Clara Harris and Noah Brooks

[gshoub]

So I am new to the Symposium. I having been trying to find an answer to this question and keep hitting dead ends. I hope someone can help me. In a column written on April 16, 1865 and published in the Sacramento Daily Union on May 17, 1865, the newspaper columnist Noah Brooks attributes statements to Harris that I had never read before. According to the column, Harris claims that she had seen Booth an hour or so before the assassination when he opened the door to the Presidential Box and briefly looked in as if to get a look at where the occupants were seated.

Does anyone know where Brooks would have obtained this information? Did Harris give a statement to someone immediately following the assassination? I can find no transcript of an interview of her in the National Archives, (or elsewhere for that matter). I know this statement is contradictory to what is contained in Harris's affidavit a couple of days later, which makes it all the more intriguing to me.

Any guidance, thoughts, directions, or theories would be most welcome. Thank you in advance.