Locks of hair

[Rsmyth]

Hi All. I apologize in advance for the long post. This is from my files on Booth hair.

• Lock(s) of Hair from John Wilkes Booth - Though scarce, there are a number of purported locks of Booth’s hair both in public institutions and private collections. The assassin’s hair was supposedly clipped at the Garrett farm, another while the assassin’s body was on the gunship prior to the autopsy and finally during the Booth family identification of the body in Baltimore…just prior to burial. The provenance of some is stronger than others.

1. Lock of JWB hair donated (unknown date) by Kate Mason Rowland to The Museum of the Confederacy.

Two cards displayed with the relic state the following:

I love peace more than life. Have loved the Union beyond expression. For four years have I waited, hoped and prayed for the dark clouds to break, and for a restoration of our former sunshine. To wait longer would be a crime. Right or wrong. God judge me, not man. (Extract from his paper to whom it may concern)

Lock of hair – cut from the head of John Wilkes Booth after his capture with extract from his last words given by Miss Kate Mason Rowland.

“1st Vice President – Baltimore D.


2. Another lock donated to The Museum of the Confederacy by W.K. Howard on December 16th 1927.


The relic is accompanied by two cards on which the following is written:
Wilkes Booth’s hair Presented by W.K. Howard Baltimore, Md
Hair of John Wilkes Booth given by W.K. Howard, “Belle Hill” Corbin, VA.

Seventy – two year old William Key Howard of Caroline County kept his lock of Booth hair wrapped in tissue tied with string in a trunk. Howard got the lock from his grandmother in 1921, Harriet Fields Robb of Port Royal. She received it from Doctor Urquhart (the doctor who attended Booth at the Garrett farm), who had clipped the lock himself. .


1. A lock of Booth’s hair reportedly cut by Lucinda Holloway was on long term loan to the Caroline County Historical Society in Bowling Green, Virginia. When the CCHS was contacted, President Gilbert Brittle did not know anything about the lock of hair and suggested speaking to Herbert Collins. Mr. Collins is the retired curator of presidential collections at the Smithsonian's Museum of American History. He is still very active in the history of the area. When asked about the lock of hair that Lucinda Holloway cut from John Wilkes Booth's head, his response was immediate. He knew where it was,” it was in the ash bin!” Herbert Collins story is as follows:

The lock of hair was a treasured family relic which had been on loan to the Caroline County Historical Society for a lengthy time. This relic was a very contentious object in the collateral descendants (Lucinda was a spinster), and several family members felt that each should be the owner of the valuable piece of history. The family decided the resolution would be to sell the lock. The relic was offered to both the CCHS and the Surratt Society, with both institutions replying the asking price was over the relic’s value. The family undoubtedly looked towards other buyers without any takers. So the logical solution to the issue was...the family decided to incinerate the relic so no one would get it.

Fanny Webb of Caroline County, Virginia said the hair was passed down in her family. Lucinda gave a lock to her doctor, Dr. C.S. Webb. It remained in the family until Robert Webb, Fanny’s brother-in-law sold a portion to a northern museum and burned the rest.
This information differs from the scenario listed as Booth lock of hair #2.

2. As a patient, Lucinda gave a piece to her doctor, Doctor Webb. In 1949, this piece was passed along to Otto Eisenschiml, Lincoln assassination author. Louise Taper acquired the relic before selling it to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum – Springfield, Illinois. The hair is displayed in a 3” X 2” a gilt-mat cameo, daguerreotype case containing an albumen portrait of Booth with some of his hair inserted under the glass. The catalogue reads, "With copy of affidavit from Otto Eisenschiml, 1949, explaining that he had received the hair from a Dr. Webb, who had received it from a patient named Lucinda Holloway, who had cut the lock from Booth's head as he lay dying on the porch of the Garrett home in Virginia, 1865."

3. The lock of John Wilkes Booth’s hair, 150 strands of black hair, is known as the Lucinda Holloway, John Wilkes Booth hair. The lock has variously been attributed to be cut by Lucinda or Doctor Urquhart who attended the dying Booth; cut a stray curl and handed it to Lucinda. Richard Baynham Garrett says a lock was cut by his sister.
Richard Baynham Garrett was eleven years old when John Wilkes Booth died at his father’s farm in Virginia. As an adult, Richard gave lectures on the assassination and death of Booth. In his account of Booth’s visit he describes what occurred after the assassin’s death
“Preparations were at once begun to take the body away. My mother brought water and carefully bathing the blood from his face and neck, she tied a handkerchief about the face. When her work was done, one of the curls on his brow had escaped from the bandage and my sister, with the consent of the officer, took a pair of scissors and clipped it off.”

He wrote the Booth family a letter and enclosed a lock of John’s hair for the assassin’s mother.

Cast iron frame containing curls of John Wilkes Booth’s hair. Written below the locks is Jno. Wilkes Booth April 26th 1865. The relic is now the property of John Reznikoff, University Archives – Westport, Connecticut

Richard had three sisters at the time of Booth’s visit; Lillian (almost 9-years old), Henrietta (6-years old) and Cora (3-years old). If Richard was correct in stating it was his sister that cut the lock then in all probability it was eldest sister Lillian. He also had five step-sisters, two of which it is known never married or left the farm; Catherine “Cattie” and Anne Judson. Another step-sister, Julia was 15 and two others, Cecelia and Mary were 27 and 28 respectively. Julia was probably still living at home as was Mary who did not marry until 1877. So the lock may have been cut by Lillian, Cattie, Anne, Julia, Mary or maybe Richard referred to the 34-year old Lucinda as “sister.”
According to Lucinda, Lieutenant Baker asked her to rub his temples and forehead. She recalled “I did so. The end was near. Then, gasping three times and crossing his hands upon his breasts, he died just as the day was breaking and the doctor was reaching the house.”
“A stray curl that had fallen over my fingers while I had soaked the dying man’s temples was cut off by Dr. Urquhart and given to me. A portion of this curl I have in my possession now.”

Lucinda lived with the Garrett’s acting as a teacher for the children. Whether Lucinda or one of the others cut the hair, it seems reasonable that following the assassin’s death, the lock of hair remained in the family. Dean said that Richard Garrett gave the lock to his daughter, May Garrett Wilson, when he was an old man living in Portsmouth, Virginia. Mrs. Wilson now 85 (1977) was living in a nursing home in Fredericksburg, Virginia and gave the relic to Margaret Ann Wilson Dean, of Tappahannock, Virginia, a Garrett family member. Dean sold the lock in 1995 with other assassination relics. The purchaser of the entire collection was collector Robert L. White who had been alerted to the sale by Stan Beason of Bowling Green, Virginia. The purchase was completed on April 26th, 1995, the anniversary of Booth’s death. White had a collection of hair relics which included Napoleon and Bela Lugosi who starred as Dracula. White eventually sold the collection to the Federal Hill Antiquities auction company who placed everything up for sale in November of 1997. The estimated 1997 sale price was $20,000 - $25,000. It is thought that the relic did not sell at this time and was offered for sale privately. This lock of hair was eventually purchased by John Reznikoff of University Archives, a dealer in historic hair.

James O. Hall note Lincoln assassination historian and authority, said this lock is the real thing.

It is interesting to note that Stan Beason believed that Booth escaped the Garrett farm and lived another 38 years in Oklahoma. Beason reason’s that the lock of hair was clipped by Booth himself and presented to a homely Lucinda Holloway who was “…probably quite enamored of the handsome actor.”

4. A lock of Booth’s hair was also collected in the early part of 1869 after the release of the remains by President Andrew Johnson. As the body was being viewed at Weaver’s Undertaking establishment in Baltimore by family and friends, John Wilkes brother Doctor Joseph Booth gave Blanche Chapman, future wife of Henry Clay Ford, treasurer of Ford’s Theatre a scissors to cut a lock of hair. She handed the hair to John Wilkes mother who gave a portion to her daughter Rosalie, some to Blanche and Blanche’s sister Ella. She kept the remaining for herself.
5. One lock descended from Edwina Booth Grossman (Edwin Booth’s daughter with his first wife Mary Devlin Booth ). The relic was later sold in a Christie's East auction. It is possible that this lock was a portion of the hair cut by Blanche Chapman Ford or sent to the Booth family by Richard Baynham Garrett. It is known that Garrett sent a lock of hair to Booth’s mother and in return Edwin Booth sent Garrett and autographed CDV of himself.

6. Another lock of Booth’s hair that probably originated from the R.B. Garrett cutting was to James O'Bierne, to Otto Eisenschiml, to Foreman Leopold, to Ralph Newman, to Philip Sang, then to a rare book dealer and finally to a private collector.
James Rowan O'Beirne was active in the pursuit and capture of John Wilkes Booth. Collector Otto Eisenschiml is best known for his 1937 book Why was Lincoln Murdered? on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in which he proposed that a senior member of Lincoln's Cabinet orchestrated the plot to kill the president. Philip D. Sang was a Chicago businessman and philanthropist.

7. After Booth’s autopsy on the ironclad Montauk the body was left alone for a moment when a lady along with a group of “prominent people with Southern sympathies, came on board.” The woman snipped a lock of the assassin’s hair but was thwarted by the officer in charge who took the lock from her.

8. Testimony indicates that an assistant to the Surgeon General cut a lock of Booth’s hair. Marine Sergeant John M. Peddicord cut some which in 1995 was still in possession of the sergeant’s family. Peddicord claims that he was the one who "hooded" Powell on board the Montauk. This was apparently the padded hood. He doesn't mention hooding the other conspirators; just Powell and claimed that Powell asked, "What is that for?" Peddicord mentioned that Powell wept when he hooded him.