Burns in Buffalo?

Robert Burns (1759-1796), was a Scottish poet who wrote over 700 poems in his short life, including Auld Lang Syne and A Red, Red Rose. His life and poetry are celebrated the world over on the night of his birthday, January 25th. Since 1801 Burns’ friends and admirers have marked the occasion with a supper complete with neeps and tatties, haggis, and a glass or two of whiskey. But what does this 18th century Scotsman have to do with Buffalo, you ask?

One of the treasures of the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library is the James Fraser Gluck Collection. In 1885 James Fraser Gluck, a successful local attorney, was named curator of the Buffalo Public Library, the predecessor of the B&ECPL. In this role, Gluck began soliciting and collecting literary and historical manuscripts for the Library.  The resulting collection contains over 400 manuscripts, including Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Representative Men and Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  Sadly, Mr. Gluck died at age 46, on December 15, 1897, but not before he collected two songs written in Burns’ own hand, Robin shure in hairst and The banks of Nith, which are currently housed in the Grosvenor Room.

Manuscript of “Robin shure in hairst” from the James Fraser Gluck Collection. We are not sure why there are lines drawn through the texts, it is thought perhaps Burns crossed them out as they were typeset.

Robin shure in hairst
Chorus.
I shurewi’ him.
Fient aheuk had I,

Yet I stack by him.
I gaed up to Dunse,
To warp a wabo’ plaiden,
At his daddie’s yett,
Wha met me but Robin:
Robin shure, &c.

Was na Robin bauld,
Tho’ I was a cotter,
Play’d me sic a trick,
An’ me the El’er’s dochter!
Robin shure, &c.

Robin promis’d me
A’ my winter vittle;
Fient haet he had but three
Guse-feathers and a whittle!
Robin shure, &c

Manuscript of “The Banks of the Nith,” from the James Fraser Gluck Collection.

The Banks of Nith
The Thames flows proudly to the sea,
Where royal cities stately stand;
But sweeter flows the Nith, to me,
Where Cummins ance had high command:
When shall I see that honor’d land,
That winding Stream I love so dear!
Must wayward Fortune’s adverse hand
For ever, ever keep me here?

How lovely, Nith, thy fruitful vales,
Where bounding hawthorns gayly bloom;
And sweetly spread thy sloping dales
Where lambkins wanton through the broom!
Tho’ wandering, now, must be my doom,
Far from thy bonie banks and braes,
May there my latest hours consume,
Amang the friends of early days!

So even though Scotland is an ocean away, feel free to raise a glass to Robert Burns (and maybe to James Fraser Gluck as well) knowing that a small part of the legacy of Scotland’s National Poet resides here in Buffalo.

Buffalo Tabloid

A Buffalo newspaper from the 1920s that most closely resembled a sensationalist tabloid, such as today’s National Enquirer or National Star, would be the Daily Star and the Enquirer. While real news stories can be found among its pages, most often the journal that referred to itself as “Greater Buffalo’s Picture Newspaper,” grabbed the reader’s attention with lurid headlines and garish photographs.

Publisher William J. Conners, Jr. was following in his father’s footsteps as the senior Conners bought and ran the Buffalo Enquirer in 1892, later naming it the Morning Express in 1896. When the Buffalo Courier and the Buffalo Express merged in 1926 to form the Courier-Express, father handed the reigns over to his son, who became president and publisher, a post he held until his death in 1951.

Advertising itself as a tabloid picture newspaper that was “easy to read,” the Daily Star sometimes covered stories that were difficult to absorb. When a young boy, Joseph Gervase, is brutally murdered in April 1925, leave it to the Star to show an exclusive photo of the casket in the family home surrounded by grieving relatives.

Equally difficult to accept is the coverage of a nighttime Klan gathering in the town of Elma the following month.

Little else is known about the complete run of this tabloid as our library appears to be the only institution with any holdings, and the six very fragile bindings cannot be handled by patrons except in the rarest of instances. We are just grateful to be able to highlight this unique item in our collections and present parts of this fascinating piece of Buffalo publishing history.