John Treat was a musician who left behind a handwritten copybook titled "Gamut for the Fifes" that is dated to 1779. He is mentiond as living in Durham, though whether it's the Durham in northern England or in eastern Connecticut isn't clear.

The subdirectory GftF contains the ABC source files for all the tunes. This directory contains just the full collection in the .abc files. GftF1.abc is transcribed for version 1 ABC software, so it may be missing such things as dynamics or some unusual kinds of grace notes. GftF2.abc is for version 2 ABC software, which is rarely needed for this book, but in a few cases shows Treat's written grace notes. Some ABC software may not handle the version 2 notation correctly.