History Channel - Booth's Pistol

[Wesley Harris]

I received a call today from a producer for the History Channel show "Lost History." They are doing an episode on Booth's Deringer, specifically on the story I related at the Surratt Conference two years ago regarding supposed theft of the pistol from Ford's Theater.

The story was that a burglary ring broke into Ford's sometime in the 60s or 70s and switched the pistol on display with a fake. The National Park Service took it seriously enough to send their pistol to the FBI Lab for analysis, including comparison to early photos. Needless to say, the FBI determined Ford's still has the pistol photographed long before the purported burglary.

I don't know that I helped her much since her focus is on the burglary and the details on where that information originated (somewhere in the Northeast) has been lost with turnover of personnel at NPS and U.S. Park Police.