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Susan Higginbotham · 02-13-2015, 08:48 AM

(02-13-2015 06:38 AM)Gene C Wrote:
(02-12-2015 11:10 PM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote: I wonder what drove the couple to separate. Perhaps Annie's activism in the temperance cause took up too much of her time for Weichmann's taste.

Perhaps she was an intemperate woman.
(did they actually divorce, or have a permanent seperation or even annulment?)

Since neither remarried, I'm inclined to think they simply separated. I think Pamela said that one census has a "D" beside Weichmann's name; if that's the case, they might have obtained a "divorce from bed and board" which is essentially a legal separation but doesn't leave the spouses free to remarry.

L Verge · 02-13-2015, 09:49 AM

(02-12-2015 01:08 PM)Pamela Wrote: It just occurred to me--was Chris Ritter executed?

Weichmann's sister said that a man with a gun followed him home from work one night and Lou was saved by a woman who gestured for him to come into her house. She was the one who saw a man with a gun. Also, a man dressed as a woman came to his door and Lou's father refused to call Lou down as requested by the stranger. Lou's father followed the man/woman down the street and saw him get into a carriage with some other men. The family believed he would have tried to kill Lou. I can't remember if Lou mentioned other incidences in his book, but he did say that he believed if he was not in prison just before and during the trial, someone would have killed him.

I didn't see his name on a list of condemned and executed in Indiana since 1900. Maybe his Booth neck carbuncle came back with a vengeance.

In an article for the Surratt Courier in 1993, Weichmann historian Erich Ewald had Chris Ritter leaving Anderson in the summer of 1897, and was reported to have gone to Kokomo, then Muncie. After that, Erich said, "Ritter dropped from history as quickly as he had come into it."

Skimming through the rest of that article, Erich seems to have found claims by Ritter to have been from Germany, Brazil, Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and Eminence, Kentucky. He also claimed to have lived in the Ohio River town of Aurora, Indiana, and Erich did find him in the 1880 Dearborn County census. In that census, Ritter was listed as a butcher, living with his wife, Mary (a grocer) and a 9-year-old son named Joshua, Ritter's place of origin was listed as Wurtemberg, with his wife's as Bavaria. According to the census, Joshua was born in Kentucky. Erich speculated that the reference to Brazil may have referred to Ritter being interested in emigrating to that country along with the numbers of Confederadoes who set colonies there after the war.

Ritter created quite a stir in Anderson, Indiana, and (probably in relief) the Anderson Bulletin announced on August 4, 1897, that "Chris Ritter...Story Teller" had left town.

There are also stories about Weichmann being harassed by members of the Surratt family who lived in and near Anderson. They were distant relatives of "our" Surratts - descended from Samuel Surratt, who had left Maryland and headed for North Carolina in the mid-1700s. The Ritters' butcher shop and grocery was only blocks away from a grocery run by Spencer Locker Surratt.

Pamela · 02-16-2015, 08:44 AM

(02-12-2015 10:25 AM)Gene C Wrote:
(02-12-2015 09:29 AM)RJNorton Wrote: Many thanks to Pam for sending these images and information.

The second is a chart that contains a lot of Johnson family history and if you look closely you can see mention of Louis and his part in history. There is also information that provides clues as to the dynamics that may have contributed to the failure of their marriage.

I'm clueless. Are your refering to the shyster lawyer or the civil war doctor, or something else?

It's amazing to me how you all find these documents and photo's.

I noticed the photo of Samuel as I was scrolling down hits for Annie Weichmann in Ancestry and passed it, but I thought wouldn't that be something if that guy was Samuel? I went back, and of course that's who it is. I contacted the person who put up the Johnson family tree and she is a descendant of Annie's brother, Samuel. She sent me the pic of Annie and the chart. The other pictures were already on her family tree. She believes the chart was created by Mary, the woman seated in front of Annie since Mary gave it to her father. They were cousins.

Pamela · 02-19-2015, 02:17 PM

http://iagenweb.org/muscatine/biographie...deandr.htm

This link goes to a biography of Dr. Munson Dean, Louis's brother-in-law, who had a very illustrious career. He worked at the Lincoln United States General Hospital in DC up to a couple of months prior to the assassination. He was married to Emma, Annie's sister, who is seated next to her in the photo.

Pamela · 02-20-2015, 09:50 AM

Referring to the folder of documents at the beginning of this thread, does anyone know why Abel's writings were located in the church files in Anderson where the 2 pastors, Mulcahy and Conroy worked?

Pamela · 02-21-2015, 10:26 AM

I reread Ewald's article and in it he said that Abel (a former student of Weichmann's, only 15 years old at the time and did office work in exchange for tuition) placed his reports in the church files so I suppose Abel worked for the church at some level. This Church, St Mary's is where Weichmann's brother was pastor, followed by Mulcahy and then Conroy. Both Mulcahy and Conroy despised Weichmann, and Conroy came to the church after Weichmann's death, never knew him, but he knew he hated him.

It's difficult to get through father Conroy's report because it's so crazy, "...he (Louis Weichmann) turned against her (Mary Surratt) with the open flaming mouth of a hyena at the trial before the military tribunal." Conroy says that from information he got from Abel, Weichmann was writing a book called "The Pope and the Southern Confederacy" which describes how the Pope instigated the Southern rebellion and supported it to the end. He speculated that possibly Weichmann claimed to represent this papal conspiracy and then disclosed the plot to the north in order to become a hero. Conroy suggested that after Weichmann's death his brother would have found and destroyed the manuscript for obvious reasons.

In Abel's writings, at least the parts Ewald put in his article in the Surratt Courier, there's no mention of a Pope book, but Abel said Weichmann was writing two books to ease his conscience and that Mary Surratt was innocent. It gets really funny when Abel recounts an event at Mary's boarding house. Booth, Mary, John and other unnamed "boys" were present when Booth gave John a knife with which to assassinate Seward, Mary grabbed it and chided the boys. Booth retrieved the knife.

How does that prove Mary's innocence exactly?

Abel wrote his report and placed it in church files before Weichmann's book was edited and published by Risvold. Ewald dismissed the actual book by Weichmann as"... having nothing of great value to the historian beyond a few irrelevant details."

Pamela · (This post was last modified: 03-13-2015 10:36 PM by Pamela.)

Alma Murphy Halff was Weichmann's niece who sold his manuscript and other documents to Floyd Risvold in 1975. She was about 84 years old at the time and living in LA. A friend of hers contacted Risvold. Her mother was Elizabeth Wiechmann who married Joseph Murphy from New York. The 1880 census show them living in Springfield, Ill, where two of their three (at that time) children were born. I couldn't find the 1890 census for them, but in 1900 the family was living in Danville, Illinois, about 88 miles east and 119 miles west of Anderson Indiana where Louis and several of his family lived. Alma's age is listed as 10.

Alma was an actress and she has an IMDB as Alma Murphy: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1574061/. One of her performances in The Munsters can be seen on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNIecqJqRNs

By 1910 Alma, who was 19, her sister Annie and her parents were living in LA. According to a bio written by her daughter-in-law, Alma was a "bohemian free spirit" who joined the David Belasco acting troupe and travelled all over the country performing, until she married Abraham Halff and settled down in LA.

Two of her brothers, Louis and Alford, are listed in the 1900 census as living with their uncle Father Fred Wiechmann in Gas City, Indiana which I think is where he lived when Louis died in 1902 in Anderson. Fred Wiechmann died in 1905 in that location. A week before they were in the 1900 census in Illinois with their family. It's interesting that Alma's family lived in Springfield, Ill., and she was an actress married to an Abraham.

One of Alma's cookie recipes can be found in the book Sugar, Sugar, Every Recipe Has a Story.

I was intrigued by the journey Weichmann's manuscript took before it came into Risvold's collection in Minnesota. (Thank goodness fathers Mulcahy or Conroy didn't get their mitts on it.) There are still a lot of questions, but based on this info, there was a close family connection between Elizabeth's family and the Indiana Wiechmanns.

Rsmyth · 03-13-2015, 02:06 PM

Thank you Pamela for the information on the documents sold to Risvold!

Jim Garrett · 03-13-2015, 03:59 PM

That info on Alma is way way cool. My thanks to you Pamela as well.

L Verge · 03-13-2015, 05:55 PM

Back in the 1980s or so, several of us had the opportunity to meet Floyd Risvold while he was in the D.C. area meeting with his good friend, James O. Hall. He was a genuine lover of American history. We know him because of his interest in the Weichmann manuscript and his work in editing it and getting it published.

However, few of us probably know that Mr. Risvold was much better known for his keen interest in America's westward expansion, having acquired a fantastic collection of memorabilia in the field. He was quite the noted postal collector also. Just google his name if you want some biography on this gentleman.

Pamela · 03-13-2015, 10:56 PM

(03-13-2015 05:55 PM)L Verge Wrote: Back in the 1980s or so, several of us had the opportunity to meet Floyd Risvold while he was in the D.C. area meeting with his good friend, James O. Hall. He was a genuine lover of American history. We know him because of his interest in the Weichmann manuscript and his work in editing it and getting it published.

However, few of us probably know that Mr. Risvold was much better known for his keen interest in America's westward expansion, having acquired a fantastic collection of memorabilia in the field. He was quite the noted postal collector also. Just google his name if you want some biography on this gentleman.

He sounds like he was a great, multitalented guy and must have had a fascinating life making so many discoveries during his collecting. Weichmann couldn't have picked a better person to edit his book had he been alive to do it. Risvold "got" him and clearly put heart and soul into making the best presentation of his account of the historical events.
Weren't historians aware that Weichmann had written a manuscript since he wrote so many letters to participants like Dr. Porter, A. C. Richards and others, discussing his book and gathering information? Didn't his sisters mention it to researchers?

L Verge · 03-14-2015, 12:11 PM

For some reason, and I may be wrong, I always thought that James O. Hall was aware of the manuscript and alerted Mr. Risvold to it.

It's similar to Mr. Hall alerting others to the David Rankin Barbee Papers at Georgetown. Mr. Hall did not agree with all of Barbee's research and conclusions, but he thought the wealth of the research and Barbee's fine style of writing deserved to be posthumously published. I know that he approached Barbee's daughter about it, but she wasn't interested.

Wild Bill · 03-14-2015, 12:21 PM

Barbee's "Lincoln and Booth" really needs to be published, especially the part on the Maryland slaveholder's plot against the Federal government

BettyO · 03-14-2015, 02:23 PM

WOW! Thanks so very much for sharing this wealth of information on Weichmann's manuscript and Mr. Risvold's book! It was this book, as well as Kunhardt's Twenty Days, which originally "drew me" into the Lincoln Assassination field....

Quote:Barbee's "Lincoln and Booth" really needs to be published, especially the part on the Maryland slaveholder's plot against the Federal government

I agree, Bill. While some of Barbee's conclusions are suspect - I love his research and the Barbee papers are a definite "must see." I've been up twice to go through the collection - to see his book published would be grand!

Pamela · 03-19-2015, 05:29 PM

This may have been discussed before, but in case it hasn't, I was wondering about a couple of incidents. Any thoughts about what Mary Surratt would have done if Weichmann wasn't given a half day off on April 14th? Would she have gone to his place of employment to ask him to take off work? Would she have gone to Surratt tavern by herself? Would she just not have gone? Also, she had Weichmann write the note to Nothey on the 14th including signing her name. Why did she have Weichmann write the note? Any ideas?