Awww...Peanuts

[Tom Bogar]

Ah, Peanut, Peanut, Peanut--the eternal mystery figure. Sorry I haven't addressed this thread earlier, but I've been out of the country (in Montreal, actually, where the folks at the Montreal Historical Society said "John Wilkes who? never heard of him." Just kidding) In researching Backstage, I came across two potential old-age Peanuts: the New York Herald 8/24/1888 talks about “Peanut John” Oprandy of Mount Vernon, NY, who runs fruit stand and “has amassed quite a fortune from the business.” Also four different items in the Springfield (MA) Republican from 1889 to 1904 mention “Peanut John” Musante. But neither panned out (and believe me, I tried). My secret theory is, since Annie Wright, the wife of stage manager John Burroughs Wright, called him "a simple minded but good natured street waif who worked all day and half the night about the stage," that he was actually kind of homeless and had been semi-adopted by Wright, who gave the boy his own middle name as a surname. But who knows? I took the age from several sources, most credibly from Will T. Kent, who said in the St. Louis Globe Democrat (12/3/1891) that Peanut was “a young fellow about 17 years old.”) Talk about the Holy Grail of Lincoln Assassination information......