A few interesting Lincoln assassination related events have popped up on the radar over the next couple of months that I wanted to share. I wish I lived near some of these so that I could attend them.
August 25, 2023
Boston, Massachusetts
Lincoln and Booth: Live Music Played to Film
“The West End Museum presents an unforgettable theatrical experience when members of the New England Film Orchestra combine the magic of film with the power of music as they perform live music in-sync to two films highlighting the lives of Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth.
Odie Henderson, Boston Globe Film Critic and author of ‘Black Caesars and Foxy Cleopatras: A History of Blaxploitation Cinema’ (out in January 2024), will join us to provide context for the films.
John Wilke’s Booth was in Boston in April of 1865, eight days before the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. What the well-known actor was doing during those last fateful days is not altogether clear, but during that time was purportedly seen practicing his aim at a local shooting gallery.
The first firm is an early silent short by Thomas Edison from 1915 entitled “The Life of Abraham Lincoln,” which spans the famous president’s life from his marriage to his assassination by Booth. The second, “The Man in the Barn,” is a speculative docu-drama from 1937 that asks if John Wilkes Booth didn’t die by gunshot while trapped in a burning barn just days after Lincoln’s assassination, but rather escaped to live another 38 years.
Don’t miss this one-of-a-kind “surround-sound” movie event at Boston’s landmark Hub Hall, adjacent to TD Garden and North Station and boasting 18 diverse food and drink options for a before or after-movie snack.”
Cost: $15
Event page: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/lincoln-and-booth-live-music-played-to-film
September 23, 2023
Washington, D.C.
Smithsonian Booth Escape Route Bus Tour [led by American Brutus author, Michael Kauffman!]
“Fleeing Ford’s Theatre on the night of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth traveled through Maryland into Virginia, where, a few days later, he was found and fatally shot. Historian Michael Kauffman retraces Booth’s escape route and reveals the personalities and intrigues surrounding the Lincoln assassination.
Stops include Ford’s Theatre; the house near Clinton, Maryland, belonging to Mary Surratt, who was hanged for her involvement in the plot; and the house of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, who set Booth’s broken leg.
Enjoy a seafood lunch at Captain Billy’s Crab House at Popes Creek Landing, near where Booth and co-conspirator David Edgar Herold crossed the Potomac. In Virginia, visit sites where they contacted local sympathizers and where Booth was captured and died.”
Cost: $170 for members, $220 for non members
Event page: https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/booths-escape-route
October 15, 2023
Albany, New York
The Rathbones of Albany The Tragic Story of John Wilkes Booth’s Last Victim
Presented by the Friends of Albany Rural Cemetery
“Clara Harris and Henry Reed Rathbone were from prominent families in Albany. Each had wealth, education, and a bright future. Mark will reveal the sad, gruesome, yet true story of two local people who witnessed the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln first-hand, and the Cottage in Loudonville where ghostly apparitions have been reported.”
[Note from Dave: While Henry and Clara Rathbone are not buried at the Albany Rural Cemetery, their parents are. In addition, this cemetery is the final resting place of Absalom Bainbridge, one of the Confederate soldiers who met up with John Wilkes Booth and David Herold at Port Conway on April 24, 1865. Bainbridge assisted his cousin Mortimer Ruggles and a third Confederate, Willie Jett, in transporting Booth to the Garrett farm. Herold went with Bainbridge to spend the night at the home of Mrs. Clarke outside of Bowling Green. On the morning of April 25th, Bainbridge and Ruggles brought Herold back to the Garretts where they dropped him off. After seeing the Union soldiers crossing the ferry between Port Conway and Port Royal, Bainbridge and Ruggles raced back to alert Booth and Herold before fleeing themselves. If you attend this event, be sure to hunt down Bainbridge’s grave (and send me a photo of it). President Chester Arthur is buried here, too.]
Cost: Tickets don’t go on sale until September 24th
Event page: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-rathbones-of-albany-the-tragic-story-of-john-wilkes-booths-last-victim
October 21, 2023
Bel Air, Maryland
The Lincolns, the Booths, and the Spirits & The Forgotten Women of the Lincoln Assassination
“The Junius B. Booth Society (JBBS) and the Historical Society of Harford County, Inc. (HSHC) are holding an intriguing, one-of-a kind fundraising event titled The Lincolns, the Booths, and the Spirits & The Forgotten Women of the Lincoln Assassination featuring author/historians Terry Alford and Kathryn Canavan on Saturday, October 21 at the Historical Society of Harford County. This is a fundraiser and the proceeds will be split between JBBS and HSHC. All proceeds to JBBS will be used for the Tudor Hall museum. Seating is limited to 95 people, so reserve your seats now. Drinks and snacks will be provided. Following the closing remarks, the first floor of Tudor Hall, the childhood home of John Wilkes Booth will be open to attendees till 5:30 PM.
Terry Alford will present The Lincolns, the Booths, and the Spirits. Terry’s latest book, In the Houses of Their Dead, is the first book of the many thousands written about Lincoln to focus on the president’s fascination with Spiritualism (very popular in the Civil War era). Terry will demonstrate how it linked Lincoln, uncannily, to the man who would kill him. Abraham Lincoln is usually seen as a rational, empirically-minded man, yet as acclaimed scholar and biographer Terry Alford reveals, he was also deeply superstitious and drawn to the irrational. Like millions of other Americans, including the Booths, Lincoln and his wife, Mary, suffered repeated personal tragedies, and turned for solace to Spiritualism, a new practice sweeping the nation that held that the dead were nearby and could be contacted by the living. Remarkably, the Lincolns and the Booths even used the same mediums, including Charles Colchester, a specialist in “blood writing” whom Mary first brought to her husband, and who warned the president after listening to the ravings of another of his clients, John Wilkes Booth.
Kathryn Canavan is an independent researcher and the author of Lincoln’s Final Hours: Conspiracy, Terror, and the Assassination of America’s Greatest President. Kathryn will present The Forgotten Women of the Lincoln Assassination digging deep and uncovering surprising secrets and stories about some of the fascinating women connected to Lincoln’s assassination.”
Cost: $30
Event page: https://www.harfordhistory.org/event/the-booths-of-bel-air/
LincolnConspirators.com 
Very cool Dave! At least when I was there 10 years ago Bainbridge’s grave was unmarked but his plot could be located. My wife and I went by the Harris home and walked back & forth in front. Finally the owners came out and talked to us. They showed us where the closet was (no longer extant) where Clara placed her bloody dress.
There’s a photo on FindaGrave of a marker at Bainbridge’s grave. The photo is dated 2012. I wonder when it was put in.
That’s so cool that the owners let you and and we’re so aware of the house’s history. Thanks for sharing!
Dave, yep, there is a marker! I checked my notes. When Absolom died he was living in a house with a Harriet Hotaling and her husband. There is a marker for Harriet & spouse and Absolom was supposedly buried in an unmarked grave to the right of them. Maybe someone marked it or maybe I’m wrong!
I would love to attend these events, but at 81 years of age, I can’t make the trip up there! I have some of my Booth, and Lincoln CDVs on EBay right now, I have a cabinet card of Booth’s father, and a couple of CDVs of his brother, Edwin, but I have not put them up for sale yet, I am trying to downsize my collection, at one time I had about 20 of Booth! There were 72 known images of him, a husband, and wife put out a book on them, and numbered them! He did one setting where the photographer took I think 4, and the only way you can tell that they are different, is his left arm moved between shots, the space between the arm, and his body are different. I have 3 of the photos, I was going to put them in a picture frame where you could see the difference. I have one frame that has 3 CDVs in it, the CDV of the death scene with all the people around the bed, one of Lincoln, one of Booth, a small piece of wall paper from the death room in the Peterson house, a thread from the sheet that covered Lincoln, and a copy of the picture taken by the photographer that lived upstairs! I want to enlarge that picture to life size, and color it in sepia tone and cover the eyes with half dollars of the same date, and mint that were on Lincoln’s eyes! If you do EBay check them out! Well got to go, time for supper!
The playing of live music underneath THE MAN IN THE BARN. Is a neat idea! The soundtrack is all narration, which sounds like it was written with the help of Otto Eisenschiml; all very sensational sounding words. I wonder what musical composition has been selected! The playing of music for Edison’s Lincoln short is an idea I came up with over forty years ago, when I showed my super 8 mm. print to the LGNY. The recorded music I selected was Louis Moureau Gottschaulk’, s “Patriotic” a ,piano piece. (forgive me for spelling his first two names wrong and not giving the full name of the music; it’s a lengthy title.) That selection was ideal for the Edison short, even tho I had to play it twice. It was also a very appropriate choice for a special and little known reason:— Gottschaulk composed it around 1862, and performed it in concert in the northeast. LINCOLN HEARD GOTTSCHAULK PLAY IT — AT AN 1864 CONCERT! I wonder what LIVE musical composition will be played during the screening of the Edison film. (The film is primitive and was cheaply made at Edison’s studio in the Bronx. Nevertheless, it is a great period film. It was the first time Frank McGlynn ever portrayed Lincoln, and he shines in it. Some of the scenes depicted in it were movie “firsts” — the great debates, the farewell speech in Springfield, the Gettysburg Address(silent of course, with titles!), and Lincoln dreaming that he encountered the president’s body (not necessarily HIS body!) lying in State in the White House. The assassination and death of Lincoln had been recreated on film back in 1908, but it’s a “lost” film. Therefore, Edison’s re-enactments of these two scenes are the earliest extant film re-enactments!
PS in illustrating the blurb about the screening, the Boston folks used a scene from “The Birth of a Nation, “ NOT Edison’s film. (Both were released in 1915!)
To Mr. Ingram:— writing that you will add silver dollars to Lincoln’s eyes in the photo taken by the Ulke boys indicates that you are referring to the photo that was shown on tv a couple of years ago with great hoopla. There are definite features IN that photo and definite features that are NOT in that photo proving that it is simply someone having FAKED it. That’s not really Lincoln. If anybody out there saw that tv show, you may recall that a blow up was unveiled for James Swanson and Allan Guelzo. Did you notice that they didn’t say that they thought it is Lincoln? If they had believed it was, the show would have certainly included them saying so! Obviously they did NOT think it was Lincoln! Sorry, sir.
….I remember that “sensationalized” show very well. when they looked at the suposed photo, …it was cringe worthy. Agreed!
Hey Dave, here’s a challenge. For each of the following, how would YOUR sentence have differed from what they actually got?
Spangler
M. Surratt
Mudd
Arnold
O’Laughlen