Visiting Tudor Hall

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Dave Taylor

Last Sunday, May 19th, I took advantage of one of the bimonthly tours of Tudor Hall near Bel Air, Maryland.

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On June 30, 1821, famed British tragedian Junius Brutus Booth and his pregnant lady, Mary Ann Holmes, arrived in America. Their voyage across the sea from their native England was due twofold. First, Junius hoped for greater wealth and success in the new land and second, the pair were hoping to escape and start anew to avoid the truth of their relationship. Though assumed to be man and wife, Junius and Mary Ann were not married. Spell bound over her beauty and grace, Junius had fled England with Mary Ann, leaving his true wife, Adelaide Delannoy Booth, and son, Richard Junius Booth, behind. He set foot in the new land with his new woman, determined to start anew. His reputation proceeded him and quickly he was a star on the American stage. By December of 1821, Mary Ann gave birth to their first born, Junius Brutus Booth, Jr. Junius realized quickly that his fledging family would need a place to call home beyond their boardinghouse room in Charleston, South Carolina. In May of 1822, Junius signed a thousand year lease to rent out 150 acres in Harford County, Maryland. The area was isolated about 25 miles north east of Baltimore. It provided the privacy Junius craved for himself and his illegitimate family. The Booth’s first residence on their acreage, and the only one Junius himself would ever know on the property, was a small cabin. Booth had the cabin moved from its former spot on the property to a natural spring that ran through the land.

Junius moved the family's first home, the log cabin, to a spot about where the white car is in this picture. It was close to the natural spring that ran through his newly acquired land.

Junius moved the family’s first home, the log cabin, to a spot about where the white car is in this picture. It was close to the natural spring that ran through his newly acquired land.

The act of moving the cabin to the spot by the spring was a big event:

“It caused quite an excitement in the neighborhood, people coming to witness the novel sight of a house being rolled across the fields, and many lent a helping hand.”

As his family grew, Junius had addition made to the log cabin, but ultimately had a more appropriate home in mind for his family. However, the act of caring for his family in America and sending money back home to England to keep Adelaide off of the scent forced him to continually delay his plans for another home. By 1840, Mary Ann was weary with her isolated life on the farm with so many children and so she and the kids moved to Baltimore, coming back during the summers to their Bel Air cabin.

Fast forward to 1851. After finally being caught in his lies, Adelaide Booth publicly and embarrassingly divorced Junius Brutus Booth, allowing he and Mary Ann to legally wed. The 56 year old actor was looking forward to retiring and so plans were made to finally construct the dream home in Bel Air that he had desired. From architectural plans he chose an Elizabethan style home:

The original, interior layout of Tudor Hall.

The original, interior layout of Tudor Hall.

He commissioned, architect James Gifford to build his new home which he called, “Tudor Hall”:
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Sadly, Junius would never live in the completed house. He died on November 30th, 1852, before it was finished. After her husband’s death, Mary Ann would take her young children back to Bel Air to live at Tudor Hall. Eventually, when all her children had come of age, Mary Ann would leave Tudor Hall and rent it out. In 1878, she sold Tudor Hall and the Booths never returned.

Harford County managed to acquire Tudor Hall in 2006. Previous to this it was always a private residence. The owners who lived there the longest were Ella Mahoney, whose first husband bought the house straight from Mary Ann Booth, and Dorothy and Howard Fox. The second floor of the building currently houses the offices for the Center of Visual and Performing Arts of Harford County.

Tudor Hall, as a museum, is still in a transitional phase. The Junius Brutus Booth Society and Spirits of Tudor Hall, are working hard to get Harford County to give them more control in order to truly turn this gem into a museum dedicated to the Booth family. The guided tours are informative and done by volunteers with a passion for history.

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Other than the building itself, the only other thing on the Tudor Hall property today that was there when the Booths were there is this spring house (minus the roof) which was made around the same time as Tudor Hall, and this pond, which was made by the Booths:

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Tudor Hall is a must see for those interested in the illustrious Booth family. Check out their tour schedule by visiting the Spirits of Tudor Hall Facebook page and blog the former written by Edwin Booth expert and friend of BoothieBarn, Carolyn Mitchell. And please consider joining the Junius Brutus Booth Society. The more members they have and the more funds they receive, the louder their voice becomes to transform Tudor Hall into the Booth family museum it deserves to be. Visit the Junius Brutus Booth Society here.

References:
My Thoughts Be Bloody by Nora Titone
Sketches of Tudor Hall and the Booth Family by Ella Mahoney (free online version here)

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Tudor Hall Teaser

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Dave Taylor

Today, I made a visit to Tudor Hall, the home of the Booth family, and other sites relating to the Booths in Harford County, MD. A more thorough post will follow later but, as we drive home, I thought I’d put up this teaser of pictures from my day:

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And, as a challenge to you all, what is the Boothie significance of where I am in this picture?

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Hint: Snoop around the Harford County Historical Society’s web page for it.

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Burying a Terrorist

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Dave Taylor

The latest issue of Time Magazine (5/20/2013) contains a brief timeline regarding the difficult task of burying assassins and terrorists. The topic was brought up due to the recent burial of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev in Caroline County, VA. Ironically, it was at the Garrett’s home in Caroline County that John Wilkes Booth was brought to justice. Time gave this brief regarding the burial of John Wilkes Booth:

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UPDATE: Here’s another news agency noting the similarities between the two cases: http://www.foxbaltimore.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/tsarnaev-body-controversy-similar-john-wilkes-booth-19510.shtml#.UZgq4r7D8dU

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New Gallery – Mary Surratt

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Dave Taylor

History of the Surratts

Click here to visit the newest BoothieBarn Picture Gallery:

Mary E. Surratt

fair fat forty

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Abraham Lincoln, Foully Assassinated

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Dave Taylor

On May 6th, 1865, the British magazine, London Punch, published the following poem which expressed the international sense of shock and sympathy over the unprecedented assassination of the 16th President of the United States of America:

Foully Assassinated

Abraham Lincoln, Foully Assassinated

You lay a wreath on murdered Lincoln’s bier,
You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace,
Broad for self-complacent British sneer,
His length of shambling limb, his furrowed face,

His gaunt, gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling hair,
His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease,
His lack of all we prize as debonair,
Of power or will to shine, or art to please,

You, whose smart pen backed up the pencil’s laugh,
Judging each step, as though the way were plain:
Reckless, so it could point its paragraph,
Of chief’s perplexity, or people’s pain.

Beside this corpse, that bears for winding-sheet
The Stars and Stripes, he lived to rear anew,
Between the mourners at his head and feet
Say, scurrile-jester, is there room for you?

Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer,
To lame my pencil, and confute my pen —
To make me own this kind of princes peer,
This rail-splitter a true-born king of men.

My shallow judgment I had learnt to rue,
Noting how to occasion’s height he rose,
How his quaint wit made home-truth seem more true,
How, iron-like, his temper grew by blows.

How humble, yet how hopeful, he could be;
How in good fortune and in ill the same;
Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he,
Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame.

He went about his work — such work as few
Ever had laid on head and heart and hand —
As one who knows, where there’s a task to do,
Man’s honest will must Heaven’s good grace command.

Who trusts the strength will with the burden grow,
That God makes instruments to work His will,
If but that will we can arrive to know,
Nor tamper with the weights of good and ill.

So he went forth to battle, on the side
That he felt clear was Liberty’s and Right’s,
As in his peasant boyhood he had plied
His warfare with rude Nature’s thwarting mights –

The uncleared forest, the unbroken soil,
The iron bark that turns the lumberer’s axe,
The rapid, that o’erbears the boatman’s toil,
The prairie, hiding the mazed wanderer’s tracks,

The ambushed Indian, and the prowling bear —
Such were the needs that helped his youth to train:
Rough culture — but such trees large fruit may bear,
If but their stocks be of right girth and grain.

So he grew up, a destined work to do,
And lived to do it – four long-suffering years;
Ill-fate, ill-feeling, ill-report, lived through,
And then he heard the hisses changed to cheers,

The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise,
And took both with the same unwavering mood;
Till, as he came on light from darkling days,
And seemed to touch the goal from where he stood,

A felon hand, between the goal and him,
Reached from behind his back, a trigger prest, —
And those perplexed and patient eyes were dim,
Those gaunt, long-laboring limbs were laid to rest!

The words of mercy were upon his lips,
Forgiveness in his heart and on his pen,
When this vile murderer brought swift eclipse
To thoughts of peace on earth, good-will to men.

The Old World and the New, from sea to sea,
Utter one voice of sympathy and shame!
Sore heart, so stopped when it at last beat high;
Sad life, cut short just as its triumph came.

A deed accurst! Strokes have been struck before
By the assassin’s hand, whereof men doubt
If more of horror or disgrace they bore;
But thy foul crime, like CAIN’S stands darkly out.

Vile hand, that brandest murder on a strife,
Whate’er its grounds, stoutly and nobly striven;
And with the martyr’s crown crownest a life
With much to praise, little to be forgiven!

What makes this poem unique is its author. This specific poem was written by British playwright, Tom Taylor. It was Tom Taylor’s play, Our American Cousin, that Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated. While Laura Keene had made improvements to Tom Taylor’s original version of the play, you can’t help but wonder if Mr. Taylor was motivated to write this poem over his perceived guilt at writing a play so appealing, that it lured Lincoln to his death.

References:
The poets’ Lincoln by Osborn Oldroyd

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New Gallery – John H. Surratt

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Dave Taylor

“John Harrison Surratt was born April 13, 1844 in Prince George’s County, MD. He attended Saint Charles College, a Roman Catholic preparatory seminary located then at Ellicott City, MD, from the fall of 1859 to the summer of 1862. His father died in 1862 and John succeeded him as the postmaster of Surrattsville and he also became involved in the work of the Confederate Secret Service. Doctor Samuel Mudd introduced Surratt to John Wilkes Booth at a Washington hotel in December, 1864 and he became a member of Booth’s band of conspirators. Their intent was to kidnap Abraham Lincoln, bring him South and hold him as ransom to end the war. Their one attempt had to be aborted because of the non-appearance of Lincoln. When Booth turned from kidnapping to assassination, John Surratt was not available but was on a mission for the Confederacy. With this, our story begins….”
– from the preface of The Travels, Arrest and Trial of John H. Surratt by Alfred Isacsson

Check out the newest Picture Gallery to see more images relating to that elusive conspirator, John Harrison Surratt, Jr.

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For the Escape Theorists…

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Dave Taylor

For those out there who believe that John Wilkes Booth did not die at Garrett’s farm on April 26th, 1865, the following will surely validate your long-held beliefs.  After reading my post about his birthday, a Texas lawyer who has written a book on the subject of Booth’s escape sent me a picture he received just this day from a man he knows as “John David St. E. Helen George”.  Apparently this gentleman is also celebrating his 175th birthday today:

Booth's 175th Birthday

Coincidence? I think not!

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“The Mother’s Vision”

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Dave Taylor

Today, May 10th, 2013, marks the 175th anniversary of John Wilkes Booth’s birth.  Before becoming the cause of such a great national tragedy, John Wilkes was merely an infant who entered the world in the presence of his father Junius Brutus Booth, a rare occasion for the traveling theatrical star.  Like the man he would later assassinate, Booth was born into a log cabin on the family’s farm near Bel Air, MD in 1838.  At the age of six months, Mary Ann Holmes, holding young John Wilkes in her arms, prayed to know what future lay in store for her then youngest child.  An answer to her prayer appeared before her in the form of a vision.  Years later, Asia Booth would translate the experience into a poem as a birthday gift to her mother:

“The Mother’s Vision
Written 1854, June 2nd, by A[sia] B[ooth], Harford Co., Md

‘Tween the passing night and the coming day
When all the house in slumber lay,
A patient mother sat low near the fire,
With that strength even nature cannot tire,
Nursing her fretful babe to sleep –
Only the angels these records keep
Of mysterious Love!

One little confiding hand lay spread
Like a white-oped lily, on that soft far bed,
The mother’s bosom, drawing strength
And contentment warm –
The fleecy head rests on her circling arm.
In her eager worship, her fearful care, Riseth to heaven a wild, mute prayer
Of Foreboding Love!

Tiny, innocent white baby-hand,
What force, what power is at your command,
For evil, or good? Be slow or be sure,
Firm to resist, to pursue, to endure –
My God, let me see what this hand shall do
In the silent years we are tending to;
In my hungering Love,

I implore to know on this ghostly night
Whether ‘twill labour for wrong, or right,
For – or against Thee?
The flame up-leapt
Like a wave of blood, an avenging arm crept
Into shape; and Country shown out in the flame,
Which fading resolved to her boy’s own name!
God had answered Love –
Impatient Love!”

The inscription inside of a book given to John Wilkes Booth by his mother, Mary Ann Holmes Booth, on his birthday in 1861.

The inscription inside of a book given to John Wilkes Booth by his mother, Mary Ann Holmes Booth, on his birthday in 1861.

175 years ago, a boy named John Wilkes Booth was born.  And, as noted by his mother’s vision, our Country feels the ramifications of his existence even today.

References:
John Wilkes Booth: A Sister’s Memoir by Asia Booth Clarke

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