Monthly Archives: January 2025

An Interview with Alan E. Hunter: Keeper of the Oldroyd Flame

Posted on January 21, 2025 by Dave Taylor

Alan E. Hunter is a newspaperman and former educator from Indianapolis, Indiana. He is the author of several history books on subjects ranging from local Indiana to the infamous multi-murderer H. H. Holmes. In December of 2024, Al published two new books related to the subject of Abraham Lincoln. One is a biography of Dr. Wayne “Doc” Temple, a noted Lincoln historian who will be celebrating his 101st birthday in February. His other book is a detailed biography of the famous Lincoln collector and author Osborn H. Oldroyd. This latter subject is best known to Lincoln assassination buffs as the man who operated his own museum out of the Lincoln home in Springfield, Illinois, and then from the Petersen House where Lincoln died in Washington. In 1901, Oldroyd also published a book on the assassination of Lincoln, during the writing of which he walked John Wilkes Booth’s escape route, talking to survivors who interacted with the assassins 35 years before.

I invited Al to a virtual interview to discuss his new books and a book he published in 2020 about the House Where Lincoln Died. Al is a wealth of information about one of the more interesting side characters in the Lincoln story, and his enthusiasm for his friend and mentor, Dr. Wayne Temple, shines throughout our talk together. I learned many new things about both Osborn Oldroyd and Dr. Temple from my talk with Al. I hope you’ll give it a watch or listen:

If you are in the central Illinois area, you can join Al for the official launch of his new books on February 16, 2025, at 10:00am at Books on the Square in Springfield. Al will be speaking about both Doc Temple and Oldroyd while signing copies of his books.

For those of us who, sadly, live far from Springfield, you can still purchase Al’s books through Amazon. You can click on the names or cover images below to purchase the three books discussed in the interview.

Osborn H. Oldroyd: Keeper of the Lincoln Flame (2024)

The Petersen House, The Oldroyd Museum and the House Where Lincoln Died (2020)

Thursdays with Doc: Recollections on Springfield & Lincoln (2024)

You can also keep an eye on Al and his interesting history columns by following him on his blog, AlanEHunter.com.

I’m grateful to Al for taking the time to talk to me about his research and books. If you enjoyed this interview, let me know. If there is enough interest, I’d be open to doing more interviews with other authors and researchers in the Lincoln assassination field.

Categories: History | Tags: , , , , | 3 Comments

Visit (and Volunteer at) the Dr. Samuel A. Mudd House Museum in 2025

Posted on January 19, 2025 by Dave Taylor

The Dr. Samuel A. Mudd House Museum in Waldorf, Maryland, has announced its opening date for 2025. The museum will open for the season on Saturday, April 5, 2025, just in time for the 160th anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The tour season will run through November 23, 2025, followed by their annual Victorian Christmas event in December.

I have written a fair amount about Dr. Mudd and just recently published my video series on Fort Jefferson, which talks all about Dr. Mudd’s imprisonment. My opinion about the culpability of Dr. Mudd in John Wilkes Booth’s original plot to abduct the president is pretty well established. As a historian who believes that Dr. Mudd was largely guilty of the charges brought against him, it is probably surprising to hear that I am also a huge advocate of the Dr. Samuel A. Mudd House Museum. The reason that I am such a fan of the Mudd house is due to the amazing evolution the Southern Maryland museum has gone through over the past few years.

If you visited the museum prior to about 2015 or so, you were likely given the “Dr. Mudd was an innocent country doctor” tour that dominated the museum from its founding by members of the Mudd family. It is true that for the first several decades of its life, the Mudd house had a clearly apologist slant when it came to its namesake owner. Several narrators of the John Wilkes Booth escape route bus tours, like James O. Hall and Edward Steers, were not permitted to exit the bus at the Mudd house due to their habit of poking holes in the family narrative of the doctor’s alleged innocence.

However, those regrettable days are well in the past now at the Mudd house. A change in leadership has championed a period of growth and a re-evaluation of the museum’s place in the 21st century. Through new programs and improved docent training, the Dr. Samuel A. Mudd House Museum has transformed. Gone are the days of the family-run apologist oddity decorated in the trappings of the Myth of the Lost Cause. In its place is a proper museum that actively engages with the complex history of Dr. Mudd’s involvement with John Wilkes Booth and his role as an enslaver. Rather than ignoring or trying to hide its difficult past, the Dr. Mudd house confronts its history and has worked to restore diverse stories back into the narrative.

Lead docent Bob Bowser conducting one of his amazing walking tours of the Mudd House property in 2019.

I was so impressed by the growth of the Mudd House and their devotion to reconciling with their past that I actually signed up to be a volunteer docent. I received docent training and a handbook all about the lives of those who lived and worked at the Dr. Mudd farm. Unfortunately, right before my first volunteer season started, COVID-19 came, and my subsequent move to Texas just before the house reopened prevented me from actually giving tours there. But I can assure you, if I were still living in Maryland, I would be a regular volunteer guide at the Dr. Mudd house. They are doing an amazing job of telling the story of Lincoln’s assassination in an inclusive and modern way.

I would like to motivate anyone who lives within driving distance of Charles County, Maryland, to consider volunteering at the Dr. Samuel A. Mudd House Museum. The folks at the Mudd house are doing such a fantastic job, but they are also stretched incredibly thin. The Mudd house receives no state or county funding. They rely solely on the paid admissions of visitors and donations to keep operating. The entire museum is run by an executive board and supporting society that is comprised entirely of volunteers. While the leadership at the museum is doing great things, more volunteers are desperately needed to help pass on the site’s history to the public.

There are many ways you can volunteer at the Dr. Mudd house. There are admissions attendants who welcome visitors in and get them set up for tours, gift shop volunteers who work the register and take money, and, of course, docents who take visitors through the house and tell them the history. New docents receive training and a helpful handbook about the history of the house, its residents, and the Lincoln assassination story. You shadow experienced docents until you feel comfortable starting off on your own. Period costumes, while welcome, are not required for docents, removing the financial burden associated with trying to find Victorian dress.

But even if you don’t feel comfortable giving tours, the Mudd house could still benefit from your presence as an admissions or gift shop worker. The museum is only open on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and the time commitment is relatively minimal.  Even volunteering just one day each month during the season would be incredibly helpful to the folks at the Mudd house.

If this post has motivated you to learn more about the different volunteer opportunities at the Mudd house (and I hope it has), please consult the infographic below and reach out to the museum via phone, on their Facebook page, or email them at muddnews@gmail.com. I know that you will find the Mudd house to be a welcoming place, and very grateful for your willingness to give the gift of your time and service.

As part of the museum’s announcement regarding its opening date and plans for the 2025 season is the note that tours will now start at the top of each hour. The former practice of trying to give tours whenever folks showed up has caused difficulties due to the limited number of docents and the limited space inside the historic house. In the past, docents would sometimes have to rush to finish a tour they were conducting because competing groups of new visitors arrived within a short span of time. It created a regrettable situation for both the docents and the visitors. The new process of running tours starting on the hour will ensure the docents are able to give equal time to each guest and allow visitors better transparency on how to plan their trip. If you visit the museum in 2025, make sure that you arrive several minutes before each hour to park, walk up to the back of the house, use the bathroom if necessary, and pay for your admission for the next tour. A new welcome video will be debuting this coming season to help you get acquainted with the site before the tour starts.

Since the last tour of the day will now start promptly at 3:00 pm, the entrance gate for the Mudd house will be closed at 3:00 pm, as well. By that time, the participants of the tour will already be starting off. While latecomers to other tours could always catch the next tour time, this will not be the case for the last tour of the day. Be sure not to be late for the 3:00 pm tour. Otherwise, you may find the gate closed to new visitors, and you will have to come back another day.

If you haven’t been to the Dr. Samuel A. Mudd House Museum in a while, I highly recommend you make a return visit in the coming year. I know you will be pleasantly surprised by how much the museum has grown due to a devoted board and a wonderful group of volunteers who would love for you to join them. I hope you will find time to rediscover the Dr. Mudd house, including their unique walking tours of the property delving into John Wilkes Booth’s escape and the lives of the enslaved men and women who lived and worked on the farm. His name may be Mudd, but the Dr. Samuel A. Mudd House Museum is a true gem.

P.S. If you do visit or volunteer, tell ’em missing docent Dave Taylor says “Hi!” from Texas.

Categories: History, News | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

A New Year’s Resolution

Posted on January 2, 2025 by Dave Taylor

Well, 2025 is now upon us. Like many folks, I have taken time over the past couple of days to establish some resolutions for the coming year. Most of my resolutions are of the standard variety. I’m going to try to exercise more, spend less money, and stop staying up so late. How successful I will be in these endeavors remains to be seen, as they are pretty similar to my resolutions from last year.

In addition to these common resolutions, I have also decided to make it my goal for 2025 to write a book. Over the years, many kind individuals have encouraged me to write my own book on the Lincoln assassination. Each time, however, I have demurred, noting that the most definitive book about the Lincoln assassination has already been written: American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies by Michael Kauffman. I still believe that Kauffman’s book is the most detailed account of the assassination, and I know that I could never come close to reaching his level of scholarship.

That said, there has been an idea that I have been mulling over for the past couple of years. It was a concept I explored a bit during my Master’s program, but I didn’t feel I had the time to explore it fully then. In time, other shiny new projects have popped up to distract me, such as my Lincoln Conspirators at Fort Jefferson video series (which I’m really very proud of and you should all watch) and my reviews of the Manhunt miniseries. After finishing both of these lengthy projects last month, I found myself asking, “What’s next?” and my mind returned to this latent book idea.

I’ve never attempted to write a book before. The sheer size of such an endeavor is intimidating, to say the least. I wasn’t sure if this was something I could ever reasonably accomplish. This is especially true since I’m one of those dreaded “hunt and peck” typers who only uses like two or three fingers to type, a particularly slow and error-inducing process. However, according to my blog statistics for 2024, I wrote a total of almost 91,000 words last year. That is right in the range of a full-length book of about 300 pages, showing me that a book is actually within my abilities.

So, today, I broke ground, as it were, on my book, and I’m committed to keep working on it over the course of 2025. Whether I can get it completed in a year, I don’t know, but my resolution is to work on it as much as I can and see where I am by the end of the year.

My reason for writing this post is to make you aware that this is likely to be a slow year on LincolnConspirators.com. My postings will be few and far between as I choose instead to work on my book rather than on new web content. I do know of a couple of colleagues of mine who will be publishing their own books in the next few months, which I am eager to highlight, and I also have a friend working on a guest blog post that I know you will all enjoy. So, some content will be posted occasionally, but don’t expect any deep dives on a subject, as my research time will be devoted to working on my book.

During the lean times, I hope you will reengage with some of the older content on this site. You may have noticed a new “pinned post” on the blog’s home page directing readers to some of my special projects. At the end of that projects page, I included a list of some of my favorite blog posts. I hope re-reading some of those gems will provide some interesting content during the interim.

For the time being, I am going to be a bit secretive regarding the topic of my book (Hint: it has something to do with Lincoln’s assassination). This may change as time goes on, but in these early days, I would prefer to keep my cards close. It will hopefully make for a better reveal down the road this way. To my colleagues who follow this blog, don’t be surprised if you get an email or phone call from me in the coming year with an appeal to pick your brain. I’ve always felt that history is a collaborative effort, which is why this blog exists for all to read and learn from.

I’m excited (and scared) about the coming year and my resolution to write a book. I appreciate your patience and support during this year as I attempt to make this resolution a reality. And, if any of you authors have some advice on how to write a book, I would very much appreciate your guidance in the comments.

~Dave

Categories: History, News | 19 Comments

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