Booth's mistress, Ella Starr, and other "unknown" Booth ladies!

[Jenny]

Finishing up on Ella: I found her name in the 1850 Federal Census (she was nine years old and living with her sister in Baltimore) but haven't found information on other places she apparently lived before the assassination as Mr. Hall did. Laurie might have more info on the newspaper claims that she lived in Richmond, etc.

The last family connection I can find for Ellen Starr is Mary Virginia "Jenny" Treakle, daughter of Ella's half-sister Mary Jane/Mollie, who married a man named Giles Bartlett in 1873. They had two children, Clayton Bartlett (1877 - 1918) and Blanche Bartlett (1880 - unknown). The trail ends there although I'm still trying to find out what happened to Blanche. That group lived in Ohio, I believe, although I'd have to look up exactly where they lived.

Ella Turner was mentioned in the "John Byron Wilkes" will along with her daughter, "Mary Louise Turner." I won't even go into that one because I think John Byron Wilkes was a loon and that Mary Louise Turner didn't exist at all. There also seems to be an actress named Ella Turner from the late 1860's to the 1890's who is mentioned in theater reviews of various newspapers, but I doubt this was Ella Starr.

During one of my late night searches, I also ran across an interview with actor Harry Hawk, the lone man on stage when Lincoln was shot by Booth, and was surprised to find a mention of Ella Starr Turner.

Most of you probably know that Harry Hawk immediately ran to his dressing room when John Wilkes Booth leapt out of the balcony, knife in hand. Mr. Hawk cooperated with the officials but apparently he never told his side of the story until the 1890's because, to quote from the below interview, he "loved Edwin Booth as much as (he) worshipped Abraham Lincoln" and didn't want to cause Edwin pain. Edwin passed away in 1893, and Harry Hawk was free to tell his tale of what happened that night. So on April 14, 1901 Mr. Hawk told an Illinois newspaper his story. At the moment I cannot cite WHICH newspaper it was as I've misplaced the information but I'll find and add it later.

Here is an excerpt of the interview in the words of Mr. Hawk:

I thought perhaps he (John Wilkes Booth) meant to kill me and fled to my dressing room, which was up a pair of stairs in the wings. The reason I thought he was after me was because he was infatuated with a woman named Ella Turner, whom a wealthy friend of mine named Wilson had met and became enamored of. Finding that she was making a dupe of him, I told him of her relationship with Booth and so incurred her displeasure. I feared she had told Booth some story about me and that he had taken some cranky notion to avenge her publically.

Thought that was an interesting little comment by Harry Hawk!

Anyway in the 10/05/1902 edition of the Richmond Dispatch newspaper, there is a little story involving the possible escape of John Wilkes Booth on page 16. The story is pure nonsense in my opinion as it gets many facts known about Ella and the assassination completely wrong... but it DOES mention her as still being alive AND married so I will include it here in the next post.