Join Kobo & start eReading today
These Northern statesmen, as Wilkerson interpreted his evidence, set the stage for Booth's crime and made arrangements for Booth's escape. Wilkerson became convinced that another man had been killed and buried in his stead. The investigator had gone deep into this before he heard that an alleged mummy of Booth had been barnstorming the country.
Wilkerson wrote at once to Finis L. Bates, the original sponsor for the mummy, but Bates in the meantime had died. Wilkerson looked up the broken Carnival King in his potato patch and asked several questions that the King could not answer. They told me it was and I believed them.
When he was playing Richard in Richard III, another actor slashed him over the right eye with the sword in the duel scene. Let's take a look. The Kansas City historian and the Carnival King satisfied themselves that the mummy had Booth's deformed thumb. It was been described by Doctor May, of Washington, who removed a wen from his neck.
The wound was healing nicely when, in a love scene, the famous actress Charlotte Cushman seized him in such a violent embrace that the stitches were broken. An ugly scar resulted. The two men turned John over. They found what they considered to be the scar. This nearly convinced Wilkerson, but he still wanted to know more. He suggested a tour through all the towns in the Southwest where John Wilkes Booth was supposed to have ranged under various aliases from about until his suicide in Wilkerson offered to break off his own trip and go along as barker for John.
The Carnival King figured that, with a real historian to gather affidavits backing up the mummy, John might still have a future. The trip was historically rich, but financially unprofitable. Here and there John was a draw, but usually he lacked magnetism. After leaving Declo, the first stop was Salt Lake City. Business was good at Big Spring, Texas, until the local authorities seized them.
They were tried by the justice of the peace in the back room of his bakery and fined fifty dollars for transporting a corpse without a license. In order to avert trouble of this kind, they went to the state capitol at Austin and showed their traveling companion to the chief health officer of the state. While at Austin, Mr. Wilkerson took the precaution of incorporating. He obtained, for a fee of ten dollars, a charter for the American Historical Research Society.
This is an imposing document with the Lone Star seal on it, and it has saved the operators of the mummy from trouble on innumerable occasions. The attraction is advertised by handbills, the first words of which are: For a while Wilkerson and his partner operated successfully at Odessa, Texas, where there had just been an oil strike. Everybody wanted to spend money, and they threw silver dollars into the collection plate.
John was hitting upwards of twenty-five dollars an hour when a woman spectator said to Wilkerson:. He knows all about it. In spite of the rain of money, Wilkerson stopped the show at once and started on the long trip to Lubbock, Texas, where he found Circuit Judge Schenck. The judge told of meeting a stranger at breakfast in Guthrie, Oklahoma, in They got into conversation and the judge stated that he hailed from Meridian, Texas.
The judge was held spellbound and spent most of the day and night with his new friend, who was full of sensational details of Booth's escape in and his meanderings in the Southwest. From the description of the man, Mr.
Last words
Wilkerson concluded that the judge was hearing the tale from the lips of Booth himself. The story cleared up many points that had puzzled Wilkerson, but particularly the matter of certain tattoo marks missing on John. Before the assassination, Wilkes had the initials "J. They are not found on the mummy. The stranger who talked to Judge Schenck said that Booth had had the initials removed by a friendly tattoo remover in New Orleans.
Wilkerson made almost a house-to-house canvass in Glen Rose, Iredell, Granbury and other towns in Texas where the alleged Booth had been known as John St. From scores of people Wilkerson obtained descriptions of St. Helen which seemed to fit Booth. Everybody was particularly emphatic about St. Helen's elegance of dress and courtliness of manners.
Helen ran two saloons at Granbury - the Blackhawk and the Lady Gay. Wilkerson found old patrons who testified that drinking men went to those saloons as to a school of etiquette and learned the ways of high society merely by observing St. One of Wilkerson's witnesses was Ashley W. Crockett, a grandson of Davy Crockett. Ashley, a Texas journalist for more than half a century, was a cub reporter of the Granbury Vidette in the early 70's. He recalled how St. Helen came in to the Vidette office one day with a tray covered with choice liquors, bowed in his most distinguished manner and said, "A treat for the office force," then withdrew elegantly before anybody could thank him.
Many old-timers recalled John St. Helen as the man who introduced backgammon into that part of the world. Wilkerson has found nothing in the literature to show that John Wilkes Booth played backgammon in this country before His conjecture is that the assassin picked it up in England, where he is believed to have spent some years between and At Granbury, Wilkerson found Mrs. Eula Carter, who said that her late husband knew St. Helen to be Booth. Helen's earliest known appearance in Texas was at Iredell, in Bosque County, where he taught school.
At that time he boarded with a man named Green Williams. Wilkerson here found, to his dismay, that St. Helen had confessed, not that he was Booth but that he was a son of Marshal Ney, who, according to some authorities, escaped after Waterloo and settled in the United States. Helen went so far as to tell some of his Iredell friends that he had called himself St. Helen after the island of St. Helen and did this as a tribute to Napolean - the least that a son of Marshal Ney could do to honor his old commander. This complicated matters and puzzled Wilkerson for some time.
Easily Read Documents Online
His conclusion, however, was that the stranger obviously had a past, and told the Ney story in order to parry the suspicion that he might be Booth. Another awkward episode occurred in Texas. The technique of operating the mummy was a delicate one. If an admission charge was made, it was necessary to take out a local theatrical license. The license fee was prohibitive, in view of John's low average earning power.
Therefore, admission was free. But, as the spectator filed out of the exhibition truck, gentle pressure was put on him to contribute toward paying the expense of the culture-spreading institution. A plate was conspicuously exhibited with a few quarters and half dollars in it. Dimes, nickels or pennies that got into the plate were deftly removed to avert their unfavorable psychological effect.
Wilkerson had made an admirable rule to the effect that the contributions of children should be graciously returned. But Wilkerson was absent for a time while John was playing in Temple, Texas. The Carnival King, who had never approved of the practice of depriving minors of the right to contribute, high-pressured a lot of school children for small change.
Local indignation developed, and the entire American Historical Research Society was run out of town by the police. During his long search for evidence, Wilkerson uncovered five living John Wilkes Booths, four of whom were related to the assassin of Lincoln. All had changed their names. By personal interviews and by correspondence, he made contact with many other relatives of Booth. From many of these he obtained accounts of meetings with John Wilkes Booth long after the assassination.
- Child of the Journey (The Madagascar Manifesto Book 2).
- Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in Asia (Trade and Development).
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court, Part 7..
- dog basics and training.
- De celle qui se faisait allègrement manipuler par son chum: Psy malgré moi - dossier 02 (French Edition).
She made an affidavit that a man called at her lodgings, gave her a card and said, "Blanche, wouldn't you like to see Johnny? Wilkerson's researches indicate that Booth - then using the name David E. George - went to Enid immediately thereafter, stayed drunk for three weeks and then committed suicide. The historian conjectures that the rebuff from his niece broke Booth's heart. During his travels in connection with the Booth saga, Wilkerson stumbled on to some interesting historical material in Beloit, Wisconsin. This report stimulated Booth history or myth all over the country. Walter Hubbell, an actor, carried the news to Dr.
Why, the last we heard of him he was in Oklahoma. The first of these was Mrs. Christ whose story appears in the Beloit Daily News of April 19, In she was Mrs. Thomas Haggett, the wife of a Confederate blockade runner. According to her story, she and her husband were on board the Mary Porter in Havana six weeks after the assassination when John Wilkes Booth came aboard and sailed with them to Nassau.
She stated that, because Booth was still suffering from a broken leg, she gave up her cabin to him, and at the end of the voyage he rewarded her by giving her his ring with "J. Having kept the secret for thirty-three years, Mrs. Christ now felt entitled to talk. On the following day, Wilson D. Kenzie, of Beloit, gave an interview to the same paper. He said that he had known Booth intimately at New Orleans and had been at the Garrett barn in Virginia when the man supposed to be Booth was killed.
Kenzie said that the slain man was a sandy-headed fellow who bore no resemblance to Booth. Wilkerson later found evidence indicating that Booth had intended to go to Nassau if he escaped. One of Booth's accomplices in the kidnapping plot was Sam Arnold. After his release from prison, Arnold wrote a magazine article on the scheme to abduct Lincoln.
On of his statements was that delay had resulted because John Wilkes Booth had busied himself with arrangements to ship his stage wardrobe and other effects to Nassau. Helen first appeared in Texas in , he called himself a British subject. Wilkerson ended his travels with John at Aberdeen, Washington. He had gone into the Northwest in search of more Booth relatives.
At Aberdeen, according to his custom, he went to the mayor and got permission to place the mummy on exhibition. There was, however, a feud on between the mayor and the license commissioner, and the license commissioner had Wilkerson arrested. The historian had to plead eloquently to avoid being locked up. The judge fined him ten dollars and then suspended sentence. But Wilkerson had had enough.
He broke up his partnership with Carnival King Evans, who, shortly before he was killed, sold John to the present owners. Wilkerson researches have won recognition from Lincoln experts. He delivered a lecture on his investigations before the Lincoln Club in Chicago, and several distinguished Lincolnians were considerably impressed. Schmidt, president of the Illinois State Historical Society and president of the Chicago Historical Society, wrote a modified testimonial in favor of John, saying that the subject was of great interest and well worth further scientific investigation.
The mummy was exhibited on the campus of Northwestern University at Evanston; the faculty ordered it off; Doctor Schmidt, however, interceded for it and the show was allowed to go on.
- German Cooking in America.
- See a Problem?.
- Navigation menu.
- Origine du prénom Chiara (Oeuvres courtes) (French Edition);
- What is Kobo Super Points?.
- Biomimetic Sensor Technology.
In John was X-rayed, operated on and otherwise studied by a group of medical men and criminologists in Chicago. It was claimed that the fractured leg, the broken thumb and the scar on the neck were all verified.
Aram Schefrin's Page - The Book Marketing Network
The operation was performed because it was alleged that the X ray revealed a metal object deep inside of the old trouper. After prolonged drilling into the mummy, which was stated to be as hard as a rock, a bit of metal was produced with an engraving that looked like the letter B. This resulted in the speculation that Booth, in some great emergency, had sought to conceal his identify by swallowing his ring, which had been gradually digested until only a fragment was left.
The exploration of John, however, took place under the flashlights of newspaper photographers, and its results failed to gain wide acceptance. Further, one medical man asserted there was no sign of the all-important identifying scar on the neck. There is not much conflict among the authorities on the assassination and on the flight of Booth into Virginia. Booth entered the carelessly guarded box of Lincoln at the Ford Theater a little after ten p. The actor then jumped to the stage fourteen feet below.
His spur caught on the American flag draped in front of the box and he fell heavily, breaking his leg.
After limping across the stage, shouting "Sic semper tyrannis," he made his way out of the theater to his horse. In spite of the broken leg, he was able, through Southern sympathizers, to baffle his pursuers twelve days, until he was finally located in Garrett's barn near Bowling Green, Virginia. The barn was surrounded and set on fire. The conflicting theories begin here. Those who believe in the escape tell it two ways: Those who believe that Booth was killed in the barn have different versions. One is that he committed suicide; the other is that he was shot by a Federal, through a crack in the barn.
Credit for the killing has generally been assigned to Sergeant Boston Corbett. The orders were to take Booth alive, but Corbett said that God had instructed him to kill the man. The Garretts, who had been with Booth shortly before he was killed, identified him immediately after. In fact, one of the Garrett young ladies, who had been smitten with the young actor, was caught in the act of attempting to snip a lock of hair from the dead man's head. The tattooed initials "J.
Doctor May, who had attended Booth, at first said the dead man bore no resemblance to Booth, but he reversed his opinion on seeing the scar on the neck. In the body was turned over by the War Department to the Booth family and buried in the Booth plot in the Greenmount Cemetery at Baltimore. The body was identified by members of the family and by a dentist's report. From the very beginning, however, witnesses appeared, who denied that the dead man was Booth.
The identifiers varied in their descriptions. Izola Forrester, quoting from different witnesses, sets forth that one said the dead man's hair was gray; another that it was reddish brown; another that it was jet black. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page.
Preview — Consider the Elephant by Aram Schefrin.
Consider the Elephant by Aram Schefrin. Consider the Elephant 3. The life and death of John Wilkes Booth as told by his brother Edwin. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Consider the Elephant , please sign up. Be the first to ask a question about Consider the Elephant. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Mercy rated it really liked it Mar 17, Dennis Maney rated it really liked it Nov 07, Michelle rated it liked it Apr 21,