The Hemp Sack bears the original rope ties.

Staining is evident, commensurate with age. Substantial damage below the neck of the bag, though contents have not been compromised.

John R. Langley, 1851 (by deed); acquired by the Bennet family, 1930.

The owner and presumed collector of the cremated remains was a German musician named Otto Weber who, according to contemporary accounts, heeded the opinion of Thomas Aquinas on the fate of unbaptized infants. According to Aquinas, infants who died without baptism were consigned to the outermost borders of hell, which he called the “limbo of children.”

Seeking to rescue as many unbaptized infants as possible, Mr. Weber placed an ad in a Berlin newspaper, calling for “anguished parents to relinquish their stewardship” and entrust their unbaptized children’s ashes to him, so that he may dedicate the “remainder of my days in search of their salvation.”

Mr. Weber traveled throughout much of Europe with his infamous sack, asking for blessings from holy men of any church, denomination, or sect. In 1850, Mr. Weber died of an apparent heart attack in a Philadelphia church.