Booth's Diary

[L Verge]

(01-13-2018 03:31 PM)SSlater Wrote:  Does the Diary Still exist? Can we read all that is left? Are copies available?

If we can find something written in Booth's Diary, that could have been known only to the real Booth, it would prove - for once and for all - that the body on the Garrett Farm porch was JOHN WILKES BOOTH, and all other claims that say he lived on in Texas or Oklahoma, or wherever ! Are wrong.

I have pondered this at many times and have arrived at some weird answers. For example. Maybe Booth tore the page out. Those pages may have bee a "record" of some memorable "Hotel Pass-time", that he had to hide from a later partner. Or maybe her father read it. For example, the Senator whose daughter that was engaged to Booth.

Laurie, Are there copies- of what is left of the Diary,- in the Surratt collection?

There are copies of the remaining text in our collection, but also published in many books on the assassination and elsewhere. What you have probably read dozens of times is the extent of the text in that little memorandum/appointment book.

James O. Hall also did a page-by-page description of the lay-out, etc. years ago when VP Walter Mondale worked with him, the NPS, and the FBI lab to do an extensive examination of the diary, which was/is owned by the NPS and on display in Ford's Theatre. The FBI report may be online somewhere, I have never looked. There are currently some wonderful ($$) reproductions being made of the diary - one of which is on display at Surratt House.

Personally, unless there is a secret code or encryption that we are not aware of, I don't think there is anything left to determine from its pages. With the work of Mr. Hall and Steve Miller, the expert on the 16th NY Cavalry and the events of April 26, 1865, we have detailed investigations, citations, primary source info, you name it to refute the claims of Mr. Orlowek and the theorists that have preceded him. The Surratt House even published a booklet years ago (and still for sale in our gift shop) on the theory - allowing Orlowek and his then-partner, Arthur Ben Chitty, to supply their stories as well as the factual material that "our side" presented. Believe me, it is very hard to refute the facts. The booklet is entitled The Body in the Barn.

We also carried several articles in the Surratt Courier on what the facts tell us about Booth and the mummy. One or two were the reports presented to Henry Ford by one of his chief investigators (Black?) when determining whether or not Ford should buy the mummy for his museum. P.S. The mummy is not in the museum...

My hope is that I live long enough to see society turn to true facts to learn something except blindly accepting spurious theories, conspiracy angles, etc. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening - especially now with Mysteries at the Museum, the now-disappointing History Channel, and so many far-fetched things online to be taken as the gospel by the masses.