Posts Tagged With: John Wilkes Booth

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

Photo of the Day: John Wilkes Booth

Posted on September 23, 2016 by Dave Taylor

john-wilkes-booth-gutman-26-boothiebarn

Categories: History | Tags: | 32 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

Dr. Mudd’s Suicide Attempt

Posted on September 9, 2016 by Dave Taylor

1871 must have been a rough year for a certain Charles County physician. In late March of that year a few of the regional newspapers carried stories about the apparently successful suicide of Dr. Mudd who played a small role in the story of Lincoln’s assassination.

suicide-attempt-of-dr-george-mudd

The Dr. Mudd reported to have committed suicide by cutting his own throat was not Dr. Samuel Mudd, but rather his second cousin, Dr. George Dyer Mudd.

George Mudd

This “other” Dr. Mudd was actually the elder of the doctors Mudd. George even sponsored his younger cousin, Samuel, when the latter was applying for his doctorate in medicine.

Unlike his younger cousin, Dr. George Mudd was a Union supporter during the Civil War and as such was well liked and known among the Union soldiers who occupied Charles County. It was likely due to this reason that Dr. Samuel Mudd chose to confide to Dr. George Mudd that two “strangers” had come to his house on the morning of April 15th, after the assassination of President Lincoln. Samuel told this to George on April 16th, when both men attended Easter Sunday services at St. Peter’s Church. Dr. Sam hinted to Dr. George that he was worried that these two men might have been connected with Lincoln’s death, but did not put too fine a point on this suspicion. George Mudd said he would tell the authorities, but did not actually report the news until the next day. The authorities eventually followed up on Dr. George Mudd’s lead, and pretty soon the whole family’s name was Mudd due to his younger cousin’s well established acquaintance with John Wilkes Booth.

Despite what the papers initially reported in March of 1871, however, Dr. George Mudd did not succeed in his attempt to kill himself. A correction was quickly published.

suicide-attempt-of-dr-george-mudd-2

Further information was published in the local newspaper, The Port Tobacco Times, on March 24th. The article started with a copy of one of the original notices citing Dr. Mudd’s death by suicide:

“The above, which we find in the Baltimore papers of Wednesday last, is incorrect, and we copy it merely to correct the misstatements of false rumors, growing out of a very unfortunate affair. From trustworthy sources we learn that on Sunday morning last, during a fit of temporary insanity, superinduced by mental prostration, Dr. Mudd did attempt to take his own life but was prevented by friends, but not until he had inflicted an ugly cut upon his throat. The wound is by no means fatal, and, at last accounts, the Doctor is pronounced out of danger.”

Dr. George Mudd recovered from his suicide attempt and it does not appear he ever tried to take his own life again. Instead, two years later, Dr. George Mudd enter politics and was elected as a state senator. When he was re-elected to the legislature in 1876, many newspapers confused him with his infamous cousin.

Categories: History | Tags: , , | 11 Comments

The Boston Corbett Supper Club

Posted on September 3, 2016 by Dave Taylor

I stumbled across this oddity on eBay tonight. It is a menu from a restaurant called the Boston Corbett Supper Club.

Boston Corbett Supper Club Menu 1

Boston Corbett Supper Club Menu 2

The menu features a drawing of the avenger of Lincoln on the front and, on the inside, a few of the menu items are named after the famous sergeant from the 16th NY Cavalry. Corbett’s honorary dishes include a salad called the Boston Corbett Special containing a variety of cut vegetables, perhaps alluding to Corbett’s expertise with sharp blades. The Boston Corbett Quiche is “baked in a delicate crust” not unlike Corbett’s delicate mind. And under the heading of “Boston Corbett Favorites” is what must be the sergeant’s signature dish, Chicken Corbett, which is “broiled to a golden brown” not unlike John Wilkes Booth in the Garrett barn.

The rear of the menu contains a short biography of Boston Corbett’s life.

Boston Corbett Supper Club Menu 3Noticeably missing from this brief biography is any mention of Corbett’s paranoia induced nervous breakdown in 1887 in which he made threats and waved a gun at representatives in the Kansas state house. For this mania he was committed to an asylum before managing to escape into oblivion.

After a little searching, I found that the Boston Corbett Supper Club had been located in Concordia, Kansas. Starting in 1878, Boston Corbett resided just north of Concordia in a dugout structure built into a hill. I drove out to Corbett’s dugout home, visiting other sites along the way, last summer. You can see my images and videos from that trip here.

The Boston Corbett Supper Club was used as a venue for wedding rehearsal dinners and receptions in the Concordia area and even supported Concordia’s annual 4th of July fireworks display. Unfortunately, a supper club based around the brave avenger of Lincoln who was also a partially crazed eunuch couldn’t make ends meet and so “Providence directed” it to close in the early 1990’s.

Though we missed out on our chance to dine at the Boston Corbett Supper Club, its menu has me thinking about opening my own Lincoln assassination restaurant in the future. For possible dishes I’ve thought of: Our American Couscous, Sic Semper Tilapia, Seward Skewers, George’s Beer-Battered Yellow Croaker, Physician’s Pie a la Mudd, and John Wilkes Bologna Sandwich.

Let me know your ideas for menu items in the comments below.

Categories: History, Levity | Tags: , , | 10 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

Mudd and a Broken Leg

Posted on August 30, 2016 by Dave Taylor

In the “Weird Coincidence” file of Lincoln assassination trivia, we find this little gem.

In 1868, a horse fell on, and broke, the leg of James Mudd, the brother of Dr. Samuel Mudd:

James Mudd suffers a broken leg 1868

Since his brother was serving a life sentence at Fort Jefferson at the time for the assistance he gave to another man with a broken leg, James Mudd had to seek medical help from a different local doctor, Dr. William Boarman (misspelled as “Bowman” in the article).

Setting James’ broken leg was the second piece of assistance that Dr. Boarman provided to the Mudd family. In 1865, he had testified on Dr. Mudd’s behalf at the trial of the conspirators. Dr. Boarman testified about meeting John Wilkes Booth at St. Mary’s Church in November of 1864 and that the actor told him he was in the area looking for land to purchase. We know now that Booth’s true purpose was to scout the escape route for his abduction plan and to recruit conspirators in Southern Maryland. Perhaps if Dr. Mudd had turned John Wilkes Booth down, the actor might have confided his plans to Dr. Boarman instead. All of this is to say that Dr. Boarman probably had no qualms about treating James Mudd while the latter’s brother was in prison. Considering the trouble Boarman might have been in had Dr. Mudd not welcomed John Wilkes Booth into his home, setting Mudd’s leg was a far favorable alternative. Or, to say it another way:

Mudd and Boarman

Categories: History, Levity | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment

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