John Minchin Lloyd - Who was he...really?

[Laurie Verge]

Almost everything you have posted is known to me - especially Reford and Chaffee. Unfortunately, the person who shared his research (or fiction - which I doubt) with me had me sign a confidentiality agreement.

Bill Richter is aware of this also, however, and may not have signed such an agreement. Bill, where are you?

[scldrgnfly]

Thanks Betty and Laurie! So Laurie, you are saying that both J. J. Reford and J. J. Chaffee are code names for "operatives," but their real identities are not publicly known? Would you be honoring your confidentiality agreement, if you said whether the person who confided this information to you had "physical" proof, in the form of correspondance or written records, or has this person identified them based upon circumstantial evidence?

Here are a couple more thoughts about John Minchen Lloyd's choice as a proprietor for Surratt's Tavern, like Brawner's Hotel, it seemed to be quite a gathering place for the local talent. It doesn't seem like it would do to have a pair of ears about that hadn't been thoroughly vetted.

Also, while I did appreciate "The Conspirator," and I don't think this comes from any family loyalty, BUT, I really don't like it when screenwriters and directors, put words and actions in an actor's performance that we have written proof did not occur. If you compare the testimony of given witnesses and their behaviors on the witness stand, it seems obvious to me that the "The Conspirator" took a bit more than "poetic license" with John Lloyd's testimony.

While John Lloyd, himself, may have wished to appear a drunken ner'do-well, not only did his testimony appear coached, he had the ability under great pressure to have remembered EVERYTHING his coach told him to do, in particular, ONLY answer the questions asked and don't give up any more information in your response. If you read some of the others' testimonies, they couldn't escape their everyday vernacular and putting in their own two cents. On the stand, John Lloyd knew how to conduct himself. The portrayal of him in "The Conspirator" was rather disingenuous and misleading.

When you have a military tribunal where the testimony was not only painstakingly taken down word for word, but carefully read to everyone, before the tribunal proceeded the next day to assure that everyone agreed that the proceedings for the previous day were accurate....why would one have so little respect for those who tried to safeguard the information the tribunal used to sentence these people?

Frankly, the less obvious, more accurate portrayal of the facts, might have made for a much more interesting and mysterious character....and the point is, they would have been true to Poore and what the tribunal was attempting to record, the "facts," at least as far as the witnesses stated them, regardless of their veracity.

[Bill Richter]

I am eating lunch--will be with you in a while

[Laurie Verge]

I am going to leave the telling to Bill. At the present time (and maybe for eternity) I wish to stay away from things related to Reford and Chaffee - proof of whose existence supposedly lies in papers and files in the possession of someone else. Every now and then, I get tired of being threatened.

I now see that Reford and Chaffee have a thread all their own. Let's post further comments under it.

[Bill Richter]

Those interested in my answer as to who J J Reford and Chafee were are directed to the thread in their names in another section of this blog.

[scldrgnfly]

(05-06-2013 03:59 PM)Laurie Verge Wrote:  I am going to leave the telling to Bill. At the present time (and maybe for eternity) I wish to stay away from things related to Reford and Chaffee - proof of whose existence supposedly lies in papers and files in the possession of someone else. Every now and then, I get tired of being threatened.

I now see that Reford and Chaffee have a thread all their own. Let's post further comments under it.

Thank you SO MUCH, Laurie! Do you think there are still people out there attempting to keep some of the roots of the Conspiracy (ies) underground? After Bill's last post, I seriously think my daughter may have truly babysat for some great-great grandchildren of one of the familes involved. Wild! Huh!?!

[loetar44]

So it sure seems unlikely that a photo will surface, but who knows...
[/quote]

check out

http://www.snipview.com/q/People%20from%...20Maryland

   

[BettyO]

Wow! What a handsome man Lloyd was, Kees..... thanks so very much for sharing!

   

As portrayed in Redford's The Conspirator; that is more or less how I would have thought Lloyd looked.... Lloyd was also my favorite character in the movie.....but this photo shows him to be quite the looker!

[Susan Higginbotham]

(11-18-2015 06:53 PM)BettyO Wrote:  Wow! What a handsome man Lloyd was, Kees..... thanks so very much for sharing!



As portrayed in Redford's The Conspirator; that is more or less how I would have thought Lloyd looked.... Lloyd was also my favorite character in the movie.....but this photo shows him to be quite the looker!

Alas, this seems to be the architect John M. Donaldson, not Lloyd.

http://www.bishopgallagher.org/2013/07/t...ation.html

[BettyO]

Ah....false alarm - too good to be true.....

[Gene C]

I always pictured Lloyd as older than 30 years old at the time of the assassination. Ed Steers in the Lincoln Assassination Encyclopedia gives his birth year as 1824 instead of 1835-6

[Susan Higginbotham]

(11-18-2015 08:01 PM)Gene C Wrote:  I always pictured Lloyd as older than 30 years old at the time of the assassination. Ed Steers in the Lincoln Assassination Encyclopedia gives his birth year as 1824 instead of 1835-6

According to his obit in the Washington Post, he was 68 when he died in December 1892.

Just as well for my purposes that the Donaldson photograph wasn't Lloyd--I would have to change my description of him in my novel to read "the Adonis of Surrattsville."

[RJNorton]

Kees, thank you for trying! What a wonderful discovery this might have been.

Here is a 1946 photo of the corner where John Lloyd was crushed to death when the scaffold he was standing on collapsed in 1892.

[loetar44]

Sorry, I learned my lesson: always double check with internet information. I know that critical thinking in evaluating the information from Internet is essential, because it is chock-full of rumors, gossip, hoaxes, exaggerations, falsehoods, ruses, scams, etc. So please forgive me by spreading false information. Not an example of good research.

[RJNorton]

(11-19-2015 06:22 AM)loetar44 Wrote:  because it is chock-full of rumors, gossip, hoaxes, exaggerations, falsehoods, ruses, scams, etc.

Well said, Kees!!! Example: type "embalm Abraham Lincoln" into Google. Then click on images. Here is the first image to come up:

http://www.shorpy.com/files/images/01887u_1.jpg