[Accession record from the Hume Polytechnic Library's manuscript and rare-book collection, 1921 acquisitions. Catalog card.]
HUME POLYTECHNIC LIBRARY Manuscript & Rare Book Collection — Accession Record
ACCESSION NO.: 1921-BE-044 COLLECTION: "Blane/Elspeth effects" (provisional title, per the note accompanying donation). DONATED BY: Unknown. Left at the Library's west entrance in a small hatbox, wrapped in brown paper, on the morning of the 19th of November, 1921. No signature on the accompanying note. Note enclosed with accession. DATE OF ACCESSION: 20 November 1921. PROCESSED BY: E. Cargill, Librarian.
EXTENT: 1 small hatbox, containing:
(a) One pressed violet, mounted on a small paper card, the card bearing the handwritten notation "Vanderlin Row — the 17th of April, 1873 — for A." No signature; the hand resembles the hand of Mrs. Elspeth Hume (Blane) as compared with her 1893 deathbed correspondence in the Tanner Collection (CARG-01917-R-2).
(b) One hair ribbon of pale blue silk, approximately 24 inches in length, with a small embroidered violet at one terminus. No inscription.
(c) Three handwritten musical-score pages, unfinished, in a hand not yet identified. The score is a song in D minor, for voice and piano, with no words yet attached; the title at the head is simply "For E." The pages are dated at the foot "1872" in an antique hand.
(d) One small silver locket, oval, plain, containing a lock of hair — brown, very fine, of a length consistent with an infant's. The locket is not engraved. No chain.
NOTE ACCOMPANYING DONATION (enclosed with the accession, photographic copy below):
"These items belonged to Elspeth Blane Hume (1838-1893) and were removed from her private effects after her death. They are placed in the Library's keeping without condition, except this one: that they not be discarded. The donor regrets that she is not at liberty to identify herself or the circumstances by which the items came into her possession. The donor trusts the Library's discretion."
[The note is unsigned. Hand suggests a woman of educated penmanship, not of the older generation; not Mrs. Westbrook's hand (compared with her household ledger); not Mrs. Evangeline Hume's hand. The Librarian notes this discrepancy and makes no further deduction.]
[amendment, 2 March 1923:]
AMENDMENT. Mrs. Millicent Hargrave-Thwaite, writing on the 27th of February 1923 in pursuit of her researches into the history of Port Hume's 19th-century musical life, has requested examination of item (c) of this accession. She has reviewed the three score-pages and has identified the hand, with some confidence, as that of Dr. Abraham Kelsey (1825-1879), who was an accomplished amateur composer as well as a physician. She notes in her attached report that Dr. Kelsey composed for voice and piano in his later years and that his few published songs (in the Port Hume Musical Society's amateur journal of the 1870s) bear comparison with the hand of this fragment.
Mrs. Hargrave-Thwaite requests that her attribution be added to the catalog. The Librarian concurs.
— E. Cargill, 2 March 1923.
[separate small note, Cargill's private hand, not in the public file, tucked in the accession folder:]
"I asked M.H.-T., when she returned the pages, whether she had any further information about the composer. She said only: 'He died in 1879. He is not much remembered. He should be.' She left. I took the pages back to their acid-free sleeve. I did not write this exchange in the public record. I write it here for my own guidance if any further Blane/Elspeth accession appears. — E.C."