New Booth Pic?

[L Verge]

(08-19-2016 09:42 AM)HistoryFan Wrote:  Again, just theorizing ... we're talking about John Wilkes Booth, the passionate, spirited and dramatic young man thwarted in his attempts to join the Confederate Army by a promise he made to his mother. While a "normal" Confederate operative might prefer to be totally incognito, perhaps he wanted to see how he looked in his hat.

I like the way the man is gazing resolutely at some distant focus, rather than looking into the camera, as though he had some noble purpose. His pose (that distant gaze) reminds me of Edwin Forrest's classic pose as Metamora, the popular 19th century play in which Forrest portrayed an Indian chief who turned to violence only by force.

In addition, how many 1860s photos have you seen of a man posing in a fox skin hat inside a photo studio? Yet we know, through contemporary accounts, that John Wilkes Booth did so (although that photo has never been found). He engaged in the burgeoning technology of photography far more than most citizens of the era.

As I mentioned earlier on this thread, when I asked Donald Serfass about the proximity of the Baily photography studio to the barber shop, he responded, "The barber shop and the photo studio were located LESS than one block apart on the same side of the main street."

"In addition, how many 1860s photos have you seen of a man posing in a fox skin hat inside a photo studio?"

What the hat is made of isn't important, what we would/should be considering is the style of the hat. Did the yellow fox-skin hat have a fox tail attached? Was it theatrical attire? Was it simply a regular hat of the period made out of fox skin instead of beaver or wool or felt?

The hat worn in this spurious photo is a regular hat of the period - just not one that the more debonair Mr. Booth would be likely to own.

The words jumped off the page at me when I read that it was not John Wilkes Booth who told Mr. Jefferson about the impending assassination, but rather a supposed confidant from a minstrel show. Another strike against the accuracy of the story (and probably the photo).

Finally, I am still focusing on the story of any railroad line that Booth could have used if he really had any reason for going even close to Tamaqua. One of our museum volunteers is a railroad fanatic, and he happened to be working at Surratt House yesterday.

Armed with an 1875 map of major rail lines, I first asked him how Booth would have gotten from Washington to New York via train: B&O to Baltimore and then switch to different station for Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore line to Philadelphia; from Philadelphia, head into New Jersey probably by the Camden and Amboy. I lost count at that point as to various rail and ferry lines that could take him into New York and points north.

The main point of our discussion and my education was that no major trunk line passenger trains came close to Tamaqua - even in 1875. Local passengers rode local coal trains in that area. Why would Booth go miles out of the way to have his photo taken by a photographer in that particular town?