The Librarian: the Cup of Gratitude

[altivo]

Shades of Noah Wyle! Because I've managed to avoid horrible Wednesday duty for two weeks, I haven't had to deal with the visiting relic until tonight. That is, the Ayer Cup.

Back when the town of Harvard was new, 150 years ago, one of the founders and his wife built a hotel to serve travelers passing through by rail. It was a block from the train station and very modern and up to date in all respects.

Then came the Civil War. The railroad carried Union soldiers to their camps, and brought back the dead and wounded. The Ayers threw open their hotel and restaurant to those soldiers, gratis. Free meals, free beds for anyone in a Union uniform. They continued this for six years, I guess, and even went so far as to retain medical assistance for the wounded and sick soldiers at their own expense, allowing the soldiers to pay for nothing.

After the war was over, the veterans of Wisconsin (the state line is just five miles north of town) joined together to raise money for a thank you gift to be presented to the Ayers. Each soldier was asked to contribute 25 cents. A gold cup about eight inches tall was purchased, and engraved with a thank you inscription to the Ayer family. The cup, and the city of Harvard, are about 150 years old this year.

So I unlocked the fireproof cabinet, took out the white gloves and put them on, then went out to the glass case, unlocked it, carefully lifted the cup from its pedestal, and brought it back to the office area. There I put it into the fireproof cabinet, closed and locked the cabinet itself, removed the white gloves, and went back to lock the display case. I felt like there should be armed guards or something. This in spite that the insurance appraisers evaluated the thing at only about $600.

(The cup is really owned by the Wisconsin Historical Society, which lent it to us this month in honor of the city's sesquicentennial. It stands about 8 inches tall, and I suspect was actually a chalice made for church communion that was sidetracked to this purpose and the inscriptions added. An interesting bit of history that we get to handle with a ritual that rivals anything in "The Metropolitan Library" -- "as seen on TV".)

Comments

[hgryphon.livejournal.com]

That's some serious history...

Did it have "the smell?" I've gotten pretty good about smelling the age of things within about 20 years for newer stuff and 50 years for older stuff...

[alaskawolf.livejournal.com]

that is some interesting history behind the Ayers Cup

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

What a nice history :) We need more things like that.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It has no obvious smell that I can detect, but it's only gold and silver. It has been living in an environmentally controlled glass case for a long time, so not much would have a chance of attaching to it. From the pristine condition of the thing, I would guess that it was always a treasured relic. There are no scratches or marks, and probably no one ever even drank from it or put flowers in it or anything like that.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes. At first I wondered how it ever ended up in Madison, Wisconsin. But apparently the son of Mr. and Mrs. Ayer lived in Lake Geneva and donated it to the historical society there because it was originally the gift of Wisconsin veterans specifically.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It's nice to have them survive, yes. The Civil War was a nasty piece of business, but it's good to be reminded that some people did have hearts of gold.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Dang right, from what I read some of those prisoner camps were on par with Dachau O.O

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It's only fair to point out here that Edward Ayer was a serious capitalist, a wealthy man by any measure of the time, and could afford what he did. His hotel made money in spite of the patriotic largesse, and his other ventures did well too. I have no idea what his employees may have thought of him, though it would be interesting to find out.

[hrrunka]

It's interesting how much history a single object can hold...

Thanks.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, it can be fascinating. I've mentioned in the past the four Roman coins in my desk drawer, so worn down that you can barely see the portraits on them. They were dug up somewhere in Britain, and I got them on eBay a few years ago for very little, but probably the amount I paid (about $15 US) was less to me than the value of those coins to the person who buried them.

Just holding such things in my hand makes me feel very small indeed.

[pioneer11.livejournal.com]

Hmm.

My great-grandfather fought on the Union side. I'd have
to say the cup is worth more than 600 bucks.

Still, a bit of drama their it seems.

[hrrunka]

I guess a story about an object transforms it. Without the story it's just a cup which would cost so much in labour and materials to make. Add the history, and it becomes 'the cup', a unique and irreplacable object connected to its past. Probably not the sort of thing the average insurance appraiser can put a value on, though perhaps an auction might...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Appraisers look at market values, not historic values. If there was no record of sale of a similar item in the last 50 years or whatever, then they will do something like "18 karat gold, weight 6 ounces, price of 24 karat gold times 0.60..." which is going to come out with a value like that. The item itself is, of course, irreplaceable and therefore no value other than "priceless" can really be assigned to it.

I had relatives on both sides of the Civil War, and, for that matter, both sides of the Revolutionary War. The one I inherited my name from was a Loyalist who fought with Butler's Rangers on the British side, and fled to Canada after the war, losing all his land and property as a result.

On the other hand, the direct ancestor who was a Union soldier may have had a good military record but was otherwise pretty disreputable. Apparently a drunken bum, a womanizer who married four times (perhaps not legally because I can't find all three divorces) and died with symptoms that to me look like secondary syphilis (blindness, mental deterioration, etc. at a fairly early age.) I'm sure his devout Quaker forebears rolled their eyes at his antics.

Totally off topic

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That's an adorable user pic. :) You look so serious and disappointed.

Re: Totally off topic

[hrrunka]

It's part of a character sheet by keihound. :)