Grave Thursday

Grave Thursday: Art Loux

Posted on October 13, 2016 by Dave Taylor

Each week we are highlighting the final resting place of someone related to the Lincoln assassination story. It may be the grave of someone whose name looms large in assassination literature, like a conspirator, or the grave of one of the many minor characters who crossed paths with history. Welcome to Grave Thursday.

Arthur F. Loux

Art Loux

Burial Location: Pleasant Valley Cemetery, Overland Park, Kansas

art-louxs-grave

Connection to the Lincoln assassination:

Art Loux may not have been around during the time of Lincoln’s assassination, but, based on his detailed work on the subject, you would find it difficult to believe that he wasn’t. As a John Wilkes Booth and Lincoln assassination researcher, Art spent over 40 years delving into the history and engaging with others in the field. His name appears in the acknowledgements of countless books and practically all of the authors in the field considered Art a friend and generous colleague.

Art’s magnum opus, the product of his entire lifetime of researching, was his book, John Wilkes Booth: Day by Day.

Art Loux's JWB DBD

This fabulous book documents the day to day movements of the world renowned actor, John Wilkes Booth, who turned into our nation’s first Presidential assassin. Art spent decades compiling Booth’s daily whereabouts and movements using newspapers, personal writings, and published accounts. In the days before the internet, Art sent letters to practically every library and historical society in America asking the recipients to check whatever newspapers and microfilm they had for mentions of the assassin. The magnitude of his research is staggering. Thanks to Art’s careful and meticulous eye, the life of John Wilkes Booth has been documented in a way never before thought possible.

Art Loux passed away on December 29, 2013, two days after signing a deal with McFarland & Company to have John Wilkes Booth: Day by Day published for the masses. In one of the greatest injustices of fate, Art never got to see his work become one of the most revered texts in Lincoln assassination literature.

I have written about my deep appreciation for Art Loux before and I have a page here on BoothieBarn in memory of Art. Please take a few minutes out of your day to read more about the career and life of this wonderful historian.

I decided to choose Art for today’s Grave Thursday selection for two reasons. The first is that this Sunday, October 16th, would have been Art’s 72nd birthday and so I felt a mention this week was appropriate. The second reason I chose to include Art in Grave Thursday is because I know he would have enjoyed it. In addition to being a big Lincoln assassination buff, Art was also a big cemetery buff. Art was always visiting cemeteries looking for, and photographing, graves. Art’s daughter Jennifer, who supervised the publication of her father’s manuscript after his death, has told me that she has many childhood memories trekking through graveyards with her father looking for such-and-such’s grave. To prove it, here’s a picture Art took in 1978 of his daughter standing next to Laura Keene’s grave in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn (Keene, by the way, is the subject of next week’s Grave Thursday):

keene-laura-green-wood-aug-78

Art later became a big contributor to the site FindaGrave.com, uploading over 800 pictures he had taken over the years of different people’s graves. I hope by including Art in Grave Thursday I am honoring not only a man I deeply respect and miss, but also the hobby that he enjoyed so much.

Every time I open Art’s book, I am grateful I had a chance to know such a generous man who gave knowledge so freely and without the expectation of anything in return. In 1977, Art penned the following note, in which he wrote admiringly of the generosity and helpfulness of those in the Lincoln assassination field:

Art's letter 1977

Like the people he writes of in his note, Art, too, was remarkable. He was always generous with his time and knowledge, and still stands as a role model for me on how amateur historians are supposed to act and share. Every new post I put up here on BoothieBarn is my attempt to share my discoveries and knowledge with as many people as I can, just as Art did.

So, if you ever find yourself in the Topeka/Kansas City area, stop by Pleasant Valley Cemetery and pay your respects to one of the great historians in the field of Lincoln assassination studies, Arthur F. Loux.

dave-at-art-louxs-grave-7-8-2015

GPS coordinates for Art Loux’s grave: 38.838552, -94.695460

Categories: Grave Thursday, History | Tags: , , , | 8 Comments

Grave Thursday: C. Dwight Hess

Posted on October 6, 2016 by Dave Taylor

Each week we are highlighting the final resting place of someone related to the Lincoln assassination story. It may be the grave of someone whose name looms large in assassination literature, like a conspirator, or the grave of one of the many minor characters who crossed paths with history. Welcome to Grave Thursday.

C. Dwight Hess

C Dwight Hess

Burial Location: Westville Cemetery (Old Section), Westville, Indiana

c-dwight-hess-grave-6-25-2016

Connection to the Lincoln assassination:

C. Dwight Hess was the manager and co-owner of the National Theatre in Washington D.C. The theater, also known as Grover’s Theater after Hess’ co-owner, Leonard Grover, was the main theatrical competitor of Ford’s Theatre in Washington City. As the manager of the National Theatre, Hess was very familiar with the actor turned assassin John Wilkes Booth.

On April 13th, the day before Lincoln’s assassination, John Wilkes Booth paid a visit to the National Theatre where he found Hess running lines with the stage prompter George Wren. Booth barged into the office where Hess and Wren were speaking, sat himself down, and proceeded to converse with the two men. Hess and Wren broke from their rehearsal and entertained the young actor. During the conversation, Booth inquired with Hess whether he was going to participate in the Grand Illumination planned for that evening. Hess replied in the affirmative but that he was saving his best material in order to illuminate the next night, Friday, April 14th, the anniversary of the fall of Fort Sumter. After mentioning his plan to illuminate on Friday night, Booth then asked Hess, “Ain’t you going to invite the President out?” Hess replied that, yes, he was hoping to invite the Lincolns and even thanked Booth for reminding him to do so. After a bit more conversation, Booth departed and both Wren and Hess would comment that they thought it odd that Booth would mention the President given his known dissatisfaction with the Union government. Hess was not aware that Booth was laying the groundwork for a possible assassination right inside Hess’ own theater. C. Dwight Hess did send along an invitation to Mrs. Lincoln, inviting her and her husband to his planned illumination on Friday and for the theater’s performance of Aladdin! or the Wonderful Lamp. While Tad Lincoln would take up Hess’ offer, Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln would choose Ford’s Theatre for their entertainment on April 14th, and John Wilkes Booth’s plan would change venues because of it.

Hess would be present at his theater when the terrible news came in that the President Lincoln was assassinated over at Ford’s Theatre. His first thought after clearing the house was to send word to Leonard Grover who was not in D.C. at the time. Hess quickly dispatched a telegram to Grover which conveyed both his shock and relief:

hess-telegram-to-grover

Clarence Dwight Hess (who is also often recorded as Charles Dwight Hess) would later be a witness at the trial of the conspirators where he would testify about Booth’s visit to his theater on April 13th. After 1865, he continued in the theatrical business where he managed other theaters and even his own opera group which toured throughout Americas. In his later years, Hess retired to a small farm near Westville, Indiana. When he died on February 15, 1909, he was buried at the Westville Cemetery. Check out the Maps page for more details. For more information about Grover’s National Theatre and its connections to the Lincoln assassination story read the Grover’s Theatre and the Lincoln Assassination post.

GPS coordinates for C. Dwight Hess’ grave: 41.540153, -86.914445

Categories: Grave Thursday, History | Tags: , , , | 9 Comments

Grave Thursday: Junius Brutus Booth, Jr.

Posted on September 22, 2016 by Dave Taylor

Each week I am highlighting the final resting place of someone related to the Lincoln assassination story. It may be the grave of someone whose name looms large in assassination literature, like a conspirator, or the grave of one of the many minor characters who crossed paths with history. Welcome to Grave Thursday.

Junius Brutus Booth, Jr.

junius-brutus-booth-jr-cabinet-card-boothiebarn-watermark

Burial Location: Rosedale Cemetery, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts

junius-brutus-booth-jr-grave-2-5-2015-boothiebarn

junius-brutus-booth-jr-grave-5-2015-boothiebarn

junius-brutus-booth-jr-grave-plot-5-2015-boothiebarn

Connection to the Lincoln assassination:

Junius Brutus Booth, Jr. was the eldest brother of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Lincoln. For much of his younger brother’s upbringing, June (sixteen years John Wilkes’ senior) was acting in California. By the time June returned from the west, John Wilkes was grown and beginning his own acting career. Nevertheless, out of all of the Booth brothers, June may have had the closest relationship to John Wilkes. The differences in their ages and June’s more substantial life experiences likely made June a surrogate father figure to his younger brother. John Wilkes also took great interest in the lives of June’s children, doting upon and nurturing the acting careers of his nieces. More than anyone else in the family, June was the most sympathetic to John Wilkes’ political views. While June did not address politics with the same passion as John Wilkes, he was, nevertheless, more Confederate in his sympathies than the other Booths during the Civil War. However, June knew that he was a father and breadwinner to his children first and so he kept most of his sympathies to himself to protect his income and family.

While John Wilkes was close to June, he did not confide in him about his plot against Lincoln. In spring of 1865, John Wilkes kept up the charade among his family that he had made a fortune in the oil business and that he need not act upon the stage any more. Shortly before Lincoln’s assassination, June had learned the truth of John Wilkes’ failure in his oil ventures and wrote to him to “let go yr oil bus.” and “attend to your profession”. June was unaware that, since his failure in the oil fields, John Wilkes had referred to his plot to kidnap Lincoln as the “oil business”. When detectives found June’s letter while searching John Wilkes’ rented room at the National, they believed the elder Booth might have known of his brother’s plot. After barely escaping mob justice in Cincinnati where he had been performing, June was arrested at his sister’s house in Philadelphia. He and his brother-in-law, John Sleeper Clarke, were kept at the Old Capitol Prison in D.C. until they were released in the month of June.

Post assassination, Junius Brutus Booth returned to his career as an actor and theater manager. He married his third wife, Agnes Perry, in 1867 and had four boys with her, two of whom would survive into adulthood and become actors themselves. In his later years, Junius moved to Manchester-by-the-Sea in Massachusetts. June and Agnes opened and ran a large hotel called the Masconomo House where they often arranged for outdoor theatrical performances, including some of the earliest “Shakespeare in the Park” performances that had ever occurred.

When Junius Brutus Booth, Jr. died in 1883 he was not interred in the Booth family plot at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore. Instead, June is buried in Manchester-by-the-Sea at Rosedale Cemetery. His two young sons by Agnes preceded him in death. Agnes and a third son, Sydney Barton, were later buried in the same plot. Check out the Maps page for more details. For more images of Junius Brutus Booth, Jr., his wives, and his children, visit the Junius Brutus Booth, Jr. Picture Gallery.

GPS coordinates for Junius Brutus Booth, Jr.’s grave: 42.582743, -70.768894

Categories: Grave Thursday, History | Tags: , , | 1 Comment

Grave Thursday: Hartman Richter

Posted on September 8, 2016 by Dave Taylor

Each week I am highlighting the final resting place of someone related to the Lincoln assassination story. It may be the grave of someone whose name looms large in assassination literature, like a conspirator, or the grave of one of the many minor characters who crossed paths with history. Welcome to Grave Thursday.

Ernest Hartman Richter

hartman-richter

Burial Location: Neelsville Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Germantown, Maryland

hartman-richters-grave-1-3-2015

Hartman Richter's grave

Connection to the Lincoln assassination:

Ernest Hartman Richter, often known as just Hartman Richter in assassination literature, was the first cousin of conspirator George Atzerodt. Richter’s mother’s maiden name was Christanna Maria Atzerodt, the sister of George’s father, Johann. Like his cousin, Hartman Richter was born in Germany. In 1844, the Atzerodts and Richters immigrated to the United States  where they settled in Montgomery County, Maryland. Johann Atzerodt and his brother-in-law Frederick Richter invested in a farm in what is now Germantown, Maryland, and the families lived there together for some time. After a few years, Atzerodt sold his interest in the farm to his brother-in-law and moved his family to Westmoreland County, Virginia.

After the assassination of Lincoln, conspirator George Atzerodt escaped Washington City and headed north towards this former family home, now owned by his uncle and cousin. Atzerodt arrived at the Richter farm on April 16th and was welcomed in with open arms. George stayed about the home for several days until the early hours of April 20th, when Union soldiers came knocking at the door. It was George’s cousin, Hartman Richter who answered the soldiers knock that morning. I’ll let Sgt. Gemmill, the lead officer who arrived at the Richter home, explain what happened next:

“I went to the house of a man named Richter, I think, and asked him if there was a man there named [Atwood]. I had two men with me at the time. I understood him to say that he was his cousin but [he] had left and gone to Frederick. One of my men understood the same, but the other did not. I then told him I would search the house. He then said there was a man in the house. He commenced telling me a yarn and I was suspicious of him. I then searched the house and went up to his room. There were three men in one bed, two of them young men by the name of Nichols living in the neighborhood, who did not explain how they came there; but as my orders were to arrest Atzerodt alone, I did not arrest them [Note: the two Nichols men were the brothers of Hartman Richter’s wife]. When the door opened the two of them awoke. He [Atzerodt] did not awake or at least pretended not to till I went up to the bed. I asked him his name. He gave me a name which I though was Atwood, but I heard it indistinctly as he spoke with a German accent and I was not certain about it.”‘

Despite Sgt. Gemmill having orders to only arrest Atzerodt, Richter’s attempt to hide his cousin’s presence in the home was very suspicious and led Gemmill to return to the Richter home. “I told his cousin to get ready, as I wanted him to go with me. He said he did not want to go; that he did not know what he was arrested for. Atzerodt never asked me a question in relation to the cause of his arrest, although he was in my custody several hours.”

Hartman Richter was taken down to Washington and imprisoned aboard the USS Saugus just like his cousin. Richter also has the distinction of having his mug shot photograph taken just like the main conspirators. From time to time you’ll find people who mistake Richter’s mug shot photographs for ones of Dr. Mudd. Dr. Mudd was never placed, or photographed, on the monitors.

Richter, like the conspirators, was transferred to the Old Arsenal Penitentiary where he would be imprisoned until May 13th. By that date it had been well determined that Richter had no knowledge of his cousin’s involvement in the plot against Lincoln. He was transferred to the more “minimum security” prison, the Old Capitol Prison, where some of the other “suspicious but not evidently guilty” persons were held. On May 30th, Richter was released from jail completely.

Ernest Hartman Richter far outlived the cousin he tried to protect, dying on February 21, 1920. He is buried in the Neelsville Presbyterian Church Cemetery, in Germantown, Maryland, not too far from the site of his former home. Check out the Maps page for more details. For more images of Hartman Richter and the other “non-conspirator” who had mug shot photographs taken, visit the Fake Conspirators Gallery.

GPS coordinates for Ernest Hartman Richter’s grave: 39.1958242, -77.2431242

Categories: Grave Thursday, History | Tags: , , , | 15 Comments

Grave Thursday: General Levi Dodd

Posted on September 1, 2016 by Dave Taylor

In an effort to get back to posting on a more regular schedule, I’ve decided to attempt a weekly post entitled, Grave Thursday. Each week I will highlight the final resting place of someone related to the Lincoln assassination story. It may be the grave of someone whose name looms large in assassination literature, like a conspirator, or the grave of one of the many minor characters who crossed paths with history. They won’t be lengthy posts, but they will be something to look forward to between my increasingly irregular research intensive pieces.

Bvt. Brig. Gen. Levi Axtell Dodd

Gen Levi Dodd

Burial Location: Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland

Levi Dodd's Grave Green Mount

Connection to the Lincoln assassination:

On May 2, 1865, Col. Levi Axtell Dodd of the 211th Pennsylvania Volunteers was assigned duty under the command of Maj. Gen. John Hartranft. At that time, General Hartranft had been assigned as the commander of the Old Arsenal Penitentiary in Washington, D.C. and was charged with the imprisonment and care of the Lincoln assassination conspirators as they underwent trial. Col. Dodd joined Hartranft’s staff and would serve under him. Dodd’s major duties were to supervise the prisoners. Reports show that he supervised George Atzerodt as the latter bathed. After the day’s trial proceedings were over, Dodd would also stay in the court room with some of the prisoners when their lawyers wished to counsel with them. Dodd also supervised visits between the conspirators and their guests, sitting in on a meeting between Mary Surratt and her friend Mr. Kirby. After the execution of four of the conspirators, Dodd, who was subsequently brevetted as a brigadier general due to the recommendation of General Hartranft, was given the task of escorting the four remaining conspirators to their distant prison of Fort Jefferson off of the coast of Florida. This task he completed, earning the appreciation of Dr. Mudd who stated that Gen. Dodd allowed the lily iron handcuffs to be removed from the conspirators during part of the voyage. Dr. Mudd’s appreciation of Gen. Dodd would not last, however. Upon returning back from Fort Jefferson, Dodd, along with two others who accompanied the conspirators, would state that on the journey to the island prison Dr. Mudd confessed that he had known the identity of John Wilkes Booth the moment the assassin showed up at his door. According to Dodd and the others, Dr. Mudd lied about not knowing Booth due to his own fear of punishment.

It is also interesting to note that Levi Dodd was born in Franklin, a small town in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In 1864, John Wilkes Booth traveled to Franklin and invested a great deal of his wealth in the oil fields nearby. Booth and some of his pals sunk quite a lot of money into a well in Franklin called the Wilhelmina, but the enterprise was a failure.

Gen. Dodd is buried in Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, the very same cemetery as John Wilkes Booth and many others connected to the assassination of Lincoln. Check out the Maps page for more details.

GPS coordinates for Gen. Levi Dodd’s grave: 39.306333, -76.604881

Categories: Grave Thursday, History | Tags: , , , , | 24 Comments

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