Grave of John Wilkes Booth

[L Verge]

(01-22-2017 11:04 AM)LincolnMan Wrote:  I would like to visit the cemetery someday. Is it well kept or no?

Bill - Are you inquiring about the old St. Peter's Cemetery in Southern Maryland, where Spangler rests or Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, which holds the remains of the Booths? In both cases, the cemeteries are well-maintained.

There is a problem with Green Mount in that it is in a decaying section of the city. I have not been there in over a decade, but it was then the practice to close the cemetery at dusk and release the dogs. Can anyone on the forum confirm the safety issue there now?

It is a shame that many of our venerable old cemeteries have been threatened by their neighborhoods over the generations. Congressional Cemetery in D.C. is one that has fought back and survived.

---

(01-23-2017 08:14 AM)loetar44 Wrote:  

(01-19-2017 01:51 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Many thanks to Kieran McCauliffe for sending this link:

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/grave...7ebe1a69fb

The article reads: “Visitors today believe the small, plain, unmarked headstone denotes John Wilkes Booth’s final resting spot. In lieu of flowers or stones, people leave pennies behind on the headstone, as if to give Lincoln the final word.”

However, the unmarked stone is NOT marking JWB’s final resting place. It is the footstone of Booth’s sister Asia. I’ve draw boxes for Asia, Booth’s parents and Rosalie (picture below) to show that each grave at the Booth family plot at Greenmount Cemetery has a headstone and a footstone. The yellow arrow is pointing to Asia’s footstone, mistakenly seen as JWB’s stone.



At the 6 x 9 meter plot are 4 generations Booth interred.



(1) Edwin T. Booth (nephew JWB). 2. Dr. Joseph A. Booth (JWB's brother and Edwin’s father). Joseph’s 2nd wife Cora E. Mitchell Booth is at Joseph’s right side. His first wife (Margaret C. Hatfield Booth) and her little baby are also interred here, however unmarked. 3. Booth Monument. 4: Richard Booth (JWB's grandfather); 5. Rosalie A. Booth (unmarried). 6. Here are the unmarked graves of JWB’s siblings Mary Ann Booth, Frederick Booth and Elizabeth Booth (all died young). 7. Junius Brutus Booth (JWB’s father). 8. Mary Ann Holmes Booth (JWB’s mother). 9. Asia S. Booth Clarke (JWB’s sister). JWB’s brothers Henry B. Booth, Junius Brutus Booth Jr. and Edwin T. Booth are respectively interred in Londen, Engeland; Manchester, Massachusetts and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

John Wilkes Booth’s grave is UNMARKED and is somewhere at the family plot, nobody knows where the exact spot is (maybe somewhere near the red question marks ?).

Thanks for correcting that article's misconception that a footstone for Asia is actually a headstone for JWB. Someone didn't do their homework.

I would also like to make one comment about the plaque which gives a general listing of those who died at an early age. According to information brought out by historians and cemetery officials during the court case of the 1990s requesting the exhumation of John Wilkes's remains, the siblings who died at an early age were removed from their graves at Tudor Hall at the time of the assassin's reinterment at Green Mount. Their remains were co-mingled in a single coffin, which was then placed on top of John's as it was buried.

This was one of the decisive pieces of information that enabled the judge to rule against the petition to exhume John's body for examination. It is a time-honored "rule" evidently that one should not disturb the bones of others while working at another grave.

I say this to clarify that the marker which lists the other children very likely refers to a general, not specific, location of their bodies and that of their brother. Otherwise, there would be no mystery as to where Lincoln's assassin is buried.