As much fun as it is to research and write here on BoothieBarn, there’s something special about being out in public and sharing aspects of the Lincoln assassination with others face to face. Today I had a wonderful time meeting and showing off a few of the Maryland sites of Booth’s escape route with D.C tour guide Rick Snider and his friend Dennis. Rick offers many tours in D.C., including a walking tour of Lincoln assassination sites.
My afternoon with Rick and Dennis reminded me of some of the upcoming speaking events that I have in the next few weeks. Spring is the busy season when it comes to the assassination story and so the following are times and places when you can come out and heckle meet me in person. I always love chatting with folks and answering questions about this fascinating period of history.
Date: Saturday, March 19, 2016
Location: St. Charles High School, Waldorf, Maryland (5305 Piney Church Rd, Waldorf, MD 20602)
Time: 12:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Speech: Choose Your Own Path: The Lincoln Assassination
Speaker: Dave Taylor
Description: Over the last few weeks, I have been developing an interactive school program in the same style of the classic “Choose Your Own Adventure” book series. Like the book series, the text is written in second person point of view with the participants taking on the role of a member of Booth’s conspiracy. They are presented with the story of the Lincoln conspiracy and must make decisions to either help or hinder John Wilkes Booth’s plot. The presentation is filled with historical facts and will eventually include a Informational Packet for supplementary info about the people, places, and actions in the story. As part of the Charles County Public Schools’ HITS Expo (think combination History Day and Science Fair) I will be presenting a pilot version of this presentation from 12:00 until 1:00 pm in a classroom and will then be at an informational table for the remainder of the time. The event is open to the public and many other history and science presenters will be there includinh the Maryland Historical Society and rangers from Thomas Stone National Historic site.
Cost: Free
*Additional Event*
Want to make it a full day of events on March 19? After coming to see me in Waldorf, drive up to nearby Clinton and go to the Surratt House Museum at 4:00 pm. Author and blogger Paula Whitacre will be presenting her in depth research on Julia Wilbur, a member of the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society who lived in Alexandria and Washington D.C. during the Civil War. I was able to see Ms. Whitacre speak on the fascinating diaries of Julia Wilbur last year and used much of her research to write a couple of blog posts regarding Julia Wilbur’s Lincoln assassination experiences. For more information about Ms. Whitacre’s presentation, visit the Surratt House Museum website.
Date: Sunday, April 3, 2016
Location: Tudor Hall (17 Tudor Ln, Bel Air, MD 21015)
Time: 2:00 pm
Speech: Rosalie Booth: The Eldest Sister of John Wilkes Booth
Speaker: Dave Taylor
Description: As part of Tudor Hall’s 2016 speaking series, I will be presenting about the often forgotten Booth sibling, Rosalie Booth, highlighting her life and contributions to the illustrious Booth family. More information can be found here.
Cost: $5.00 cash for the talk and a tour of Tudor Hall
Date: Saturday, April 23, 2016
Location: Surratt House Museum (9118 Brandywine Road, Clinton, MD 20735)
Time: 7:00 am – 7:00 pm
Speech: John Wilkes Booth Escape Route Bus Tour
Speaker: Dave Taylor
Description: I am the tour guide/narrator for this date’s John Wilkes Booth escape route bus tour. The approximately 12 hour bus trip documents the escape of the assassin through Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. It is pretty much a full day of me endlessly talking and telling you the story of Booth’s escape while you fall asleep on the bus after a delicious lunch at Captain Billy’s Crab House. It is hands down my favorite “speech” to give.
Cost: $85. Registration information can be found at: http://www.surrattmuseum.org/booth-escape-tour
Date: Sunday, April 24, 2016
Location: St Clement’s Island Museum (38370 Point Breeze Road, Coltons Point, MD 20626)
Time: 2:00 pm
Speech: The Forgotten Tragedy on the Potomac: The Collision of the USS Massachusetts and the Black Diamond
Speaker: Dave Taylor
Description: A memorial event is being planned to honor the 87 lives that were lost in the Potomac River when the USS Massachusetts struck the Black Diamond anchored off of St. Clement’s Island. I will speak on the event and how the tragedy was ultimately collateral damage from John Wilkes Booth’s crime. More information on the entire event will be published in the future.
Cost: Free
Date: Saturday, April 30, 2016
Location: Port Royal, Virginia
Time: 10:00 am
Speech: John Wilkes Booth’s Escape Through Virginia
Speaker: Dave Taylor
Description: A bus tour of the Virginia sites connected to the escape of John Wilkes Booth is being planned by Historic Port Royal with the hopes that assassination author Michael Kauffman will be the narrator. If he is unable to do it, I will be doing the tour. Either way, I will be on the tour bus and will likely be presenting a short skit at the Peyton House in Port Royal re-enacting Booth’s arrival. More information and an exact cost will be posted at: http://www.historicportroyal.net/events/
Cost: $65 (price is not definitive)
*Prime Heckling Opportunity*
Date: Sunday, May 1, 2016
Location: Tudor Hall (17 Tudor Ln, Bel Air, MD 21015)
Time: 2:00 pm
Speech: Junius Brutus Booth and Tudor Hall
Speaker: Jim Garrett
Description: Jim is a good friend of ours who is a tour guide for D.C.’s Old Town Trolley Tours. Jim’s co-written a couple books on the assassination and is a very lively speaker. He’s also a man in need of a good heckle. I hope to make it up to one of Jim’s talks at Tudor Hall and will have plenty of extra tomatoes if you would like to join me in throwing them at him. Jim will be a busy guy at Tudor Hall giving this Junius speech again on July 10th along with another speech on John Wilkes Booth on June 5th and August 7th. More information can be found here.
Cost: $5.00 cash for the talk and a tour of Tudor Hall
In addition to these scheduled talks and tours, I can also be found as a participant in other assassination related events. On April 14th, I will be attending a nighttime tour of Ford’s Theatre narrated by Manhunt author, James Swanson.
I am also available as a narrator for Booth escape route bus tour for private groups. You can contact the Surratt House Museum to make arrangements for your group and can request me as your tour guide.
You can also find a condensed version of my upcoming speaking engagements on the sidebar menu for desktop users and near the bottom of the page for mobile users. I hope to see you out in the real world sometime and thanks for all your support.
~Dave Taylor
LincolnConspirators.com 
Wow! You and Kate are busy LOL! I wish I lived closer so I can see you guys do these great presentations.
You can also find all of Tour Hall’s guided tour dates including Dave’s, Kate’s and Jim’s special presentations by clicking here: http://spiritsoftudorhall.blogspot.com
Is Rick Snider related to Mary Surratt on the Surratt side or the Jenkins side??
Hi Laurie, My father’s maternal lineage is related to the Surratt side so she was married to my third cousin. But, to me, your family is your family no matter if they’re blood or by marriage.
Rick
I agree. I was asking because we are working with a Jenkins descendant out west who is trying to untie some knots in his research. I was hoping you could help with that line.
However, has anyone in your family determined who John Surratt, Sr’s parents were? He was raised by foster parents, and we lost the line connection after the War of 1812. There is a possibility that his foster mother was his birth mother, but the dean of Lincoln assassination studies, James O. Hall, could only take it so far and then had to give an educated guess. So far, everyone else has struck out also in making the one defining link.
My family tree has John Sr.’s parents as Alphonsus and Ann Saratt. If they’re foster parents I don’t know. The tree goes another two generations to Joseph Surratt born in 1664.
Alphonsus and Ann were actually the grandparents of John H. Surratt, Sr. One of their seven sons was his father, but we do not know which one. His foster mother, Sarah Talbot Neal(e) may have been his real mother, but we can’t prove it.
See surrattmuseum.org/history/John H. Surratt, Sr’s ancestry for the documented history that we have compiled – largely through the efforts of Dr. James O. Hall and Dr. & Mrs. Norman Sarratt, all of whom carried their research back to the French origins of the family by actually going to France.
Our research also goes back to Joseph Sarratt, whose death around 1715 in Maryland produced the first written documentation of the family’s ties to our colonies.