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[Pamela]

(08-05-2016 01:35 PM)L Verge Wrote:  

(08-05-2016 12:45 PM)Pamela Wrote:  Has anyone looked into a possible relationship between Chris Ritter and Clara Ritter?

Oh, please don't throw that old, worn-out, spurious story onto the forum in order to create more speculation!

It appears that you have investigated some of Erick Ewald's excellent research on Ritter. Erick did a good article on "The Tailspinner and the Witness..." for the March 1993 issue of the Surratt Courier. If anyone would like a copy, contact me at Surratt House at laurie.verge@pgparks.com.

Thanks for your comment, Laurie.

From The Evidence, p.1109 '"...Mrs. Ritter (Clara) admitted to him (her husband) that she wrote the letter to Canada directing the letters to be sent to Capt. Nevarro; that she knows John Harrison and that he and John H. Surratt are the same person."

Surratt Courier, March, 1993 "The Tailspinner and the Witness; A Legion of Questions and a Phalanx of Speculations Concerning Chris Ritter and Louis J. Weichmann" by Erich L. Ewald

"...The butcher (Chris Ritter) left behind him a strange story and a legion of questions, chief among them being: What was the purpose in telling this wild tale? Bravely, we do now enter the realm of speculation, that dark netherworld, inhabitated by Possibly, Perhaps and Maybe. The author has already indicated above, on the sketchiest evidence and deduction, that Ritter's role was to draw Louis Weichmann further into the net of known conspirators and sympathizers of Lincoln's assassination. Chris Ritter, whoever he may really have been, was not just an ordinary crackpot on the make. He was carefully prepared for the intense scrutiny that his wild story engendered and it is not improbable that he was connected, in some way, with some of the players in the great drama of Lincoln's assasination.

...If the reader would but humor the author and accept the premise that Chris Ritter was hired, or solicited, to tell this story for the purpose of harassing Weichmann, then another, darker question arises: Who enlisted his services? The author, giving full rein to his imagination, has examined numerous possibilities ranging from political, to religious, to internal church politics. These possibilities have been cast aside, one by one, for various reasons.

Possibly, perhaps, maybe the answer can be foumd in one small fact not previously mentioned. In the Herald, Ritter was described as operating his butcher shop on Twenty Third Street, only four short city blocks from Spencer Locker Surratt's grocery. Is it possible that in some way, by circuitous paths heretofore unexplored, the trail will lead to the door of John Surratt, Jr. of Baltimore, MD?"