Chris Ritter

[Pamela]

Chris Ritter, or Christopher C. Ritter has been discussed and researched by Erich Ewald, myself and others after Ewald came across his story in Anderson, Indiana newspapers. I think he deserves his own thread because I agree with Ewald that he was part of a conspiracy to harrass Louis Weichmann 30 years after the Lincoln conspiracy trial. Ewald pointed out that not only did Ritter's story of Booth escaping to Brazil describe Weichmann as a Confederate sympathizer, he also ignored Surratt family (John and Mary) involvement and only mentioned Booth making a last minute, unplanned decision to stop at the tavern for whiskey, not guns and whiskey. Additionally, he only added the Surratt tavern stop after his story received criticism for ignoring that key element of the conspiracy and Booth's escape.

Ritter also knew people he shouldn't have known, like Edwin Brink, an actor who was in Ford's theater on April 14th, but, not as far as I could tell, listed on the playbill, and was not a witness in either trial. Ritter said, that Brink, "by the way, is yet living." It's hard to imagine that Ritter would have access to Brink information living in Indiana and other midwest locations. Ewald also noted that an important part of Ritter's tale included a "chance" meeting with Weichmann outside a restaurant, during which they acknowledged they knew each other as Knights of the Golden Circle. This meeting occurred three months after Ritter arrived in Anderson, and two weeks prior to Ritter's opportunity to tell his tale to Edward Jones, a reporter for the Morning Herald. It could be argued that Ritter wasted no time in launching his story after achieving a conversation with Weichmann, because he became ill with a carbuncle and required hospitalization during the 2 week interval, and related his tale from a hospital bed. The reporter or "correspondent" didn't mention how he was alerted to Chris Ritter's story.

Ewald believes Ritter was a gun for hire and I agree, and in speculating about who hired Ritter to participate in this hoax, he noted the presence of Surratts in Anderson, one of which had a grocery store a few blocks from Ritter's butcher shop. It would have been useful to have a local grocer as a connection when arriving in a new town and setting up a meat store. His brother, Gorrell Surratt, fought for the Confederacy, was held in prison temporarily after the assassination because of his name. He continued on to Brazil, Indiana and became an optometrist. Ritter claimed to have lived in Brazil, among many other places, and his information suggested that that was true. According to Michael Schein, John Surratt also went to South America after his trial, and it's not much of a stretch to believe that South America meant Brazil.

I can't think of anyone other that John Surratt who would have the motivation to harrass Weichmann, to paint him as a secret Confederate sympathizer, to absolve both Mary and John of any wrongdoing and guilt in the conspiracy and have insider information about minor and major players surrounding the crime. After a few months of creating a disturbance in Anderson, dramatically announcing an imminent book containing even more details of his tale, and the arrival of addtional materials and the hiring of a stenographer, he disappeared apparently overnight and "never to return".

You can read the reporter's draft of the Chris Ritter story, which has some differences from the published version.
http://natedsanders.com/__morning_herald...30021.aspx

***After doing more research on Chris Ritter I can't find any connection to John Surratt. He got around the country quite a bit and set up new businesses but I couldn't find any visit to Baltimore and if he travelled to South America, I couldn't find any documents to support it. Ritter gave his story to newspapers two years before he went to Anderson, and maybe earlier than that, and his earlier story made no mention of Weichmann. I think it was only an opportunistic motive that brought him to Anderson and to stage a meeting with Weichmann.

[L Verge]

The link cited above contains material from the auction of a portion of Floyd Risvold's collection. The next step is to prove the existence of those minor and major players such as Enos and Edwin Brink.

I did look for Spencer L. Surratt and Garrell/Gorell Surratt in the genealogy records compiled by Sarratts in California. They belong in the branch of the Surratt/Sarratt/about six other spellings families that left Maryland in the mid-1700s and went to North Carolina. They were sons of Micajah and grandsons of Beverly (male) Surratt. Gorrell was a private in Co. F of the 46th NC Infantry, but is also listed in the ranks of Co. I, 22nd NC Inf., CSA. So far as I could tell they are buried in North Carolina. The family appears to have been staunch Methodists who did much to bring that denomination into their area - even founding a church.

I found no mention of any Surratts in Indiana (not to say that none migrated there). Someone else can check that out; I'm finished with the wild goose chase...

[Pamela]

It seems that Chris Ritter was crazy after all. A Christopher Ritter died of chronic mania with heart disease in a hospital for the insane Feb 10, 1901 in Easthaven Indiana. Parents born in Germany, occupation, butcher, widower. He had been treated for 4 years. His birthplace was Germany and his parents names are on the certificate but hard to read. They could be a match.

He also did live in Arkansas, as he said. After living in Aurora Indiana, as listed in the 1880 census, he was mentioned in the recollections of a pioneer in Green County, Arkansas. He moved from Indiana, kept the post office in Beulah, which meant keeping the mail in his pockets, and opened a meat market. Sometimes the mail had bloody fingerprints but nobody minded. His wife's name matched and two of his children were mentioned, Mary and Preston, matching children in the Aurora census, and these children stayed in Arkansas. There is even a picture of Preston as an older man in a group photo that looks to be in the 1920s or 1930s . There is no exact date, but he was one of 77 petitioners to have the town of Paragould (near Beulah) incorporated in 1883.
Edwin Brink was a good friend of Booth's and was the second actor arrested on
April 14, the first being Hawk. Brink drank with Booth the night of the 14th and walked with him to the theater. He talked about Booth in a couple of newspaper articles in 1888. He sung in a quartet in the play. He had also served in the Union service. There is a lot of info about Brink in Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination by Thomas Bogar. It is possible that Ritter could have seen him perform, thus knowing that he was still alive in 1897 because he performed in Canada and the midwest.

[Susan Higginbotham]

That's a great find!

[Pamela]

Thanks! I came across an earlier story told by Chris Ritter in the Sandusky Register (Ohio) 1895. I'll try to post it this week. There was no mention of Louis Weichmann and there were many other differences, as well as many consistencies. Once again he was described as a believable, upright citizen. An interesting personal variation was that he was said to be a gardener. I recall in the 1897 narrative he mentioned being a real estate agent in Ohio.This story referenced another story published a few days prior in the Newark Daily Advocate. The Advocate, in 1897, ran a story with this headline: C.C. Ritter. Well known in Newark said to be dying in Anderson, Indiana.

[Pamela]

1895 Chris Ritter story in Ohio, two years before he came to Anderson, Indiana.[attachment=2375]

[RJNorton]

Did an actor named Edward Fuchs ever exist?

[Gene C]

That is an interesting and imaginative article. I wonder what happened to the photographs and book manuscript Ritter mentions in the news article.

Pamela how did you find that, and is this the 1885 article from the Sandusky Register?
Thanks for posting it

It might be interesting if some enterprising person were to collect these stories of "Booth Escaped and is living in ????????, and compile them into a book. I believe there were quite a few of these stories at the time.

[Pamela]

It was in the Sandusky Register April 19, 1895 and it referenced an article a few days prior, presumably April 14. I found it through Ancestry by searching for Ritter in Ohio, since he referenced that state. I think that Fuchs is another version of Fox. The only actor I was able to find was Brink, who is interesting since he was a good friend of Booth's but he wasn't a witness in either trial. He did give a couple of interviews in 1888 which Ritter could have read. It's too bad that the writers didn't mention how Chris Ritter came to their attention. It could be that he simply walked into the newspaper offices.

He led an interesting life, in that he did some pioneering, started his own business in several different states, helped found Paragould, Arkansas and produced children who were solid citizens in Paragould, especially Preston who owned a restaurant, a bottling company and what may have been an ice cream company (it was hard to read in the Census). Chris bought 80 acres in Arkansas and was appointed Postmaster for Beulah twice, in 1881 and 1882. He claimed to have done landscaping design for a park in Louisville, Kentucky.        

[Pamela]

   

I copied these from a collector's site called The Railsplitter.

The photo of the bearded man may be Chris Ritter.

John Wilkes Booth lives! The ultimate conspiracy theory... and HOAX!

976. (BOOTH, John Wilkes.) Christopher C. Ritter was an Indiana butcher who claimed that after the assassination, Booth successfully escaped to South America. (See: Weichman, A True History of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and of the Conspiracy of 1865, pp. 482-483) Group of Autograph Letters Signed, including: April 26, 1895, 4pp., to E. Rosenburger, "The slayer of President Lincoln is alive. I have hundreds of letters on that score from him to me, but his lips are sealed to anyone but me..." Also, one from June 27, 1897, on the reverse of which Ritter has typed a poem "Expansive Delusion-or-What Ritter knows of Lincoln's Assassination and J. Wilkes Booth's Movement Afterward." Ritter pens that he is looking for some financial backing to help publish his theories: "I would like to take a partner to furnish the money to publish the first 2,000 books..." Also, July 28, 1897, concerning the selling of photos: "the cost of any of these I leave to your own sense of Justice as any income from this source is a great help to me to bring out my book which will have 42 plates of photos of persons connected with the narrative..." Another example of an opportunist seeking profit from supposedly having "inside knowledge" on the great conspiracy. An interesting series of letters. Included in this collection is a two-page poem written by Ritter and an alleged Autograph Letter Signed from John Wilkes Booth TO Ritter, November 12, 1873. (Supposedly in "pig Latin" with a period translation by the great Lincoln collector Emerson.) "We had been over Venezuela for some months and on our return visited Paragrawe (sic)... Have you heard of Edwin or how Kathy and her child are getting along..." On the copy letter, Ritter has noted "this is a copy of a letter written by Booth as J.W. Hunoth, Jr." The "translation" on letterhead from the office of another early Lincoln collector, A.E. Fostell, who aquired most of the Emmerson collection at the turn of the century. Together with three photographs - two cabinet cards and a mounted albumen, detailed in period ink as the "real victim of the shooting by Boston Corbett." It is a portrait of Edward Fox who was supposedly misidentified as John Wilkes Booth. Also: a signed cabinet card of Col. C.C. Ritter, dated 1895. An archive detailing a wonderful early hoax which was believed by many.
(Est. $1,200-1,500)

[Pamela]

   
The above document is Chris Ritter's death certificate from the hospital for the insane.
I just saw the movie Florence Foster Jenkins and **spoiler alert** you probably should not read any further if you want to see the movie, which is a very good one. The titular character, played by Meryl Streep, contracted syphilis from her husband and suffered from the effects the rest of her life. She was born a few years after the civil war and lived to age 76. Her great passion was music and as her life went on she became lovably delusional about her singing ability. Due to her wealth and a supportive life partner, a thespian played by Hugh Grant, she was able to buoy up her spirits, and lengthen her life by indulging her delusion.

Which brings me to a theory as to what was going on with Chris Ritter. Maybe he had syphilis which affected his brain; he developed a delusion which he passionately believed in and pursued until his disease progressed into mania which became irreversible and led to his death. The carbuncle, which endangered his health and led to his hospitalization, may have resulted from his compromised immune system.

I researched syphilis for a bit but I'm too squeamish to handle much of that, although I read that it can cause all kinds of things, including mania. I know his death certificate didn't mention syphilis but possibly the doctor wouldn't have known for sure without a post mortem. Mania is often associated with bipolar, so that's another possibility, but there is no mention of what they called melancholia in those days.

I'm sure crackpots are motivated by all kinds of things, but I found it interesting that he was driven to literally set up shop in Weichmann's town, for the purpose of, I believe, meeting him so he could incorporate him into his story in a realistic way. And he may actually have believed in Weichmann's membership in the secret society since he was delusional. That behavior suggests, to me, at least, more than just a person who wants to see how many people he can fool with a hoax.