Grovers Theater

[RJNorton]

(06-12-2014 04:17 PM)Linda Anderson Wrote:  John, I came across an interview of some members of the Garrett family in the 12/11/1881 Boston Herald.

Lillie Garrett was eight years old when Booth and Herold showed up at the Garrett farm.

"'I remember one very interesting incident that occurred when he was here.'
'What was that?'
'He was lying prone upon the grass in the front yard, and we were all playing about him; I grabbed him by the arm in the game, and accidentally pushed his shirt sleeve up to the elbow; and there, upon the forearm, I saw tattooed the letters 'J.W.B.' 'Oh, What are those letters on there for?' said I quickly.
'Why, child, those are the initials of my name, 'James W. Boyd.'
'I remembered then that the man who had brought him had introduced him as Mr. Boyd, and then I went on with the play, and probably would have forgotten the circumstance but for the startling events which rapidly followed it.'"

In an 1897 letter Reverend Richard B. Garrett wrote, "He has his initials in India ink on his forearm just below the elbow. I saw the officers roll back his sleeve and saw the initials J.W.B. just where they were said to be."

SOURCE: J. W. B. His Initials in India Ink by Constance Head in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 90, July 1982.