JWB Seduction Charge (Not Breach of Promise)

[Steve]

(11-29-2017 03:49 PM)jparkuntz Wrote:  This is a follow-up to my post of a few weeks ago of a 4/16/1865 Philadelphia Sunday Mercury clipping that indicated that JWB had seduced a young woman in Philadelphia in 1857-58 and that resulted in a requisition being sent from the Governor of Pennsylvania to Virginia to have Booth returned to face that charge.

I have a couple of follow-ups. George Alfred Townsend wrote in his 1865 Life, Crime, and Capture of John Wilkes Booth: "For an affair at his boarding-house he was compelled to pay a considerable sum of money, and it happily occured just as he was to quit the city [Philadelphia]"

Art Loux mentions this quote in his John Wilkes Booth Day-By-Day, but says it is dubious because another source said Booth was staying at John Sleeler Clarke's, not at a boarding house.

Today I went to the Pennsylvania State Archives and found the requisition. See attached. "Seduction" was a pretty serious felony, punishable by a fine and between 7-21 years in prison.

Luckily for Booth (but not the USA), his lawyer Robert M. Lee Jr. "connived" to get the charges dropped for a payoff. Had Booth been held accountable, he would have been behind bars in 1865.

Maybe Philadelphia City Archives might have more details of the charge.

Jerry Kuntz
Warwick NY

Wow, great and important find! I'm glad the Mercury story was able to be verified. About the Philadelphia Archives, I have to tell you something important. In less than 2 weeks it's going to close and isn't scheduled to reopen until September 2018 because it is moving locations:

https://blog.eogn.com/2017/11/29/philade...gust-2018/

This link may be helpful in understanding Pennsylvania laws regarding the crime of seduction at the time:

https://books.google.com/books?id=vj2TAA...ia&f=false