Lucy Lambert Hale has one friend on Facebook

[Sally]

(09-10-2016 09:21 PM)Lincoln Wonk Wrote:  

(09-10-2016 08:20 PM)Sally Wrote:  

(09-07-2016 09:58 AM)Lincoln Wonk Wrote:  Does anyone know the newspaper Sen. Hale published the ad claiming Lucy and Wilkes were not an item?

Denials were published in quite a few newspapers, mostly in the east. There were several different versions, but my favorite was one that appeared in the Saturday Evening Gazette in Boston:

"The report that J. Wilkes Booth was about to be married to the daughter of Hon. John P. Hale originated in the head of some stupid fool. There is no truth in the paragraph."

The most common version was the one that first appeared in the National Republican and was then spread around to newspapers all over the country:

"There is not the slightest truth in the statement." (The "statement" made by Junius Booth during an interview with reporters in Cincinnati wherein he announced that JWB had told him he was going to marry Lucy). "Booth attempted to force his attentions upon Miss Hale but she always manifested a decided aversion to the handsome villian."

Sally, Would you have a date for when those appeared? Kathy

They started appearing a few days after Junius Booth's interview, which was reported around April 19th.

This was in the Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican on April 21:

"It is stated and not yet authoritatively contradicted, though we are confident it ought to be, that J. Wilkes Booth was to have been married soon to a daughter of John P. Hale of New Hampshire. Aside from his recent heinous crime Booth wasn't the kind of a man that any young lady of character would have noticed, much less married."

The statement in the Gazette about the "stupid fool" was published on April 22. But the one in the National Republican that seems to have been considered the "official" denial first appeared on April 24.