New Booth Pic?

[HistoryFan]

(08-18-2016 07:53 AM)Gene C Wrote:  Michelle, I know this doesn't have much to do with the photograph you found, I am interested in what you think regarding the story of Simon Jefferson, the black barber who claims Booth told him he planned to shoot the president. I was curious to know if you had any idea of when he first made those claims? The details are in his newspaper obituary, and Jefferson's early newspaper interviews (according to the Times News article of July 30, 2016, posted earlier)

Wonder if there is a way to find and post the obituary and those earlier newspaper interviews of Jefferson?

Like Roger, I was also wondering if a famous actor came to town, is there any mention of it in the local newspapers? Unusual to me, that the only record of Booth passing through town is from a barber.

Gene, I am also very interested in reading those early newspaper interviews and obituary and inquired of Donald Serfass if he had a hard copy of the obituary that I could see. He told me that he did, but when he moved a few years ago, he never did unpack a lot of things out of boxes and he can't put his finger exactly on which box it is residing in. However, he did inform me that issues of the Tamaqua Evening Courier are available at the Tamaqua Public Library, on microfilm.

So I do intend to take a trip to Tamaqua in the next few months to check it out!

I'll also try to view the pre-death interviews that Simon Jefferson had with the other Tamaqua newspaper, that allegedly were published soon after the assassination.

Regarding your question about why there may be no mention of Booth passing through town, my own personal theory (opinion only) is that perhaps he didn't want to be recognized ... which would also explain why he may have dressed down and wore the cap of a working man. If he was traveling from Montreal to Virginia, as Jefferson claimed, he may have been traveling in the role --- not of an actor --- but of assisting the Confederacy.

On page 70 of John Wilkes Booth: Day by Day, the author writes, "... a man called at Asia's home in Philadelphia and asked for Dr. Booth. When Asia asked John about it, he responded, 'All right, I am he, if to be a doctor means a dealer in quinine.' He claimed he was smuggling the drug to the South."