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Updated: June 8, 2025
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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