Assassination Trivia

[RJNorton]

One assassination author feels that David Herold poisoned John Wilkes Booth's whisky during the stopover at Lloyd's. He feels the poison may have been arsenic trioxide.

How does he feel the poison arrived at Lloyd's?

[J. Beckert]

This is news to me about Herold, but I'll guess Mary Surratt delivered it in the package she gave Lloyd on the afternoon of the 14th.

[RJNorton]

Correct, Joe. That's how author Vaughan Shelton says it got there.

[Dave Taylor]

I thought Herold poisioned Booth later on by the poison hidden inside the field glasses?

[Laurie Verge]

No, the poison inside the field glasses was designed to blind Booth so that he could be led off the escape route and someone else placed with Herold to get shot at Garrett's. The poison would also cause the field glasses to disintegrate within a year so that they could never enter the eBay auctions.

Just kidding, folks...just kidding. Gene's sense of humor is starting to rub off on me!

[RJNorton]

Joe, I am sending you two free copies of Nottingham's The Curse of Cain as your prize.

According to Shelton Booth drank deeply from the bottle of liquor brought to him by Herold at Lloyd's. He says Booth was sitting on the porch at Lloyd's when he drank deeply. He says Booth probably didn't know anything about a package and just stopped at Lloyd's for a drink. Perhaps the slow poisoning of Booth went on for some time. I think he feels Mary Surratt was sort of a "double murderess" - involved in the plot to kill Lincoln and in an attempted plot to kill Booth.

Shelton also claims Seward was a probable but unknown conspirator. He feels there were parallel conspiracies, and Seward was in on one of them. I wonder why scholars don't hold this book in higher regard.

[J. Beckert]

NO!!!!! I have The Curse of Cain!!!.

[L Verge]

NO!!!!! I have The Curse of Cain!!!.

Ranks right up there on the list of books NOT to buy, doesn't it???

[J. Beckert]

I'm afraid so. There's not a lot of glue holding that story together.

[asobbingfilm]

Maybe my trivia question (that Im looking for an answer to as IDK) can better be answered here. What was the street address of Fords Theater in 1865?

[RJNorton]

David, I do not know, but maybe if we can find the address of Peter Taltavul's Star Saloon we could figure it out. Ferguson's Greenback Restaurant, on the north side of Fords, was 452 Tenth Street. Taltavul's was on the south side of Ford's. If we could get Taltavul's maybe we could figure out the likely address of Ford's itself. I checked Taltavul's obituary, thinking the address possibly was included there, but it isn't.

[Laurie Verge]

Joan Chaconas on my staff has several City Directories from the 1860s. I'll give her a homework assignment.

[asobbingfilm]

I got my money on 450 10th Street, but I shall await an answer. You can cc me at david@asobbingfilm. Thanks !!

[Laurie Verge]

Joan checked her one City Directory from the 1860s (I thought she had more for that decade, but no). It is 1862, which is unfortunately the crucial year of fires, and the building is not listed as either a church or a theater. She then checked for Taltavul's and the Greenback, and neither was listed.

I am now contacting Frank Hebblethwaite, who was NPS staff there in the 1970s and 80s, and also a current Ranger at Ford's who really cares about the history.

PS: The Metropolitan Police headquarters was right up the street, and Joan found its number to be 488 Tenth Street -- a large span in numbers between the 450s and the 480s, IMO.

[Laurie Verge]

This reply just came back from Frank Hebblethwaite:

I don't have an answer for your question at the moment. Give me a couple of days, and I'll see what I can come up with.

In the meantime, I would suggest going to the Martin Luther King Library (the main DC Public Library) and looking for a listing for Ford's Theatre in the 1865 Washington City Directory. The city directory should either give you the exact street address for Ford's Theatre, or since it was a prominent, commercial structure, it might just say, "10th Street, between E & F." In other words, it may not have had a specific, numbered address.

Now that you have roused my curiosity, please let me know if you find the answer before I get back to you.

Jim Garrett - you and I were discussing the address this morning. Can you slide over a few blocks to the MLK Library and check the 1865 City Directory? I'm going to bet on it saying "Tenth Street between E & F."