Pumphry and Booth's Spurs

[Francis Farrell]

As with many obituaries and reminiscences, this is being written many years after the fact and the facts "as remembered" or "as told to". We need to always take these things with a hefty dose of "show me". What do we know of JWB- we know he was an accomplished horseman from youth up at Bel-Air. It is unlikely that Booth had to "hire" spurs, I am sure he had several sets in his trunk for costumes and I am equally sure he owned multiple sets. I have at least 10-12 from my days riding of various types. JWB I am positive had several sets available to him. We notice that Davey Herold and Lewis Powell who were both riding at the start of the night are not mentioned wearing spurs (does anyone have another information?). This is somewhat unusual but not exceptional, you can ride without using them and depending on the horse no spurs may be be better than spurs used improperly. There is of course no spur attached to th boot surrendered by my neighbor Dr. Mudd. The spur Oldroyd purchased has a provenance that is at best sketchy (1901) , the annapolis one is equally shady. Ford's I would have to check the accession tag. I would check with Mr. Garrett, as he has already looked into this aspect and may have the answer more readily available. I think that we may have to check the remaining boot in Greenmount to look for a mate.

yr ob svt

FF