New Development in Booth Case Coming Soon

[Steve Whitlock]

(06-22-2019 03:17 AM)Steve Wrote:  Steve W.
Thanks for the info on Laura Ida Booth. I never heard of her before. I guess it'll be a new research rabbit hole to go down to see if I can find out who the John W. Booth who was her father was.

Steve FM,

A little more:

Lou Booth

in the U.S. Federal Census Mortality Schedules, 1850-1885

Name: Lou Booth [Louisa J. (Price) Payne-Booth]
Gender: Female
Race: White
Marital status: Single
Birth Place: Tennessee , USA
Death Date: Apr 1880
Cause of Death: Burned
Census Year: 1880
Census Place: Civil District 4, Grundy, Tennessee , USA
Enumeration District: 43
Line: 2
***************************
Ida Booth

in the 1880 United States Federal Census

Name: Ida Booth
Age: 7
Birth Date: Abt 1873
Birthplace: Tennessee
Home in 1880: District 4, Marion, Tennessee, USA
Dwelling Number: 93
Race: White
Gender: Female
Marital status: Single
Father's Birthplace: Tennessee
Mother's Birthplace: Tennessee
Neighbors:
Household Members:
Name Age
Ida Booth 7 [Laura Ida Booth, Shown as servant for Ben and Sarah Wilkerson family]
************************************
Ben Wilkerson

in the 1880 United States Federal Census

Name: Ben Wilkerson
Age: 28
Birth Date: Abt 1852
Birthplace: Tennessee
Home in 1880: District 4, Marion, Tennessee, USA
Dwelling Number: 93
Race: White
Gender: Male
Relation to Head of House: Self (Head)
Marital status: Married
Spouse's name: Sarah Wilkerson
Father's Birthplace: Tennessee
Mother's Birthplace: Tennessee
Occupation: Laborer
Maimed, Crippled, or Bedridden: Yes
Neighbors:
Household Members:
Name Age
Ben Wilkerson 28
Sarah Wilkerson 27 [Sarah E. (Price) Wilkerson m: Ben 19 Dec 1875, sister of Louisa J. Price]
Mary Wilkerson 3
Martha Wilkerson 1
[NOTE: Ida Booth, age 7, is with this family in census image as a servant. Supposed to be a niece.]
*******************
W B Wilkerson

in the Tennessee, Marriage Records, 1780-2002

Name: W B Wilkerson
Gender: Male
Marriage Date: 19 Dec 1875
Marriage Place: Grundy, Tennessee, USA
Spouse: Saraah (sic) E Price
*************************
Marion Co., TN (where Laura Ida Booth was in 1880) abuts Grundy and Franklin counties in TN. Louisa (Price) Payne-Booth who died from burn injuries Apr 1880 had her dress catch fire. Note that her marital status is "Single".

While trying to determine just who John W. Booth was I checked for other Booth marriages in the same time frame of Franklin and Grundy Co., TN. Only 2 came up.

Louisa Booth

in the Tennessee, Marriage Records, 1780-2002

Name: Louisa Booth [Miss Louisa Booth]
Gender: Female
Marriage Date: 24 Jun 1875
Marriage Place: Franklin, Tennessee, USA
Spouse: Samuel Thomas
**************************
I thought that might be Louisa (Price) Payne-Booth, but one of the 2 marriage records has her as Miss Louisa Booth, but I don't know what became of them if not her, and that Louisa Booth died as Louisa Booth in 1880.

The other Booth marriage was for C.A. Booth:

C. A. Booth

in the Tennessee, Compiled Marriages, 1851-1900

Name: C. A. Booth [Charles A. Booth]
Gender: Male
Spouse: Margret A. Pyland
Spouse Gender: Female
Marriage Date: 16 Nov 1870
County: Franklin
State: Tennessee
******************
He was born in OH and wound up going to Indiana where he died in 1892.

Corp Charles A Booth
Birth 7 Feb 1846
Death 14 Dec 1892 (aged 46)
Burial
Barnett Chapel Cemetery
Elberfeld, Warrick County, Indiana, USA
Memorial ID 10998917 · View Source

Family Members
Spouse

Photo
Margareta Pyland Booth

1852 – unknown

Children

Photo
Wesley Alfred Booth

1871–1887
Photo
Arthur Albert Booth

1874–1919
Photo
Almira Booth

1878–1882
Photo
Araminta H. Booth Butcher

1881–1967

Inscription

Co. B Ohio Infantry; Co. D 3rd Michigan Infantry
*****************************************
I believe this was him in 1860, note no John W. Booth, or Miss Louisa Booth.

Charles Roothe

in the 1860 United States Federal Census

Name: Charles Roothe
[Charles Booth]
Age: 14
Birth Year: abt 1846
Gender: Male
Birth Place: Ohio
Home in 1860: Hambden, Geauga, Ohio
Post Office: Hampden
Dwelling Number: 737
Family Number: 689
Attended School: Yes
Household Members:
Name Age
George Roothe 58
Almira Roothe 42
Charles Roothe 14 [Charles A. Booth]
Eunice Roothe 13
Elijah Roothe 10
Electa Roothe 9
Lydia Boothe 5
Amanda Boothe 3
********************
Charles A Booth

in the 1870 United States Federal Census

Name: Charles A Booth
Age in 1870: 24
Birth Year: abt 1846
Birthplace: Ohio
Dwelling Number: 71
Home in 1870: District 7, Franklin, Tennessee
Race: White
Gender: Male
Occupation: Farm Laborer
Father of Foreign Birth: Y
Male Citizen over 21: Y
Household Members:
Name Age
Charles A Booth 24
******************
I checked the John, John W. and J.W. Booths in the TN 1870 census, but none seems likely as the John W. Booth that married Louisa (Price) Payne, that is the age is too young or married with children. None of them were near Louisa for her to entice a married man. No St. Helens, but several David Georges, none of them near the right age. Of course, he could have had another alias. I also checked for Jack Booth, since he introduced himself as Jack Booth, a cousin of JWB initially. Oops, I haven't shared my excerpted source for the Jack Booth story.

"Mrs. Charles Levine was born Laura Ida Elizabeth Booth in Payne's Cove, Tennessee, a few miles west of Chattannooga, Tennessee in 1873. She was the daughter of Louisa Holmes [Price] Payne and John Wilkes Booth (see marriage certificate to the left). Louisa J. Payne was a Confederate Civil War widow. Her first husband, Confederate soldier C.Z. Payne, died in 1865 toward the end of the war. Louisa was left to care for her young son McCager (or "Cage"). Louisa worked as a seamstress for the recently opened University of the South in Sewannee, Tennessee. In 1871 Louisa met a man named Jack Booth who claimed he was a "distant cousin" to John Wilkes Booth. Louisa fell in love, and she married Jack in February 1872. However, after the wedding, Jack told Louisa that he had a past, and his name was not really Jack. When she pressed him for the truth, Jack told her he was actually John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of the Republican President. Louisa, a devout Christian and southern Democrat, could forgive her husband for his war actions and personal deceptions to her, but she insisted that he sign their marriage certificate with his God-given name. And so, on February 24, 1872, a new certificate was signed in the presence of Rev. C.C. Rose, listing the marriage of John Wilkes Booth and Louisa Payne. The late historiagrapher for University of the South, Dr. Arthur Ben Chitty, did extensive research into Louisa Payne and her marriage to the man claiming to be John Wilkes Booth. Dr. Chitty eventually discovered the marriage certificate itself, located in the Franklin County Courthouse in Winchester, Tennessee. Dr. Chitty archived at The University of the South several audio tape interviews of men who personally knew McCager Payne, who in 1872 became John Wilkes Booth's step-son. Dr. Chitty discovered that McCager had intimate knowledge while a youth that his stepfather was actually John Wilkes Booth.

As a newly married couple Louisa and John Wilkes Booth moved to Memphis, Tennessee because, as Louisa would later say, "my husband had been told he would be paid a large sum of money owed him for his offical work on behalf of the Confederacy." While in Memphis, Louisa overheard some men on the street discussing her husband and pointing out where the "skunk" was now living. Louisa informed John that men knew who he was and his life was in danger. John told Louisa that it would be better if they separated for a season. He would go to Texas and she should go back to Tennessee until things cooled off. John promised Louisa that he would return to Tennessee after things settled down.
Louisa went back east to Payne's Cove Tennessee and the man claiming to be John Wilkes Booth headed south. Unbeknown to the couple at the time, Louisa was pregnant with John's child. Louisa Payne would give birth to Laura Ida Elizabeth Booth, named after one of John Wilkes Booth's sisters, while living alone in Tennessee in early 1873. Her second husband, the man she first knew as "Jack Booth," but later laimed to be "John Wilkes Booth" went to Granbury, Texas -- and would change his name to John St. Helen. Historian Steven Miller suggests that John St. Helen, the man who confessed to being "John Wilkes Booth" to attorney Finis Bates, is a different man from the person who married Louisa Payne. My research on a book about the Lincoln assassination and the bizarre connections to Enid, Oklahoma suggests they are the same man. This man--Jack Booth/John St. Helen, David E. George, is either a deluded and deceptive man who pretended to be John Wilkes Booth for over four decades, or as many in the family of John Wilkes Booth now believe, this man was actually John Wilkes Booth himself.
DNA testing in 2011 could help solve the mystery.

Back in Tennesee during 1873 Louisa Booth received financial help from the family of her deceased first husband (C.Z. "Zeb" Payne). She went to work caring for her son McCager and her newborn infant girl. Louisa kept hope that her husband would return to her from Texas, but she never heard from him. In 1879, seven years after marrying the man who claimed to be John Wilkes Booth, beautiful 36 year old Louisa Payne was raking and burning leaves in her front yard when her dress accidentally caught fire. Louisa ran to the creek in an attempt to extinquish the flames, but the burns on her body would prove to be fatal for her. Before she died, Louisa called her six-year-old daughter Laura Ida Booth and her fourteen-year-old son McCager Payne to her bedside. The mother informed her children that Ida's father was John Wilkes Booth. McCager would later tell friends at the mill where he worked late in his life that he already knew John Wilkes Booth was his stepdad because of conversations he had overheard between his mom and stepdad when he was a boy. Caught listening in one time by his step-dad, McCager was threatened that if the boy told anyone that his step-dad was John Wilkes Booth, "I will kill you."

After the death of her mother young Laura Ida Booth would go to live with friends and family. Laura Ida Booth eventually became an actress herself and married a fellow actor named Charles Levine in New York City. When Mrs. Charles Levine heard of David E. George's death in Enid, Oklahoma in early 1903, and that David E. George had claimed to be "John Wilkes Booth" before he died, Mrs. Levine sent her letter to the the mayor of El Reno claiming George's estate "if indeed he is John Wilkes Booth."

Mrs. Charles Levine was serious in her query about Booth's estate, believing herself to be his daughter. Her letter should also be taken seriously by historians. Again, one of two options is possible regarding the man who appears as Jack Booth/John St. Helen/David E. George/ and who fathered Laura Ida Booth: (1). Either this man is a devious and/or deluded individual who kept up a false front for four decades about being John Wilkes Booth, or (2). This man is actually John Wilkes Booth.

To take the latter position opens oneself up to ridicule from mainstream historians. I remain personally unpersuaded. What is certain, however, is this: The DNA testing of the vertebrae from 'the body in barn' will either be a match to John Wilkes Booth and lay to rest the "Booth Legend" or the DNA testing will NOT provide a match and the escape theories for Lincoln's assassin will explode. Either way, historians ought to give Laura Ida Elizabeth Booth (Mrs. Charles Levine) and the letter she wrote to the mayor of El Reno in February 1903 far more serious attention than they are currently being given.
​
wrote to the mayor of El Reno in February 1903 far more serious attention than they are currently being given.

Proudly powered by Weebly"
*************************
I'm not trying to get anyone fired up here, just sharing the notes I have because Forum Master Steve asked about Laura Ida Booth. Memphis, east of Oklahoma, seems to get some mentions in all this whatever it is, hoax or whatever.

Steve FM, here's some final notes, for now.

Seeking death record for Laura Ida (Booth) Norman.
0 votes
435 views
Looking for a death date and place for Laura Ida (Booth) Norman died between 1920-1925 possibly in New York City. She was living in the National Vaudeville Artist Club, 229 W. 46th St. in 1924, at least she received a letter in March of 1924 there. Not looking for anything but a death date. Thank you.

booth norman

asked Apr 1, 2012 in Genealogy Help by Carol Hicks G2G Rookie (180 points)
2 Answers
+2 votes

Best answer

I am the great niece of Laura and Art Driver. I have all the same info you have plus a litle more.

Laura Ida Booth who joined the circus, supposedly Robinson's Circus between 1891-1894 in Tennessee, was listed as a new act for Welsh Bros. Circus (1894-95 Fulton, New York site Feb. 1) and left Welsh Bros., according to 1897-1899, July 2, Fulton, New York site. She and her husband Charles Levine (Le Vine) worked with the Harry and Amy La Van during part of those year at Welsh Bros., leaving at the same time.

She was also known as Alma Booth, Mlle Alma and Mrs. L. I. Norman and later performed in Vaudeville.

Besides being married to Charles Levine aka Charles Asburn, and having a son, Charles Wilson Asburn, who was also a performer, she married at least twice more; Lewis A. Howard 1914 in Illinois and Isaac Driver (aka possibly Art Norman), 1917, in New York. She died, according to her son, in 1924.

Lewis A. Howard was considered the fastest lightning crayon artist.
answered May 29, 2012 by anonymous
selected Mar 2, 2013 by Ron Norman