Mr. Smythe was the "man in the Garrett barn"

[loetar44]

Thank you Roger and Dave for your kind words.

I do not believe that John Wilkes Booth escaped and lived decades thereafter. I do not believe in the fact that not Booth was killed in Garrett’s barn, but another. I do not believe in wild speculation and wild implausibilities. I do not believe in plain disingenuousness. If I would, than it would imply that I also tend to believe in many other equally improbable and often contradictory theories, like theories behind the deaths of JFK and Princess Diana, UFOs, Area 51 and 9/11. I do not. Let that be fully clear. It’s my general thought, that it's not productive to obsess on speculations. However, because conspiracies do happen, the conspiracy theory can’t ever be entirely dismissed. I understand that conspiracies are a perennial favorite for many because there is always a receptive audience. That’s why I don’t want to ignore them (at least the plausible ones). It’s part of history too, pseudo-history if you wish. It was not my intention to suggest that a certain Mr. Smythe and not John Wilkes Booth was killed, that that was a true fact, or a plausible possibility. Not at all! It was John Wilkes Booth who was killed in the barn. But, no matter how you look to this, Mr. Smythe is part of the Booth-Lincoln-legend too. Why fully ignore that? I think people are wise enough to understand what is true or false, what is plausible or implausible, what is ridiculous.

I'm curious how many "ridiculous" escape stories are there (printed in books, magazines, papers, shown in film, etc.) I suggest: let’s do a count. By 1930 John Wilkes Booth had turned up in no less than twenty different guises, according to a count said to have been carefully kept by Herbert W. Fay, custodian of the Lincoln tomb at Springfield. Maybe it’s not much more now, because the years 1920/1930 brought a boom in the sightings (all over the world). And in reference to the “man in the barn”, shot by Boston Corbett (or was it suicide as Stanley Kimmel suggests in “The Mad Booths of Maryland” - 1940), I count only four individuals: Booth, Mr. Ruddy (Rody, Roddy, Robey), Mr. Smythe and James W. Boyd. Curious if somebody out there has more names and another count. My count: 20 (or slightly more) sightings of Booth and 4 for the “man in the barn”.