New Development in Booth Case Coming Soon

[Steve Whitlock]

(06-24-2019 02:38 PM)Steve Whitlock Wrote:  

(06-24-2019 02:15 PM)Steve Wrote:  I don't know why this JWB can't be found in the 1900 census, since he was in the 1900 Leadville city directory at an address he had already lived at for a few years:



A manual search of census images might be needed to check out his 902 Pine address to be sure, but it looks like he was probably missed by the census taker in 1900.

I also found him in the 1883 Cheyenne, Wyoming directory:



The earliest I could find him in Leadville directory was in 1889, even though there are directories for that town in the database for the preceding decade. So, the article/obituary is wrong about him moving to Leadville in 1879 (maybe a misprint?, the 16 years living in Cheyenne would match a move to Leadville in 1889). Also he clearly already was a cabinetmaker in Cheyenne before moving to Leadville.

Both the Tennessee JWB and the Colorado/Wyoming JWB are cabinetmakers, have an interest in the theatre, and use the JWB name after the assassination. The Colorado/Wyoming JWB also first appears in the record right after the Tennessee JWB is last seen. The obituary story of the first wife of the Colorado/Wyoming JWB dying in 1872 coincides with when the Tennessee JWB abandoned his pregnant wife. It might be a coincidence, but the name the article gives the first wife is also "Ida". Checking newspapers from Omaha, I can't seem to find a description accident killing a horse rider similar to the one described. Also I'm pretty sure no such person was buried in the Booth family plot in Baltimore.

The information for the obituary story almost certainly came from Dolly Booth, so I can sort of see why this JWB might tell her his first wife died instead of saying that he abandoned while she was pregnant.

Agreed, especially to the last paragraph! There is some serious irony here in that Junius B. Booth III was the one identifying the tintype as his uncle, John Wilkes Booth, if in fact it was his half-brother, John Wilkes Booth, that married Louisa J. Payne.

FM Steve, I'm including this excerpt of an article for just a few words you may recognize:

The Season of the Spirits at Leadville’s Evergreen Cemetery
November 1, 1995 / Staff / 1995 November

Article by Lynda La Rocca

A gigantic mystery surrounds a small, metal plate bearing the name “John Wilkes Booth.” Although cemetery records indicate that this man was just 17 years old in 1865 when President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, there are those who believe that Evergreen Cemetery does, indeed, hold the remains of Lincoln’s murderer. Evergreen’s Booth, who described himself as a cousin of the assassin, was born in 1848, ten years after the birthrate attributed to Lincoln’s killer. His death, on the last day of 1916, raises such tantalizing questions as: If Evergreen’s Booth really was the assassin, how did he get away? Where and how did he live for the next half-century? And who, then, was the person identified as the assassin and subsequently killed by the authorities?
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The words are "described himself as a cousin of the assassin". Now, where have we read that before? That was his introduction to Louisa J. Payne. If really a son of Junius Booth Jr he would be a nephew, so saying cousin is a bit distinctive.