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.  Many of the more unconventional of these knew him best by the familiar title of “Daddy.”  To the better-educated class of young musicians he was almost as much a father as a friend.  Nor were his close friendships confined to the young.  Among his most steadfast admirers was an old-bachelor German musician by the name of Plich.  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.  One night a fire broke out in a building directly contiguous with the rear of the Mickley mansion.  There was great consternation, of course, and busy efforts on the owner’s part to gather together the manifold contents of his treasure-house.  When all had been at length secured in a place of safety, he bethought himself of Herr Plich.  Hastening to the upper room, he discovered the old man in a state of semi-insanity, marching up and down the apartment, and carrying in his hands only a valuable viola.  So confused was he with fright that main force was required to get him out of the room.  After seeing him safely out of the front door, Mickley went back and secured a considerable sum of paper money which had been totally overlooked for the sake of the beloved viola.  Plich at his death bequeathed the viola to Mickley, and it was the only instrument which the latter always refused to part with during his lifetime.  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.  It has been stated that at the age of seventeen he first became interested in coin-hunting, owing to his difficulty in finding a copper cent coined in 1799, the year of his birth.  Every student of numismatism knows that this piece is exceedingly rare.  The one sold in Mr. Mickley’s collection after his decease brought no less than forty dollars.  The taste thus formed continued a prevailing one for sixty years.  It is surprising to find how speedily he became a leading and recognized authority.  Although as guileless as a child and the easy victim of numerous thefts throughout his life, he was scarcely ever deceived in the value of a coin, token, or medal.  Once, at Stockholm, in 1871, he visited a museum where rare coins were exhibited.  “The collection,” says his diary, “is very, very rich in Greek and Roman, but particularly in Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon.  There are not many United States coins, but among them I was astonished to find a very fine half-eagle of 1815.”  The known rarity of this coin thus on exhibition in a far country very naturally attracted the keen eyes of the aged collector.