November 1864 Classified Ad by JWB

[Steve]

Jerry, as far as I know it's uncertain when Booth met John Surratt but the most common theory that I've heard is that it was when Booth was in Montreal in October 1864. I also checked the late Art Loux's book John Wilkes Booth: Day by Day and Booth was briefly at the Surratt tavern on 11 November 1864 during a stop on a stage ride to Bryantown, Maryland where Booth would meet with Dr. Queen to discuss the plot to abduct Lincoln. So, it seems that Booth may have already met the Surratts before the ad was placed in the newspaper. But looking at the timeline something really interesting appears:

November 8:
Lincoln reelected. Booth in Baltimore.

November 9-10:
Booth meets his brother Junius in Baltimore on the 9th and then travels to Washington, registering at the National Hotel that evening.

November 11-13:
On the 11th Booth takes the early morning stage to Bryantown mentioned above. He stays in the area, leaving on the 14th.

November 14-15:
Booth arrives in Washington and checks into the National Hotel early in the evening on the 14th.
The series of ads is probably purchased on the 15th since they ran from the 16th until the 19th

November 16:
Booth opens a checking account with Jay Cook & Co. with an initial deposit of $1500. He then checks out of the National Hotel and goes to Baltimore to see his brother Junius.

November 17-22:
Booth goes to Philadelphia to see Asia and Edwin.

November 23-27:
JWB and Edwin travel to New York on the 23rd. All three Booth brothers have various performances.

November 28-30:
Junius and JWB travel to Philadelphia to see Asia on the 28th.

December 1:
Booth leaves Philadelphia and returns to Washington.

If Booth placed the ads (which I believe he did), then he bought them to run in the paper just as he was leaving the city for a couple of weeks. Here's an actual image of one of the ads for any interested reader:
   

(I know Jerry said in his original post that the ad also appeared in the 14 Nov. edition of the Evening Star as well, but I manually checked that edition of the paper and the ad doesn't appear in it. I hate to point out such a minor date mistake in a post of a new member of this forum, especially since he discovered this ad but feel it's necessary when mapping out this chronology.)