Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Lincoln Assassination, so how about some strange facts related to it:
Fact: John Wilkes Booth once lay in the bed Lincoln died on. He was visiting a fellow actor, Charles Warwick, who rented the room in 1864 where Lincoln would die. On at least two occasions in 1864 Booth lay on the bed while debating current politics with his fellow actor.
A photograph of the bed Lincoln died in a few hours after his death:
Fact: One of the Conspirators hanged for the crime, George Atzerodt, had a brother-in-law who was a city marshal. The brother-in-law was assigned to escort Atzerodt to the gallows but their relationship was not known by the authorities until after the hanging.
George Atzerodt after his capture as photographed on the deck of the monitor USS Montauk:
Fact: John Wilkes Booth had the photographs of six women he had been in a relationship with on his body when he was captured. One was his finance Lucy Hale the daughter of a US Senator from Rhode Island and the other five were actresses. One of these five actresses, Effie Germon, served as the model for the goddess sitting to the left of George Washington in the painting Apotheosis of Washington by Italian-born Constantino Brumidi that was finished just before the assassination in the rotunda of the Capitol. Germon was the sister-in-law of the artisit and a one time girlfriend of John Wilkes Booth. The painting was above the assassinated president’s coffin in the Capitol rotunda as it lay in state a few months later.
Fact: One of the persons arrested as a suspect in the Lincoln murder conspiracy was Francis Tumblety who was living in St. Louis using an alias that was close to a real person of interest in the case. Tumblety moved to London soon after and is suspected by some to be Jack the Ripper.
Francis Tumblety:
Fact: John Wilkes’s father actor Junius once sent a letter to Andrew Jackson threatening “the damned old scoundrel” that he would “cut your throat whilst you are sleeping" if he did not pardon two pirates who were about to be executed.
Junius Booth:
Fact: On June 7, 1893, as John Wilkes’ brother Edwin’s casket was carried from the church where his funeral had just been held, all three floors in Ford’s theater collapsed killing 22 government workers and injuring 68 in the now government office building.
Edwin Booth as Hamlet:
On November 25, 1864 the three Booth brothers performed together for the first and last time together on the stage. It was a benefit performance of Julius Caesar at a Broadway theater to help raise money for a bronze statue of Shakespeare that may still be seen today in Central Park. Midway throught the second scene the farm alarms went off and the packed house started stampeding for the exits until Edwin stepped up to the footlights and assured everyone that there was no fire. But there was a fire next door at the LaFarge House hotel where Confederate agents had set fire to it and a dozen other buildings in New York City using Greek Fire in an attempt to burn the city down.
John Wilkes, Edwin and Junius Jr. as they appeared in their one night benefit show of Julius Caesar. Wilkes played Marc Antony, Edwin was Brutus and Junior was Cassius:
Fact: Mary Surratt was the only woman ever hanged by the US government. Her boarding house on H Street had been a center for Confederate spying activity in the later stages of the Civil War. Lewis Powell the man who attempted to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward was captured here when he showed up at the house late at night during the police raid on the house. In January 1929 another Federal raid on the place occurred when boot leggers occupied the house. Until recently the house was a Chinese Restaurant.
Surratt Boarding house about two years ago:
Fact: A few years after the hanging of Mrs. Surratt, her daughter Anna, married a Government chemist. He was summarily fired two days later with no reason given for his firing.
Anna Surratt:
Fact: President Theodore Roosevelt wore a ring containing a lock of Abraham Lincoln's hair when he was inaugurated in 1905. The hair had been cut by Dr. Charles C. Taft, one of the attending physicians the night of the assassination. The hair was purchased by Lincoln’s secretary John Hay on February 9, 1905, and was given to Roosevelt less than a month later. In his Autobiography, Roosevelt wrote, "When I was inaugurated on March 4, 1905, I wore a ring he (John Hay) sent me the night before, containing the hair of Abraham Lincoln. This ring was on my finger when the Chief Justice administered to me the oath of allegiance to the United States."
A young Theodore Roosevelt observes the Lincoln funeral procession in New York City from the second floor of his home (right building, side window):
Fact: Robert Lincoln, the president's son, was in the White House when his father was shot. On July 2, 1881, Robert was with President James A. Garfield at Washington's Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station when the president was shot by assassin Charles J. Guiteau. In his own words, Robert reached the stricken Garfield within 15 seconds of the shooting. Finally, on September 6, 1901, when President William McKinley was shot by Leon F. Czolgosz at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, Robert was on a train just arriving in Buffalo. Robert was also present for an assassination attempt on the mayor of New York William Gaynor on August 9, 1910.
Robert Lincoln, left, comes to the aid of New York mayor William Gaynor after he was shot in the neck:
Fact: Boston Corbett, the soldier who shot John Wilkes Booth had castrated himself before the Civil War, when he found religion,so as to avoid temptation. He, went berserk during a Tuesday, February 15, 1887, meeting of the Kansas State Legislature. He was arrested, declared insane and sent to the Topeka Asylum for the Insane. He escaped a few months later and was never heard from again.
Boston Corbett:
Fact: The young couple (Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris) who attended Our American Cousin with the Lincolns got married on July 11, 1867. The couple had three children. Rathbone suffered from "dyspepsia" or indigestion and severe mood swings. He was probably taking an opiate that could be purchased over the counter in the 19th century. In 1882 Rathbone was appointed to the post of U.S. Consul General to Germany. On December 23, 1883, Rathbone went berserk. He tried to kill the children, then shot and stabbed his wife to death, and finally stabbed himself. When the police arrived, Rathbone mumbled, "Who could have done this to my darling wife?" and went on about people "hiding behind the pictures on the wall." He spent the rest of his life in an asylum for the criminally insane in Hildesheim, Germany.
Major Henry Rathbone:
Clara Harris, daughter of Senator Ira Harris of NY:
In 1855, Laura Keene the actress who was the star of Our American Cousin the night Lincoln was assassinated, went on a theatrical tour to Australia and San Francisco. She was accompanied by a gentleman who was not her husband, with whom she had an affair. Her husband was informed of this situation in a letter from one of her fellow actors. The actor was John Wilkes’ brother Edwin. Keene's husband divorced her.
Laura Keene:
[This message has been edited by BQ78 (edited 4/13/2009 11:18p).]
Fact: John Wilkes Booth once lay in the bed Lincoln died on. He was visiting a fellow actor, Charles Warwick, who rented the room in 1864 where Lincoln would die. On at least two occasions in 1864 Booth lay on the bed while debating current politics with his fellow actor.
A photograph of the bed Lincoln died in a few hours after his death:
Fact: One of the Conspirators hanged for the crime, George Atzerodt, had a brother-in-law who was a city marshal. The brother-in-law was assigned to escort Atzerodt to the gallows but their relationship was not known by the authorities until after the hanging.
George Atzerodt after his capture as photographed on the deck of the monitor USS Montauk:
Fact: John Wilkes Booth had the photographs of six women he had been in a relationship with on his body when he was captured. One was his finance Lucy Hale the daughter of a US Senator from Rhode Island and the other five were actresses. One of these five actresses, Effie Germon, served as the model for the goddess sitting to the left of George Washington in the painting Apotheosis of Washington by Italian-born Constantino Brumidi that was finished just before the assassination in the rotunda of the Capitol. Germon was the sister-in-law of the artisit and a one time girlfriend of John Wilkes Booth. The painting was above the assassinated president’s coffin in the Capitol rotunda as it lay in state a few months later.
Fact: One of the persons arrested as a suspect in the Lincoln murder conspiracy was Francis Tumblety who was living in St. Louis using an alias that was close to a real person of interest in the case. Tumblety moved to London soon after and is suspected by some to be Jack the Ripper.
Francis Tumblety:
Fact: John Wilkes’s father actor Junius once sent a letter to Andrew Jackson threatening “the damned old scoundrel” that he would “cut your throat whilst you are sleeping" if he did not pardon two pirates who were about to be executed.
Junius Booth:
Fact: On June 7, 1893, as John Wilkes’ brother Edwin’s casket was carried from the church where his funeral had just been held, all three floors in Ford’s theater collapsed killing 22 government workers and injuring 68 in the now government office building.
Edwin Booth as Hamlet:
On November 25, 1864 the three Booth brothers performed together for the first and last time together on the stage. It was a benefit performance of Julius Caesar at a Broadway theater to help raise money for a bronze statue of Shakespeare that may still be seen today in Central Park. Midway throught the second scene the farm alarms went off and the packed house started stampeding for the exits until Edwin stepped up to the footlights and assured everyone that there was no fire. But there was a fire next door at the LaFarge House hotel where Confederate agents had set fire to it and a dozen other buildings in New York City using Greek Fire in an attempt to burn the city down.
John Wilkes, Edwin and Junius Jr. as they appeared in their one night benefit show of Julius Caesar. Wilkes played Marc Antony, Edwin was Brutus and Junior was Cassius:
Fact: Mary Surratt was the only woman ever hanged by the US government. Her boarding house on H Street had been a center for Confederate spying activity in the later stages of the Civil War. Lewis Powell the man who attempted to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward was captured here when he showed up at the house late at night during the police raid on the house. In January 1929 another Federal raid on the place occurred when boot leggers occupied the house. Until recently the house was a Chinese Restaurant.
Surratt Boarding house about two years ago:
Fact: A few years after the hanging of Mrs. Surratt, her daughter Anna, married a Government chemist. He was summarily fired two days later with no reason given for his firing.
Anna Surratt:
Fact: President Theodore Roosevelt wore a ring containing a lock of Abraham Lincoln's hair when he was inaugurated in 1905. The hair had been cut by Dr. Charles C. Taft, one of the attending physicians the night of the assassination. The hair was purchased by Lincoln’s secretary John Hay on February 9, 1905, and was given to Roosevelt less than a month later. In his Autobiography, Roosevelt wrote, "When I was inaugurated on March 4, 1905, I wore a ring he (John Hay) sent me the night before, containing the hair of Abraham Lincoln. This ring was on my finger when the Chief Justice administered to me the oath of allegiance to the United States."
A young Theodore Roosevelt observes the Lincoln funeral procession in New York City from the second floor of his home (right building, side window):
Fact: Robert Lincoln, the president's son, was in the White House when his father was shot. On July 2, 1881, Robert was with President James A. Garfield at Washington's Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station when the president was shot by assassin Charles J. Guiteau. In his own words, Robert reached the stricken Garfield within 15 seconds of the shooting. Finally, on September 6, 1901, when President William McKinley was shot by Leon F. Czolgosz at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, Robert was on a train just arriving in Buffalo. Robert was also present for an assassination attempt on the mayor of New York William Gaynor on August 9, 1910.
Robert Lincoln, left, comes to the aid of New York mayor William Gaynor after he was shot in the neck:
Fact: Boston Corbett, the soldier who shot John Wilkes Booth had castrated himself before the Civil War, when he found religion,so as to avoid temptation. He, went berserk during a Tuesday, February 15, 1887, meeting of the Kansas State Legislature. He was arrested, declared insane and sent to the Topeka Asylum for the Insane. He escaped a few months later and was never heard from again.
Boston Corbett:
Fact: The young couple (Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris) who attended Our American Cousin with the Lincolns got married on July 11, 1867. The couple had three children. Rathbone suffered from "dyspepsia" or indigestion and severe mood swings. He was probably taking an opiate that could be purchased over the counter in the 19th century. In 1882 Rathbone was appointed to the post of U.S. Consul General to Germany. On December 23, 1883, Rathbone went berserk. He tried to kill the children, then shot and stabbed his wife to death, and finally stabbed himself. When the police arrived, Rathbone mumbled, "Who could have done this to my darling wife?" and went on about people "hiding behind the pictures on the wall." He spent the rest of his life in an asylum for the criminally insane in Hildesheim, Germany.
Major Henry Rathbone:
Clara Harris, daughter of Senator Ira Harris of NY:
In 1855, Laura Keene the actress who was the star of Our American Cousin the night Lincoln was assassinated, went on a theatrical tour to Australia and San Francisco. She was accompanied by a gentleman who was not her husband, with whom she had an affair. Her husband was informed of this situation in a letter from one of her fellow actors. The actor was John Wilkes’ brother Edwin. Keene's husband divorced her.
Laura Keene:
[This message has been edited by BQ78 (edited 4/13/2009 11:18p).]