the same. If you persist in following
 up this matter, I shall make available to Mr. Townsend the additional
 information in my Levitt-Weisberg file.
 You have lost nothing in this transaction. The protest fee of $3.20
 and the attorney's fee of $12.50 have been amply covered by our check
 for $50.00.
 Another thing--as curator of the Foster Hall Collection, I feel that
 it is my duty to protect both the legitimate dealer in and the
 collector of Fosteriana. My advice to you is to stay clear of the
 Foster field from now on. If I hear of any further dealings in forged
 Foster manuscripts involving your associate, Mr. Charles Weisberg, the
 Post Office Department will be informed.... (43)

Although Weisberg appeared to heed Hodges's warning regarding the Foster forgeries, Hodges continued to keep careful tabs on his activities. All was quiet until 1941, when Dr. Edward Brooks Keffer of the Musical Fund Society followed up on Hodges's forgery warning from two years earlier.

THE MUSICAL FUND SOCIETY (REDUX)

Eight years had passed since Howard, Rosenbach, and the Treasury Department had declared the Hopkinson manuscripts at the MFS to be forgeries. (44) In his letter to Hodges, Keffer wrote that the Society was seeking a "final office check up" on all of the Hopkinson material and was seeking Hodges's recommendation as to who the appropriate person might be to make the examination. They agreed to meet in Philadelphia on 13 May. On 12 May Hodges wrote a letter that he hand-carried to Keffer in which he provided an extensive list of names of those who might assist him in his investigation of the Hopkison forgeries. Among those he listed were Harry Dichter, John Tasker Howard, Charles Nagy, and Elliot Shapiro. (45) Four days after his meeting with Dr. Keffer, Hodges wrote to G. William Bergquist of the New York Public Library to inform him of the situation and to tell him that Keffer would be in contact with him regarding the Hopkinson manuscripts. (46)

Hodges closed the letter by asking if Bergquist had heard anything of Weisberg's current location or activities, as he had not heard of him for over a year. (47)

That same day, Hodges also wrote to Harry Dichter to inform him of his recent Philadelphia trip and to tell him about the Hopkinson materials at the Musical Fund Society. He asked what Dichter knew about the matter, and let him know that Dr. Keffer might be contacting him. On 18 May Dichter replied:

 There is no doubt that the Hopkinson manuscripts were forgeries.
 Although Nagy may have sold some that were genuine to Mr. Keffer,
 those that he got from Weisburg [sic] were wrong. This I got direct
 from Mrs. Nagy. She believes that the fact of their being fakes
 helped a lot in driving Nagy insane. (48)

On 6 June 1941, Hodges wrote to Keffer to let him know he had met with Elliot Shapiro, who he believed, after John Tasker Howard, had the most information on the Hopkinson forgeries. Shapiro said he would be glad to help Keffer and had information about Charles Levitt and Charles Nagy, but Shapiro prefered not to put this information in writing and instead requested a personal interview. (49) On 24 June 1941, Bergquist wrote to Hodges:

 Your letter in regard to the music manuscripts purchased by Dr.
 Keffer, has been called to my attention. As I know Charles Weisburg
 [sic] or Levitt very well and am acquainted with the fact that many of
 the manuscript items which have passed through his hands, were of
 doubtful authenticity, I am inclined to believe that the material
 which he sold to Dr. Keffer is also suspect. (50)

The Hodges-Keffer correspondence finally brought the Musical Fund Society's forgery case to an end. In 1942, presumably with Hodges's help, the society obtained another written report from a Treasury Department expert, which conclusively showed that the manuscripts were forgeries. (51)

THE WOEHLCKE BROTHERS

As the Musical Fund Society's fraud case ended, a new one began. The dealer who aroused the suspicions of John Tasker Howard about the authenticity of Nagy's Hopkinson manuscripts, Henry Woehlcke, and his brother Paul had in their possession three manuscripts, two of which they attributed to Hopkinson. They had obtained them from descendants of the eighteenth-century printer and Hopkinson contemporary Michael Hillegas. (52) One of the manuscripts had one folio with two compositions attributed to "F. Hopkinson Esq" and "F.H. Esq" respectively: "In Memory of Mr. James Bremner" and "The Toast." In the case of the first piece, only the words by Hopkinson had been known until the Woehlcke brothers' manuscript revealed a musical setting. In the case of "The Toast," only a version of the music printed in 1799, eight years after Hopkinson's death, had been known. The Woehlckes' manuscript contained the first documentation of the music for "In Memory of Mr. James Bremner" and of a manuscript version of "The Toast."

In 1942 Dichter wrote to Richard Hill, head of reference at the Music Division of the Library Congress, to inform him that the Woehlckes' Hopkinson manuscripts were finally being put on the market:

 About ten years ago the two Welky [sic] Brothers conducted a little
 antique and curio shop in the center of our city. In some manner they
 were able to get hold of three very interesting manuscript books....
 On Sunday I visited the old boys, who are now well up in years, and
 saw the three books. They assured me that these are now for sale at a
 very much reduced price....
 If the Library of Congress is interested, and you can come down to
 Philadelphia, I shall be happy to bring you down to look these over.
 It is my belief they can be bought for less than a thousand dollars.
 In fact, I am sure of this. I also think that the piece, "The Toast,"
 was faked by the Baron and sold to the Musical Fund Society of
 Philadelphia by Charles Nagy. The Baron, I think, used the
 reproduction which he had obtained from the Welky [sic] Brothers to
 take this item. (53)

Hill wrote to Dichter on 17 September 1942, indicating that the Library of Congress would be very interested in the Woehlcke materials. Dichter responded two days later:

 As soon as I received your letter I chased down like an innocent babe
 to see the old boys, and tell him the glad news that the L of C was
 interested, and--until you come back from the wars, I think we had all
 better forget the three old manuscripts. In the first place, they
 changed their mind about the price, and now want $1200.00 for the lot.
 I don't think they are worth it.... After all, the only piece that
 actually bears Hopkinson's name is the TOAST, and that ends with ESQ.
 (54) Was it a rule in those days for one to sign himself thus, or
 couldn't someone else have made a copy, and signed it so? ... The
 stuff may be O.K., but I would much prefer to have a better judge, and
 a closer comparison with pieces actually known to be in the hand of
 Hopkinson.... (55)

There is no further correspondence to indicate whether or not Dichter ever followed up on the Woehlcke manuscripts. Presumably, he let the matter rest. While neither Dichter nor Hill at any point claimed that these manuscripts could also be Weisberg forgeries, (56) the mere fact that they questioned their authenticity would add further complications for Hopkinson scholars sixty years later.

THE 2002 FREEMAN'S AUCTION

Charles Weisberg was imprisoned at the Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, federal penitentiary twice, in 1944 and again in 1945, for using the mails to defraud during other scams. There he died of a ruptured appendix at the age of 41. (57) The Musical Fund Society forgeries were transferred to the Philadelphia Free Library in 1936, (58) but the originals disappeared (only photostats remain). Nagy retained his remaining batch of forgeries, squirreling them away in his home. Two of the Woehlcke manuscripts eventually found their way into major collections: one was donated to the University of Pennsylvania, and the one containing "In Memory of Mr. James Bremner" and "The Toast" was purchased as part of the Marian S. Carson Collection by the Library of Congress. As with the materials themselves, all records of the forgeries--the frantic letters, warnings, and meeting minutes--were dispersed into various libraries and archives where they became a forgotten part of several institutions' histories. (59)

On 4 May 2002, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran an article about a remarkable collection of manuscripts about to be auctioned at Freeman's auction house. (60) The manuscripts contained many heretofore unknown musical compositions, drawings, and poems attributed to Francis Hopkinson. Unbeknownst to Freeman's, this consignment was the very same second batch of Weisberg forgeries Charles Nagy had shown John Tasker Howard seventy years before, and in spite of the fact that a much wider variety of bibliographic resources was available than in the 1930s, history almost repeated itself.

Working on a follow-up to the first Inquirer article, music critic David Patrick Stearns sought the opinion of experts on the significance of the upcoming sale. Because the auction items contained the only known complete copy of Hopkinson's musical entertainment, The Temple of Minerva, Stearns's first call was to Gillian Anderson whose 1976 article on the subject had been cited in the Freeman's catalog. (61) At the beginning of the twentieth century, Oscar Sonneck had hypothesized that Hopkinson's The Temple of Minera was America's first attempt at grand opera. (62) Seventy years later, Anderson found a broadside libretto for America Independent (or The Temple of Minerva) at the Library of Congress. Around its edges someone had written annotations that identified all of the music used. (63) Hopkinson had not composed any of it. He had compiled preexisting compositions and changed a few of the words for two performances at the French ambassador's house in Philadelphia in 1781. It was a pasticcio, not a grand opera at all, though it did use some of the finest repertory of the period ("Water Parted from the Sea" by Thomas Arne and "Let the Bright Seraphim" by Handel, for example).

As Anderson had heard nothing of the impending auction, Stearns described the newly discovered manuscripts, and specifically The Temple of Minerva. On one large compound page (two smaller pages pasted together) The Temple of Minerva appeared with all the music and words written out (theoretically an improvement over the Library of Congress source, which contained just words with references to the music). Stearns sent Anderson photos of pages from the manuscripts. Instead of giving Stearns the ecstatic reaction that he had anticipated, Anderson questioned the authenticity of the manuscripts. She told him that there were many instances of forged manuscripts purportedly by signers of the Declaration of Independence. She had never seen a pasted manuscript page like the one on which The Temple of Minerva appeared in any eighteenth-century manuscript, and although the staff lines were so faint it was impossible to read the musical pitches, she could tell by its shape on the page that it was not the music used by Hopkinson in 1781. Furthermore, Freeman's had not authenticated the manuscripts with any expert in early American music, nor had it done any chemical analysis of the paper or the ink.

In an e-mail to Stearns, Anderson wrote:

 I remain deeply skeptical about the authenticity of the attributions
 to Hopkinson and would hate to see someone pay a lot of money for a
 manuscript related to a signer of the Declaration of Independence when
 the attribution had not been properly authenticated.... You'll be
 doing the collecting public a favor by questioning the connection of
 this material to a signer of the Declaration of Independence. (64)

Since Anderson had not worked in the field of colonial American music for almost twenty years, she put Stearns in touch with Kate Van Winkle Keller. Because of his deadline from the Inquirer, Stearns was able to give Keller only two days to react to the material he sent her. Fortunately, Keller had a combination of experience that made her qualified to analyze the authenticity of the paper, the music, the texts, and the drawings, which gave her an advantage over Howard. (65)

She began her evaluation by reading an article describing the upcoming auction (66) and by examining the Freeman's catalog in which the manuscript materials (actually twenty different documents) were described and, in some instances, depicted. (67) Just as Howard had mused that the materials would "provide a gold mine for the historian," Keller was impressed by how much these manuscripts would add to our knowledge of Hopkinson. Also like Howard, however, the closer she looked, the more problems she saw. The sale catalog included an excellent picture from the manuscripts of a horse and rider over the music for "The March of Washington at the Battle of Trenton." Although attributed to Hopkinson, the music, first published in England in 1771, (68) was most assuredly not composed by him. The drawing looked like Teddy Roosevelt in a Napoleonic uniform about to fall off his horse as he scrambled up San Juan Hill, not like a drawing from the late eighteenth century. The rider was not even holding the reins, something he surely would have been doing had he been drawn by someone well versed in eighteenth-century horsemanship. (69)

The paper with the horse and rider on it looked like wove paper (most commonly found after the 1790s, therefore after Hopkinson's death in 1791), and the sheet was created from two unmatched pieces pasted together in the middle. The drawing was far too active for the period, the title of the march was not one by which it was usually known, and the pompous claim that Hopkinson had "composed" a piece that was already in print and circulating with several other names was not something he would have been likely to do, especially since Hopkinson did not sign most of the other music he wrote out.

While many of the sheets were on eighteenth-century laid paper, a number of them, like the drawing, also appeared to be on wove paper. On the backs of many sheets there were ghost printed texts that had transferred onto the pages when they were bound into a printed book. This transfer suggested that the paper had been removed from the end of a book, decidedly not the sort of thing an elite gentleman would have done. The watermarks on some pages appeared to be legitimate for the eighteenth century, however all the pages were of different sizes, which suggested a variety of sources, like the authentic blank pages preserved by some antiquarian dealers.

Keller transcribed and read what she could of the often-illegible music reproduced in the sale catalog. Like Howard, she thought that the "Commencement Ode" attributed to Hopkinson was suspiciously similar to Anton Rubinstein's "Melody in F" (1852). The chromaticism of the melody in any event was improbable for music of the eighteenth century, and much of the rest of the music in the manuscripts was inconsistent with Hopkinson or his era.

Keller checked the transcriptions against the music in the Colonial Music Institute's online index, Early American Secular Music and Its European Sources, 1589-1839, (70) and found only a few matches. Page twenty-two of item J, "The Genius of France" in The Temple of Minerva, turned up as an 1820s glee. (71) "Hail Columbia" was in many sources, as was "The March of Washington at the Battle of Trenton." (72) Although attributed to him in the Freeman's manuscripts, Hopkinson did not write the music for these three pieces either.

The small number of "matches" with the eighteenth-century secular music index was no surprise, because very few of the legible pieces in the sale catalog had eighteenth-century hallmarks. Bass lines were thumpy (oom-pah style), or simply moved in time with the treble. Some did not match the treble lines at all, such as the opening of "March of the Mohawks" in item K. As with the "Commencement Ode," there were chromatic passages here and there that were not likely in eighteenth-century music. A slashed appoggiatura appeared in line 11 of "Siege of New York" (item C)--an unusual ornament for this period. The rhythms occasionally suggested ragtime or a Sousa march.

A comparison of the musical hand of the person who had written "The March of Washington at the Battle of Trenton" with that believed to be authentic Hopkinson yielded striking similarities. (73) The clefs, the rests, and the stems and beams seemed remarkably close to Hopkinson's own work. As the music was on a separate sheet from the drawing, it could have been created earlier (remember that the paper of the drawing had been pasted onto the paper with the music). The wove paper used for the music, however, suggested that it had a nineteenth-century provenance and therefore no direct connection to Hopkinson. Supporting this conclusion was the fact that the text for "George Washington's March" did not fit the tune, which was not the case in Hopkinson's verifiable compositions, nor could it be located in guides to eighteenth-century American lyrics and music. (74)

Almost every single item in the sale catalog was signed "F. H." They spanned Hopkinson's entire career, filling in every gap in his oeuvre where music was lacking for lyrics that he did write, such as the "Commencement Ode" (1761), "The Battle of the Kegs" (1778), and The Temple of Minerva (1781). It seemed to be a late-nineteenth-century "collected works" of the composer--a concept that was foreign to eighteenth-century musical life.

There were many other inconsistencies as well. One of the compositions was entitled "The Siege of New York" (item C), but there was no siege of New York in the American Revolution. Period manners would never have permitted Lady Washington to be called "his wife" (item H), and Hopkinson would have known how to spell his teacher's name, Bremner (not Brenner), and the name of his own song, "Come Fair Rosina" (not Regina, item I). Item K was full of inconsistencies: "Tyconderoga" was not properly spelled that way; the men who carried out the Boston Tea Party were never referred to as "the tea dumpers"; no eighteenth-century title would have sounded like a football cheer as in "Fight! Fight! For Anthony!" or "Grand Old Fitch"; "1778!" had a musical theater ring; "Hail Columbia," attributed in the manuscripts to Francis Hopkinson (item K), was written as "The President's March" by Philip Phile, a Hessian bandsman captured in Trenton (the words were unequivocally written by Hopkinson's son Joseph in 1798). By page twenty-two of item K, "The Union Flag--Inscribed to Mistress Betsy Ross," Keller was certain this item was a fake. True or false, the Betsy Ross story did not exist until 1870. Yet the auction catalog entry for item K waxed enthusiastic: "This collection of marches adds greatly to the small number of marches (by any composer) known to be used during the American Revolution." (75)

In item L there were further anachronistic titles: "War Cry," "Old King George Can't [recte Shan't] Sleep Tonight," "Putnam Did It," and "Battle to the End." Compared to known Hopkinson titles, these were low-class, crass, sentimental, and romantic--not in his style at all. Finally, item N included lyrics dedicated to individuals Hopkinson probably would not have honored, such as British officers Gage, William Dalrymple, and Andre ("Sacred to the Memory of My Friend Major Andre"), and Patrick Henry ("Verses for Patrick Henry's Monument," dated 1779). A quick check online verified that a monument to Patrick Henry was dedicated with a good deal of fuss in 1922 (he died 6 June 1779). Everyone at first missed the fact that Benjamin Carr did not arrive in Philadelphia until two years after Hopkinson died. Thus the note in item M with its twentiethcentury sounding salutation, "Carr, Should you prefer a sketch of some ornamental character for the title page of this work? FH," could not have been written by Francis Hopkinson, although it might have been written by his son. This note was the chief evidence that convinced Freeman's that the manuscripts were authentic.

Regarding the "new" Hopkinson poetry in the manuscripts, Keller recommended that Stearns contact Leo Lemay, an expert in eighteenthcentury American poetry. Unfortunately, he was in Europe and unavailable to support her suspicions about the use of language in the texts. In the end, an assistant in the Rare Book Library at the University of Pennsylvania searched Literature Online (LION) and identified most of this "new" Hopkinson poetry as by the minor English poet, Robert Colvill. (76)

Although Keller thought she had sufficient evidence to show that most of the manuscripts could not have come from Hopkinson's hand, even through an amanuensis, she wanted to identify the original sources for the tunes. For known eighteenth-century music, she used The National Tune Index and its expanded online version, Early American Secular Music and Its European Sources 1589-1839, as well as Fleischmann's Sources of Irish Traditional Music c. 1600-1855. (77) Since there is no tune index for late-nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century tunes except for Barlow and Morgenstern's Dictionary of Musical Themes, (78) she turned to members of the Society for American Music (SAM).

An image file of the music for "Old King George Can't Sleep Tonight" (79) was sent to the SAM electronic mailing list. Within minutes, several people responded to the request for help. Katherine Preston suggested a ragtime dance, recognizing the ending as from "Down by the Bay." Deane Root identified it as a variant of "At a Georgia Camp Meeting." (80) A copy of the sheet music as well as a manuscript folk version located on the Internet established the copyright date as 1897. (81)

There were other responses to the electronic mailing list query. Many noted the musical inconsistencies. To an image file of "March of the Mohawks" (82) came the response:

 This tune would be perfect for halftime at the football game, but not
 for one of Washington's regiments.... I would say that this sounds
 like the third strain of a Sousa march. Note the transcription error
 in bars 1-3, it looks like someone copying from a band part and not
 really paying attention to what's going on.... 18th century marches
 are very distinctive in that they are usually in
 [MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] with accents very
 heavy on the first, second and third beats of the bar. This is a
 [MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] foot lifter that
 belongs to the late 19th or early 20th century. Note the
 uncharacteristic syncopation in bar 25.... On and on. Sorry, Houston,
 there's a problem! (83)

In addition to Rubinstein's "Melody in F," Phile's "Hail Columbia," college fight songs, and football half-time marches, Weisberg pilfered from Andre-Ernest-Modeste Gretry's opera Les mariages samnites, and used popular tunes like "Hail to the Chief," "Grand Old Flag," "The Wearing of the Green," and "Far Above Cayuga's Waters," sometimes several times under different titles. As Keller continued to search for Weisberg's sources, (84) one thing became very clear: very little was of eighteenth-century provenance and, stylistically, most could not possibly have been written by Hopkinson.

After identifying all of the anomalies, inconsistencies, and false identifications, Keller communicated her concerns to Stearns and Anderson. (85) Based on this assessment, Anderson told Stearns that she thought the manuscripts were "either fakes or an incompetent compilation." (86)

On 7 May 2002, Stearns's article, "Sour Notes Sounded over Musical Discovery: Works Attributed to a Prominent Philadelphia Colonist Are Not Genuine, Some Scholars Say," appeared on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Nevertheless, this news met with the same kind of stubborn resistance that Howard had experienced seventy years earlier. In spite of the article, there were still people interested in purchasing the manuscripts from Freeman's Those who believed in the material's authenticity responded to evidence almost verbatim as Nagy had responded to Howard. In response to the attribution to Rubinstein came the same ingenious claim that Hopkinson and Rubinstein must have obtained the tune from the same source. There were specialists who felt that at least a portion of the manuscripts had to be genuine, especially in light of the presence of authentic eighteenth-century paper and watermarks. And to the assertion that the dates of Carr's arrival in America did not correspond with the date of the note bearing his name, came the rebuttal that, despite documentation to the contrary, Carr must have arrived in America earlier than we thought.

Although Freeman's did not immediately withdraw the manuscripts from the sale, they did send copies of Stearns's article to all interested parties, and enlisted the aid of forgery expert Keith Arbour. Four days before the auction, Arbour joined the chorus of those questioning the authenticity of the manuscripts. (87)

Arbour noted many of the same things that Anderson, Keller, and company had discussed, although he was not able to comment on any of the musical anachronisms. He supported Keller's questions about the date of certain phrases, for example the dedication of "Siege of New York" to "an apparently lost cause." For "lost cause" Arbour cited A Dictionary of American English: first used in the 1860s for "the cause of the South in the American Civil War;" (88) and for "apparently," the Oxford English Dictionary (sense 4) as dating from the 1840s. (89) He also questioned the word "dumpers" in the dedication of "March of the Mohawks"; A Dictionary of American English cites the earliest known use as being from 1881. He then turned his attention to the paper:

 The paper itself, regardless of its watermarks, is objectionable,
 because it is unsuitable (for at least two reasons) for the
 transcription of fair copies of musical compositions. Before they
 were written on, the sheets of paper used in this collection appear
 to have been a very odd gathering (such as antiquarian booksellers and
 collectors of a certain stripe always maintain) of fly-leaves, blank
 album leaves, un-used interleaving from printed books, etc. Much of
 this paper is the wrong size for the use to which it was put;
 therefore different sheets of the available paper were pasted
 together. (In the Philadelphia of, say, the 1790s or early 1800s,
 pasting oddments together like this would have been more goofy than
 thrifty. But neither Hopkinson nor Carr were goofy men--and both
 certainly had easy access to good quantities of the good writing paper
 required for fair copies.) Moreover, much of the paper was "tired"
 (that is, old and worn) before it was written on, witness the
 feathering of many musical notes and many words and letters on several
 sheets. Examination of all sheets in the collection is very likely to
 disclose problems among the various staining patterns, like the
 strange escape from staining of the bottom half of the composite sheet
 that includes the drawing of the mounted Washington. (90)

He questioned the drawings, and the supposed note to Carr:

 The note "Carr, Should you prefer a sketch of some ornamental
 character for the title-page of this work? FH" pretends to be a
 holograph note; yet it is not in Hopkinson's hand. While it is
 conceivable that some of these papers may have been copied by someone
 other than Hopkinson, who nonetheless put Hopkinson's initials here
 and there throughout the papers, it is inconceivable to me that some
 copyist would have copied this note, and Hopkinson's initials along
 with it. A note like this is either (a) holograph, (b) a modern,
 scholarly transcription, or (c) a forgery. Moreoever, 18th-century
 business correspondence and notes were nothing if not polite; those
 that I have examined almost invariably follow polite formula that do
 not include addressing someone else by his surname alone, without
 salutation. We might reasonably expect the note to begin, "Mr. Carr/
 Sir [... text of note ...]"--but "Carr" solo seems to me to reflect
 Much later usage and a misconception of the period these documents
 claim to have originated in. (91)

He concluded:

 Given the facts, (1) that these papers purport to be in Francis
 Hopkinson's holograph but are not; (2) that internal inconsistencies
 appear to me to disprove the scenario that you have responsibly
 articulated to explain why the papers are not in Hopkinson's
 holograph; (3) that the papers wonderfully fill gaps among Hopkinson's
 compositions (e.g., supplying previously unknown lyrics for known
 musical compositions and previously unknown musical compositions for
 known lyrics, etc.)--gaps known from the first decade of the 20th
 century (when Sonneck published his study), and well known after
 publication of Hasting's [sic] biography in 1926; (4) that the
 Philadelphia forger Charles Bates Weisberg is known to have forged at
 least one Francis Hopkinson music manuscript (see Maxwell Whiteman's
 Forgers & Fools, pp. 9-10; cf. Mary Benjamin, Key to Autograph
 Collecting, pp. 103ff.), (92) (5) that the bicentennial of Hopkinson's
 birth occurred in 1937 and that the bicentennial of the University of
 Pennsylvania--of which Francis Hopkinson was the first graduate--was
 celebrated in 1940; and (6) that Charles Weisberg was out of prison
 for many years during this period--given all these facts. I think it
 is certain that this lot of papers will on closer examination prove to
 be a relatively modern forgery. At the moment, I think it likely the
 whole lot was forged by Charles Weisberg in the 1930s.... (93)

Arbour recommended that the auction house withdraw the manuscripts from sale. On Tuesday 14 May, two days before the auction was to have taken place, Freeman's withdrew the manuscripts. Stearns's follow-up article appeared the next day with a picture of Charles Bates Weisberg. (94)

AFTERWARDS

The story might have ended here, but as with the Philadelphia Custom House sale, the existence of some Hopkinson forgeries led Keller, Anderson, and company to make a census of all manuscripts attributed to Hopkinson. In doing so, it became apparent that no one had definitively established Hopkinson's musical or literary hand.

In 1996 the Library of Congress began to receive the Marian S. Carson Collection, (95) which included a harpsichord manuscript attributed to Hopkinson. It was one of the three items in Woehlcke's possession whose authenticity Dichter had questioned in 1941. It is a bound oblong manuscript book, each page of the same dimension. On the inside front cover is a diagram about how to tune a harpsichord, signed in block letters "FH." These initials could have been added by anyone at any time. There are predominantly two hands in the manuscript, the first somewhat like Hopkinson's, and the second with a decidedly left-leaning tilt. "The Toast" and "In Memory of Mr. James Bremner" appear on opposite sides of folio 8, which separates the two hands. Pages appear to be missing at this point because the first piece on folio 9 is the end of a composition, not the beginning. Folio 8 was attached to folio 3, so at least two additional folios are missing: those that were attached to folios 1 and 2. Most of the manuscript appears to be from the 1760s. "The Toast" and "In Memory of Mr. James Bremner" appear to have been added on a blank folio after the majority of the rest of the manuscript was copied. "In Memory of Mr. James Bremner" would have to have been written after Bremner's death in 1780. Its music was never published. If it is a forgery, then Hopkinson's music for this text has not yet been found. (96) The text for "The Toast," written by Hopkinson in 1778 and published in sheet music in 1799, (97) appears to be in a different hand from all the rest.

This manuscript does not have any of the obvious evidence of forgery that Freeman's Weisberg forgeries had. Most of it probably was compiled in the eighteenth century. If the Hopkinson pieces are forgeries, they are much more sophisticated ones. Weisberg's forgeries, however, sometimes consisted of no more than the addition of a signature at the beginning of a bound volume. (98) If the block letters "FH" over "Tuning of the Harpsichord" were not present, it would not appear that the Carson-Woehlcke manuscript had any connection to Hopkinson. The "F.H. Esq" and "F. Hopkinson Esq" of "The Toast" and "In Memory of Mr. James Bremner" could refer to the words, not necessarily the music, and these attributions may have been later additions.

Although no one has definitively established the musical hand of Francis Hopkinson, the Carson-Woehlcke manuscript does not appear to be written by him. A second manuscript, cataloged as a Hopkinson autograph, "Harpsichord," at the University of Pennsylvania, appears to have been copied by the same hand as the Carson-Woehlcke manuscript, and also is believed to have been one of the manuscripts described with suspicion by Dichter in 1941. (99) The manuscript at the University of Pennsylvania was purchased by a member of the Hopkinson family and donated to the University in 1950. (100) It did not come down from Hopkinson through the family, and is a reminder that one should not assume that a manuscript owned by a composer's family is authentic.

Keller and Anderson are also trying to track down the location of the Benjamin Carr and Rayner Taylor manuscripts in the Nagy Collection sold by Freeman's in 1938. The auction house does not have a record of who purchased them. (101)

Remarkably, sixty years after his death, the impact of Charles Weisberg's forgeries continues to be felt. While it is unfortunate that Weisberg's work resurfaced, as Evelyn Foster Morneweck feared, to "plague your successor ... or some successor of your successor," the rediscovery of the forgeries is not entirely without value. Their reappearance has forced several institutions to raise questions about manuscripts that probably should have been more closely scrutinized before being cataloged as autographs, especially considering the huge price associated with an autograph by a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Most importantly, through the tale of the fraudulent music manuscripts several lessons may be gleaned. When purchasing a valuable manuscript, look for proper, professional authentication, not just of paper and "hand" but also of musical and textual context. Be suspicious, no matter how trusted the dealer or how reliable the materials' provenance. Read the music. Do not just look at an item as a bibliographic object. Seek the corroborating opinion of experts. Be suspicious of newly discovered items that appear around the time of important anniversaries. If you find that an item is a forgery or that fraud is involved, try to buy the item for a much-reduced price, get it on deposit, or photocopy it, mark it as a "FORGERY," and catalog it as such.

We hope this cautionary tale will prompt everyone to check their autographs of Stephen Foster, Francis Hopkinson, Rayner Taylor, and Benjamin Carr, and the authenticity of manuscript material purchased or acquired from Charles Nagy or Charles Weisberg (a.k.a. Charles Leavitt or Levitt, Paul Bernoff, Brand Storm, or Peter Wolfe). As this case has shown, even experienced antiquarian dealers and librarians can be victims of wishful thinking, wanting something so much to be true that they excuse obvious inconsistencies and flaws.

1. George Everett Hastings, The Life and, Works of Francis Hopkinson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1926); Otto Edwin Albrecht, Francis Hopkinson: Musician, Poet, and Patriot, 1737-1937 (Philadelphia: n.p., 1938); John Tasker Howard, Stephen Foster: America's Troubadour (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1934); Pennsylvania in Music, Department of Public Instruction Educational Monographs, I, no. 1 (Harrisburg, PA: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Department of Public Instruction, 1926); Joint Celebration in Commemoration of Nation's 150th Birthday and The One Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of Stephen C. Foster: Held by City of Pittsburgh, Schenley Park, July 5, 1926 (Pittsburgh: Colonial Press, 1926); The Music of George Washington's Time, ed. John Tasker Howard (Washington, DC: United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission, 1931).

2. David Patrick Stearns, "Historical Find Found to be Fraud: Evidence Suggests that a Phila. Forger Created Manuscripts Thought To Be of 18th-Century Vintage," Philadelphia Inquirer, 15 May 2002.

3. Maxwell Whiteman, Forgers & Fools: The Strange Career of "Baron" Weisberg and the Incredible Story of Documents Destroyed and Disburdened from the Philadelphia Custom House (New York: Typophiles, 1986), 8.

4. Ibid., 16.

5. Ibid., 17.

6. Hidden in Plain Sight: Musical Treasures in the Penn Library, curated by Marjorie Hassen, http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/rbm/music/mfs.html (accessed 3 March 2004).

7. Oscar George Theodore Sonneck, Francis Hopkinson, the First American Poet-Composer (1737-1791), and James Lyon, Patriot, Preacher, Psalmodist (1735-1794) (Washington, DC: H. L. McQueen, 1905; reprint. New York: Da Capo, 1967).

8. University of Pennsylvania Manuscript Department. Musical Fund Society Records, Ms. Coll. 90, board minutes, box 11, pp. 129-35, folders 1063 and 1061, files for Dr. Edward Iungerich Keffer and Dr. Edward Brooks Keffer Sr., respectively. We are indebted to Brad Young for this account (e-mail from Young to Gillian Anderson, 13 August 2002). Although the MFS minutes and Howard's account report the number of items as thirteen, there were actually fourteen Hopkinson manuscripts according to the report of 20 March 1942 by Alwyn Cole who examined them. "Free Library of Philadelphia. The Musical Fund Society, Forgeries."

9. Edward Brooks Keffer Sr. (1896-1967) investigated the forged manuscripts. His father, Edward Iungerich Keffer (1862-1933), had been instrumental in acquiring them for the Musical Fund Society. He bequeathed to the society 2,531 items of early American sheet music which are now at the University of Pennsylvania. See http://www.library.upenn.edu//collections/rbm/keffer (accessed 3 March 2004).

10. Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach (1876-1952) was one of the greatest dealers in rare books and manuscripts of modern times. His brother and business partner Philip Rosenbach (1863-1953) was a dealer in fine art and antiques. Their Rosenbach Company, with offices in Philadelphia and New York City, was recognized as the nation's premier business trading in rare books and manuscripts. Some of the rare book collections in the United States were built with Dr. Rosenbach's aid, including those of Henry Folger (now in the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC). Henry Huntington (Huntington Library, San Marino, California), Lessing Rosenwald (Library of Congress and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC), and Harry Elkins Widener (Widener Library, Harvard University). For more information see http://www.rosenbach.org (accessed 3 March 2004).

11. Musical Fund Society Records, General Correspondence, box 69, folder 1061, Edward Brooks Keffer Sr.

12. Howard (1890-1964), a musicologist and composer, was best known as the writer of Our American Music: Three Hundred Years of It (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1931), the first comprehensive account of American music history, and Stephen Foster: America's Troubadour, the first comprehensive biography of the composer. He later served as curator of the musical Americana Collection of the New York Public Library, and music lecturer at Columbia University.

13. John Tasker Howard, unpublished memoir, original held in the Americana Collection, New York Public Library; photocopy. Foster Hall Collection, Center for American Music, University of Pittsburgh Library System. Quoted with permission from his daughter Joan.

14. This text and any subsequent marked through text was crossed out by Howard in his draft, presumably for exclusion in future versions. Woehlcke's reasons for casting aspersions on rival dealer Nagy might not have been fair, and, as we shall see, Woehlcke's business practices may not have been above reproach either.

15. No piece dedicated to Carr has been located; Howard may have been referring to a supposed note to Carr that appeared in item M of the Freeman's catalog described below.

16. The Miscellaneous Essays and Occasional Writings of Francis Hopkinson, Esq. (Philadelphia: T. Dobson, 1792), 2:77-82; Sonneck, Francis Hopkinson, 82-83.

17. Anton Rubinstein (1829-1894), Melodies, piano, op. 3, no. 1 (1852).

18. Hillegas (1729-1804), a well-known Philadelphian, was the first U.S. treasurer.

19. One has to ask why such a letter would not have aroused Nagy's suspicions.

20. The MFS decided not to take any action in the end because Nagy "acted in entire good faith" and "has nothing out of which we could collect a judgment": folder 1387 of the legal and financial records of the MFS from 1930-45 (e-mail from Brad Young to Gillian Anderson, 5 September 2002).

21. Cataloged under "Musical Fund Society, Forgeries." The Free Library is in the process of transferring the volume to the Musical Fund Society Collection at the University of Pennsylvania.

22. Stephen C. Foster (1826-1864) was America's first professional composer. Among his more than 280 compositions are "Old Folks at Home," "My Old Kentucky Home." "Oh Susanna," "Camptown Races," "Beautiful Dreamer," and "I Dream of Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair." Over the years, Townsend had purchased a great deal of Fosteriana which he would mark up in price and attempt to sell to the FHC. Frequently, Townsend made mistakes, paying for items the collection did not need, or significantly overvaluing his offerings. As a result, the collection's curator. Fletcher Hodges Jr., had cautioned Townsend not to buy anything before consulting him.

23. Levitt [i.e., Weisberg] to Townsend, 16 April 1939, autograph letter, signed, in the forgeries file. Foster Hall Collection, Center for American Music (CAM), University of Pittsburgh Library System. Other correspondence cited in this section are from the CAM forgeries file unless otherwise noted.

24. The Foster Hall Collection was assembled in the 1930s by Indianapolis businessman Josiah Kirby Lilly, and quickly developed into one of the most significant collections related to an American composer. In 1937 Lilly gave the collection with its curator, Fletcher Hodges Jr., to the University of Pittsburgh to be housed in its new Stephen Foster Memorial building.

25. Hodges to Townsend, 11 May 1939, typed letter. On 17 May Townsend wrote Hodges that he had received a number of items from the "Philadelphia dealer" for examination, but was unfortunately" compelled to pay him ... in advance of shipment" (Townsend to Hodges, 17 May 1939).

26. Hodges to Dichter, 8 June 1939, typed letter.

27. This was not the first time Weisberg had peddled Foster material. Three years earlier, on 28 July 1936, he had offered a copy of Foster's song "My Old Kentucky Home." illustrated by Charles Copeland, for $5.00 to the Foster Hall Collection. Lilly's secretary declined Weisberg's genuine if insignificant offer, explaining in what was becoming a common refrain in the collection's correspondence, "in May of this year the Hall adopted the policy of making no additional purchases ... unless the offering be a most unusual and rare item of Fosteriana" ([Dorothy Black, secretary to Mr. Lilly] to Weisberg, 1936, typed letter). By 1939, "unusual and rare" was all that Weisberg, now operating as Levitt, was offering.

28. Levitt [i.e., Weisberg] to Townsend. 18 May 1939, autograph letter, signed.

29. Morneweck to Hodges; 23 June 1939, typed letter, signed.

30. Ironically, John Tasker Howard's book, Stephen Foster: America's Troubadour, had a wealth of photographic reproductions in it.

31. Morneweck to Hodges, 23 June 1939, typed letter, signed.

32. On 27 June Hodges wrote to Townsend (typed letter) to report Morneweck's findings and to ask if Hodges could contact the "Philadelphian in question."

33. Hodges to Levitt [i.e., Weisberg], 1 July 1939, typed letter.

34. Harry Dichter to Hodges. 15 July 1939, Hodges correspondence, FF164B. CAM.

35. Samuel Halbert to Townsend, 19 July 1939, typed letter.

36. Levitt [i.e., Weisberg] to Hodges, 30 July 1939, autograph letter, signed.

37. Hodges to Levitt [i.e., Weisberg], 1 August 1939, typed letter.

38. Levitt [i.e., Weisberg] to Hodges, 4 September 1939, autograph letter, signed.

39. Hodges to Townsend, 1 August 1939, typed letter.

40. CAM forgeries file.

41. Ibid.

42. Harry Fuiman to Townsend, 26 March 1940, typed letter, signed.

43. Hodges to Levitt [i.e., Weisberg], 16 April 1940, typed letter.

44. Although Keffer had seen the Treasury Department report, he did not have a copy of it. For some reason he felt that he had to get a written opinion. The records of the MFS do not explain why, eight years after their purchase, the manuscripts had to be reexamined. It is possible that someone proposed a publication of the Hopkinson forgeries as unknown Hopkinson originals, because a photostat of such a publication, complete with a title page dated 1941, is in the bound volume of photostats at the Philadelphia Free Library, cataloged under "Musical Fund Society, Forgeries." The Free Library is in the process of transferring the volume to the Musical Fund Society Collection at the University of Pennsylvania. The bound volume contains a 1942 report from the U.S. Treasury Department documenting the characteristics of the Weisberg Hopkinson forgeries at the Musical Fund Society, the mock-up of the publication with photostats of the forgeries and some other "Hopkinson" items, and letters from Keffer to Hodges about the forgeries. The originals of the Keffer-Hodges correspondence are found in Hodges Correspondence, FF164b, CAM.

45. All this correspondence is in the Hodges Correspondence, FF164b, CAM. On 5 May 1941. Hodges wrote to Keffer, following up on a phone conversation from that same day. He was going to meet with Keffer 13 May at which time they would discuss "our mutual interest--forgeries of Francis Hopkinson manuscripts as well as some Stephen Foster forgeries in my possession." He went on to mention. "There are two names which, I am told, have been associated with our two forgeries. However since I am unable to verify the accuracy of the stories. I would prefer not to place my account in writing." On 12 May 1941, Hodges wrote to Keffer (a note indicates it was hand-carried to him on 13 May) providing names that would assist him as he investigated the Hopkinson forgeries: Mr. Bert C. Farrar, a Washington, DC, handwriting expert; Harry Dichter, who "I believe knows something of the Hopkinson forgeries"; Elliot Shapiro: "I believe he can give you information about these Hopkinson forgeries"; Mr. Charles Nagy: "this is his former address. I am uncertain of his present whereabouts--if he is still living. My understanding is that Mr. Nagy had a hand in the sale of the 'Hopkinson manuscripts'--but that he was one of the innocent victims, rather than a responsible party"; Library of Congress: and Dr. Carleton Sprague Smith of the New York Public Library. On 17 May 1941. Hodges wrote to Keffer, thanking him for the luncheon and expressing a wish that he had been of more assistance with the "puzzling problem of the Hopkinson manuscripts." He told Keffer that he had written to Harry Dichter to let him know Keffer would be contacting him regarding the Levitt-Weisburg connection to the manuscripts and would contact Charles Bergquist at the New York Public Library as well.

46. Hodges to Charles [recte G. William] Bergquist, 17 May 1941, typed letter. Hodges Correspondence, FF164B, CAM.

47. Ibid.

48. Dichter to Hodges, 18 May 1941, typed letted, signed, Hodges Correspondence, FF106, CAM. Despite his association with the Hopkinson forgeries, Nagy did sell legitimate rare books and music. For example, he sold the music collection of Charles Zeuner (1795-1857), head of the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston, to the Philadelphia organist William Newland (1813-1901), and the Newland-Zeuner Collection is now at the Library of Congress. Nagy went out of business during the Depression, and his collection was sold by Samuel T. Freeman (see catalog for the 10 October 1938 auction of the Charles J. Nagy collection of musical Americana). "Most of the lots, 361-461 of a larger sale of Americana, appear to be printed music. There are no references to Hopkinson but several manuscripts of Benjamin Carr and one of Rayner Taylor are listed" (e-mail from Brad Young to Gillian Anderson describing the contents of the catalog, 13 August 2002).

49. Shapiro was not the only person who feared Weisberg, who was quite litigious and had been successful in bringing suit. "Some time ago the Phila. Record printed something about Charlie that he resented. I believe Charlie won some settlement. He next wormed his way into the presence of the owner of the Phila Inquirer, who was getting ready to give himself up after conviction for some federal violations. Charlie wanted to teach him the ropes on how to get along in Federal Jail. He had some trouble at the Inquirer also and, according to his story, also got some settlement" (Harry Dichter to Hodges, 8 May 1941, typed letter, signed, Hodges Correspondence, FF106, CAM).

50. Bergquist to Hodges, 24 June 1941, typed letter, Hodges Correspondence, FF164B, CAM.

51. Musical Fund Society Records, board meeting minutes, 14 April 1942, box 11, pp. 456-57, "Dr. [Edward Brooks] Keffer reported that Mr. Alwyn Cole, Examiner of Questioned Documents, in the Treasury Department, Washington, had made a thorough examination of the alleged Hopkinson manuscripts belonging to The Musical Fund Society, on deposit with the Free Library of Philadelphia, and declared them to be forgeries. A full report was submitted by Mr. Cole with accompanying exhibits. Upon motion the bill of Mr. Alwyn Cole for $200, for the examination and report concerning alleged Francis Hopkinson Manuscripts was approved for payment and the Board directed the Treasurer to charge off, on the books of the Society the cost of the manuscripts." Cole's report with photostats of the forgeries is now located in Philadelphia Free Library, cataloged under "Musical Fund Society, Forgeries." The Free Library is in the process of transferring the volume to the Musical Fund Society Collection at the University of Pennsylvania.

52. See n. 18.

53. "Dichter, Harry," in Old Correspondence File, Music Division, Library of Congress.

54. Actually it is "In Memory of Mr. James Bremner" which has Hopkinson's name, "By F. Hopkinson Esq." "The Toast" has only his initials, "F. H. Esqr." Neither is in Hopkinson's hand and each attribution is in a different hand.

55. "Dichter," Old Correspondence File.

56. Some of Weisberg's forgeries, however, consisted only in the addition of a handwritten name to a title page.

57. Whiteman, Forgers & Fools, 7.

58. Musical Fund Society Records, box 74, folder 1390, Miers Busch to Franklin R. Price, Librarian of the Free Library of Philadelphia, 11 December 1936: "Regarding the transfer of the music of the Musical Fund Society, please hold the package marked 'Hopkinson Collection' until I secure some further information."

59. The fact of the forgeries, but not the specifics, was mentioned in passing in the Hopkinson section of later editions of John Tasker Howard's Our American Music.

60. David Iams, "Trove of American Music from 1700s," The items were described in the 2002 sale catalog, Freeman's Fine Prints: May 8th at 11 am: Rare Books, Manuscripls & Photos: May 16th at 10 am, Sale 1137/1138, Lot 842. pp. 96-106, color reproductions pp. 55-62.

61. Gillian B. Anderson. "'The Temple of Minerva' and Francis Hopkinson: A Reappraisal of America's First Poet-Composer." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 120 (1976): 166-77.

62. Sonneck, Francis Hopkinson, 111.

63. Otto Albrecht identified the handwriting as Hopkinson's, but this identification now has been questioned.

64. E-mail from Gillian Anderson to David Stearns, 3 May 2002.

65. In order to re-create and perform authentic eighteenth-century English and American dance, she had scoured eignteenth-century music, engravings, diaries, and letters for information about period dance and costumes, and had sewn costumes in order to find out how fabrics, cut and fit, affected movement. Her preparation of a catalog for the Lewis Walpole Library of Yale University had required that she know authentic watermarks, papers, and inks. For The National Tune Index (pt. 1: 18th-Century Secular Music, comp, by Kate Van Winkle Keller and Carolyn Rabson, 80 microfiches; pt. 2: Early American Wind & Ceremonial Music, 1636-1836, comp. by Raoul Camus, 28 microfiches [New York: University Music Editions, 1980-89]), she had inspected a large number of American music manuscripts, had assembled a computerized index to all the secular musical sources in the United States up to 1800, and could use the index to identify all the music in the Freeman's manuscripts, if indeed the music was from the eighteenth century. Her knowledge of period expression and literary style came from reading colonial American newspapers for the CD-ROM publication The Performing Arts in Colonial American Newspapers, 1690-1783 (New York: University Music Editions, 1997), and she had been reading hundreds of first-person narratives and personal letters and journals as preparation for her forthcoming book. Dance and Its Music in America, 1525-1789.

66. Lita Solis-Cohen, "Hopkinson Archive Discovered," Maine Antique Digest (May 2002), http://www.maineantiquedigest.com/articles/may02/hopk0502.htm (accessed 3 March 2004).

67. Freeman's, http://www.freemansauction.com (accessed 3 March 2004). The catalog description is archived as Sale 1138, Lot 842, although labeled "withdrawn."

68. "March 16," in A Second Collection of XXIV Favourite Marches (London: C. and S. Thompson, 1771), 9. In American sources the title is "Washington's March at the Battle of Trenton," among many others.

69. The drawing is reproduced with the catalog description at Freeman's Web site. Janice and Peter Ryan, founders of the Living History Foundation, experts on costume history, eighteenth-century equestrian history, and swordsmanship, supported Keller's suspicions about the rider on the horse. Neither the double-breasted coat nor the sword was an eighteenth-century item. Nor were the beards on some of the other drawings.

70. http://www.colonialmusic.org (accessed 3 March 2004).

71. "Lightly tread, 'tis hallow'd ground," in A New and Complete Preceptor for the Fife (Utica, NY: William Williams, 1826).

72. See n. 68.

73. It is assumed that the Hopkinson autograph at the Library of Congress contains both his musical and literary hand (Francis Hopkinson, Songs, 206 pp. MS. LC call number ML96 .H83) because Sonneck saw the volume while it was still owned by Mrs. Florence Scovel Shinn of New York City, a descendant of Francis Hopkinson. She "cherishes among her inherited 'Americana'" the manuscript called 'Songs' in which 'Francis Hopkinson His Book' and 'Philadelphia, Domini 1759' "is carefully and neatly written in the owner's hand" (Sonneck, Francis Hopkinson, 32). The autograph was acquired by the library in October 1919, and described in Report of the Librarian of Congress and Report of the Superintendent of the Library Building and Grounds for the fiscal year ending 30 June 1920 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1920), 70.

74. The first line did not occur in Arthur F. Schrader's compilation of songs relating to the American Revolution, which Keller had been editing (not yet published), nor did The Performing Arts in Colonial American Newspapers, 1690-1783, locate the text in period newspapers.

75. Freeman's, 100.

76. E-mail from Michael Rvan, Rare Books Librarian, University of Pennsylvania, to Gillian Anderson, 14 May 2002. Colvill's "Siege of Gibraltar" became "Siege of New York," for example.

77. Early American Secular Music and its European Sources 1589-1839, http://www.colonialdancing.org/Easmes (accessed 3 March 2004); Aloys Fleischmann, Sources of Irish Traditional Music c. 1600-1855 (New York: Garland, 1998).

78. Harold Barlow and Sam Morgenstern, A Dictionary of Musical Themes (New York: Crown, 1948; rev. ed., 1975).

79. Item L in Freeman's. This music has since been found in its entirety in The University of Chicago Song Book (Chicago: Undergraduate Council, 1920) as "Chicago Will Shine Tonight." Weisberg's forged text was a direct parody of the Chicago song. He liked the march so much that he used it again in the fife tunes section of his collection, this time for "Hang John Armstrong," transposed into the key of F. Weisberg used two other pieces from the Chicago book as well, "Here's a Cheer" and "Fight! Fight for Victory."

80. Various e-mails of 4 May 2002. Root, now the second curator of the Foster Hall Collection, contacted his predecessor, who recalled Weisberg. This launched a search of the collection's archives.

81. James J. Fuld discussed the tune in his Book of World Famous Music, 4th ed. (New York: Dover, 1995), 112-13.

82. Item K, p. 100.

83. E-mail from David Lewis to Keller, 5 May 2002.

84. About a month later she found that most of the tunes had come from George W. Clark's The Liberty Minstrel, 4th ed, (New York: Leavitt & Alden. 1844).

85. E-mail from Keller to Stearns, 5 May 2002.

86. E-mail from Anderson to Stearns, 5 May 2002.

87. E-mail from Keith Arbour to David Bloom at Freeman's. 13 May 2002.

88. A Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles, ed. Sir William A. Craigie and James R. Hulbert, 4 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938-44), s.v. "lost cause."

89. The Oxford English Dictionary, 2d ed., 20 vols., prepared by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), s.v. "apparently."

90. E-mail from Keith Arbour to David Bloom, 13 May 2002.

91. Ibid.

92. Mary Benjamin, Autographs: A Key to Collecting (New York: Walter R. Benjamin Autographs, 1966).

93. E-mail from Keith Arbour to David Bloom, 13 May 2002.

94. "Historical Find Found to be Fraud." Philadelphia Inquirer, 15 May 2002.

95. "Library of Congress Acquires Notable Collection of Americana from Marian S. Carson of Philadelphia," News from the Library of Congress, 18 October 1996. http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/1996/96-123 (accessed 3 March 2004).

96. In 1945, William Treat Upton and the staff at the Library of Congress must have believed that the music in the Carson manuscript for "In Memory of Mr. James Bremner" was not by Hopkinson. Upton listed the music as missing in the entry for this song in his update of Sonneck's A Bibliography of Early American Secular Music (18th Century), rev. and enl. by William Treat Upton (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, Music Division, 1945). Fourteen years earlier, in 1931, Woehlcke had copyrighted photostats of "The Toast" and "In Memory of Mr. James Bremner" from this manuscript. Yet Upton did not refer to the photostats or the manuscript from which it had been taken. One might conclude that he did not believe it was authentic. If the music for "In Memory of Mr. James Bremner" is not by Hopkinson, one also might question whether the music for "The Toast," which first appeared only after Hopkinson's death, is by him either, but that problem will have to be solved at another time.

97. Well after his death in 1791.

98. Whiteman, Forgers & Fools, 16.

99. It is more likely that both of these manuscripts are Hillegas rather than Hopkinson autographs, because Woehlcke got them from the Hillegas family.

100. At the University of Pennsylvania, the manuscript volume of keyboard music, designated MS D by Caroline Richards Davidson, with the spine titled "Harpsichord," is recorded in the manuscript accession book as 50 M-115 and noted there as received in 1950.

101. From the 1938 sale catalog: "Item 453. Unpublished MS by Carr and presentation copy of 'Selections from those Pieces of Sacred Music Usually Performed at Mr./ Rivardi's Sacred Concerts and in the Episcopalian and Catholic Churches in this City.' 10 pages, n.p., n.d. Presentation copy from the author. Item 456. Carr (B.) Manuscripts. The Superman's Orphan, Only Tell Him That I Love, Sally and the Nightingale. The Love Letter and the Sapling. Five titles, pages 24. n.p., n.d. With the exception of the Sapling all of the above are in Carr's hand. Item 459. Taylor (R.) Fresh and Strong the Breezes Blowing, Pastoral, Thou Soft Flowing Avon, and other manuscripts in the hand writing of R. Taylor. Seven pieces, n.p., n.d."

Gillian Anderson is an orchestral conductor. Most recently, she performed her restoration of Wings. William Wellman, director (United States: Paramount, 1927), at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as part of the seventy-fifth anniversary gala, and premiered her new accompaniment for Pandora's Box, G. W. Pabst, director (Los Angeles: Nero Films. 1928: Criterion Films, DVD forthcoming), at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Kathryn Miller Haines is associate director for the Center for American Music at the University of Pittsburgh. Deane Root is director and Fletcher Hodges Jr. Curator of the Center for American Music, and professor of music and chair of the Department of Music, at the University of Pittsburgh. Kate Van Winkle Keller was executive director of the Society for American Music until her retirement in 2000. Author of bibliographies and studies of 17th-and 18th-century British-American popular music and social dance, she was co-director of two projects supported by the National Endowment for the Humanites: The National Tune Index: 18th-Century Secular Music (New York: University Music Editions, 1980, microform) and The Performing Arts in Colonial American Newspapers, 1690-1783 (New York: University Music Editions. 1997, computer file). Jean Wolf is a musicologist who has documented 18th-century European music manuscripts. She now has her own historic preservation business in the Philadelphia area. A recent project was the restoration and interpretation of the Christ Church Burial Ground where Francis Hopkinson and his family are buried. Brad Young is music technical services librarian for the Otto E. Albrecht Music Library at the University of Pennsylvania.