BIRTH OF ELVIS

January 8th 1935 

DAY ONE: THE BEGINNING

THE VERY FIRST ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF ELVIS' BIRTH

Jimmy Velvet's words... "So one could consider this the first mention of Elvis' birth."

These historic artefacts will go up in 2024 

January 8th 1935
DAY ONE: THE BEGINNING
THE VERY FIRST ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF ELVIS' BIRTH

Jimmy Velvet's words... "So one could consider this the first mention of Elvis' birth."

These historic artefacts will go up in 2024

September 5, 2022

Dear Daniel,
Congratulations on acquiring an amazing piece of Elvis history, it will be such a great addition to your collection as you continue to connect the dots of Elvis' life. Dr. William R. Hunt is the doctor who delivered Elvis and during his visits to patients in the Tupelo area, he carried day book medical ledgers to keep record of the medical visits. I owned 15 of these ledgers at one time which included the Physicians Birth Record book/ledger which shows Jesse (Elvis' twin brother, sadly stillborn) was the 919th baby that Dr Hunt delivered and Elvis was the 920th. That's a lot of babies!  The ledgers reflect that Dr. Hunt noted where he tended to many Presley relatives so be sure to go through each ledger carefully. The day book ledger you now have that is dated January 1st, 1935- June 1st 1938 is where Dr Hunt's personally handwritten entry on the first page of the ledger under 7th January and within his entry Jan 8 is noted and reads: 'Welfare, L. C. Mrs Vernon Presley. Pd, $15.00.' According to Dr Hunt's daughter she told me L. C. meant 'Labor case" (baby delivery). So one could consider this the first mention of Elvis' birth. (you might need to look close as in previous entries by Dr Hunt, he tends to skip a line between dates which was not the case for the January 7 & 8 entries.) As you know Jesse was born first at 4:00 am on January 8th, and Elvis was born thirty-five minutes later that morning at 4:35 am. This is an incredible find for you.

Here's a little back story of how I acquired the ledgers. In the early 1980s' there was a newspaper report of a burglary in  Memphis and a long story of the female victim whose house had been broken into. As it was, the only item she reported missing was a Physician's Birth Record Book which contained the birth of Jesse and Elvis Presley. The woman's' name was Sarah Hunt-Potter, the daughter of Dr .Hunt which was
stated in the newspaper article. A friend of mine Officer BJ Wilkinson of the Memphis Police Department, called me and asked if i has seen the write up in the paper that morning, which i had not. JB came over to my museum and went to Ms. Potter's home and talked with her about the situation. She was very gracious and showed us her father's physician's bag, his tools, ledgers and files of paperwork and spoke about her father's legacy. He was a very interesting man and highly respected. Some of the items and paperwork dated back to the late 1800's it was amazing as one might imagine. I asked her specifically about the Physician Birth Record book as she was quite distraught that it was one item missing out of her father's archives. I tried to assure her that whoever stole it didn't steal it to destroy it and offered to buy the book even though it had been stolen, on the chance it might be recovered which i was confident that one day it would eventually show up. Someone had an agenda and knew what they had. Ms Potter agreed to sell me the birth record book and surprised me with offering to sell me the rest of her father's belongings and so i did. Ledgers, day books, physician's bag, medical records, personal files etc., Dr Hunt lead quite an interesting life. He became a doctor by reading books while selling magazines on trains and even became Dean of the University of Mississippi. As luck would have it, the birth record book was found two weeks later and we learned that it was a neighbour who stole the book from Mrs Potter. He sold it to the Memphis Library located on Mud Island where it was on display. Officer Wilkinson and i went to the Mudd island Museum and they gave us the book back after showing proof of sale and ownership.

Again congratulations and all my best to you with your collection and your Elvis Presley Museum, hoping i get to see it in person someday. Take care and God bless.

(Hand signed) J Velvet