The Legend Of John Wilkes Booth

[Houmes]

(01-14-2016 11:35 PM)Dave Taylor Wrote:  

(01-14-2016 09:11 PM)maharba Wrote:  Yes. I see Richard Baynham Garrett variously claimed to have locks of hair and 'other relics' of Booth. How long was it the man in the barn Boyd/Booth lived after he was backshot, I really wonder too. A couple hours, or even less. And if they really had had and kept "Booth's hair clipping", that would have simplified the search for DNA tests. The touching letter of reply from Edwin Booth, his mother so grateful to have the clipping of "Booth's hair". Yet, Edwin Booth had been sent back trunks full of JWBooth's costumes, and spent a whole day burning them all up. Somehow it doesn't add up.

Pretty much everything in this response is either incorrect or misleading so I just wanted to post a quick retort. I apologize to everyone else for the lack of sources but it's late and I'm getting ready for bed.

1. The Garretts did have locks of Booth's hair. It's well documented and some members of this forum have even held it in their hands. The Garretts also had several other Booth relics such as the pillow he used when he slept in the house the first night and the blood stained porch planks from where he died.

2. Booth lived longer than most books give him credit for. I don't recall the exact time right now but it was close to two hours.

3. Hair can only be used for DNA when there is a root attached to it. The DNA is in the hair follicle and not in the strand itself. Even today I could not go to the barber, have him cut my hair, pick up a clipping and have it DNA tested. Without the root of the hair there is no DNA.

4. Edwin was very grateful to the Garretts for their kindness to his brother. He even bought some of Richard Baynham Garrett's seminary books in appreciation for the part of the lock of hair that the Garretts cut. Richard Baynham wanted to keep a little bit of the lock for himself which has been seen and held by members of this forum as stated. Correspondence between Edwin and Richard Baynham are housed at the Players Club in New York. Kate H. of this forum has seen them first hand.

5. The story about Edwin Booth purposefully burning his brother's theatrical garments has been pretty conclusively proven to be apocryphal. The trunk was accidentally lost when the Winter Garden Theater caught fire.

So, in the end, it actually all adds up perfectly.

Regarding statement number 3, due to advances in forensic science you can extract DNA from a hair strand. This study found DNA can be extracted in equal amounts from the hair root and the tip of the strand.

http://journal.scconline.org/pdf/cc2003/...p00027.pdf

And if that isn't surprising, there's a new technique called "Touch DNA." It works by recovering small amounts of skin cells left on an object or part of a body after touching or casual handling.

http://www.forensicmag.com/articles/2013...laboratory

[maharba]

Interesting material for sure. The boy become old man RBGarrett and his claim of 'matching the picture', but the incompetent Stanton had insisted on furnishing not a picture of JWBooth but of Edwin Booth. I doubt the man shot in the barn 'matched' either one. And the interesting 1972 letter analyzing the shot. It says the bullet entered the back. Again this proves Boston Corbett was starkly lying. Gene asks why it is really important to emphasis that Corbett was a liar and a coward, as I have. Because that fact unravels more of the "legend". Remember the stock narratives of Corbett that he was such a holy man, he would fall down and pray for a man who might use a curse word in Corbett's presence. It is the heighth of hypocrisy, therefore, for Boston Corbett to shoot a man on crutches in the back, lie about it, and then haul God himself into his lies: "God directed me and my shot to the identical location of Lincoln's wound". And, proceed to go before church pulpits across the country with these brazen lies --and all the while making himself out as a sterling Christian. Moreover, this bullet evidence again confirms that the man in the barn was NOT shot just right behind the ear, as Corbett claimed. The eye witness testimony is conflicting, at the very outset. I can not make out from the report, though, what gun was used in backshooting the man in the barn? I'm surprised he did not make that clear in the report. And thanks Houmes for the amplified DNA testing advancements. What that boils to, in my opinion, is: this is the crime of the century for America. If actual samples of hair exist from the man in the barn, and it is even remotely possible to test them for a match with a member of the Booth (or Edwin Booth remains), it is very remiss to not do so. It is not really my intention to get bogged down, with
examining all the contradictions with the man in the barn supposedly being Booth, and I favor examining the material instead on the man claiming to be the escaped John Wilkes Booth who appeared in Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma.

[L Verge]

Dr. Arthur Ben Chitty is now deceased as is, of course, Finis Bates. Are we by any chance conversing here with a gentleman whose real name is Nate Orlowek? I must apologize for even asking because Nate - despite his desire to prove that Booth escaped - is always well-spoken and coherent in expressing his views. I'm sorry again, but this continual drivel is getting bothersome...

[Gene C]

(01-16-2016 08:35 PM)maharba Wrote:  Gene asks why it is really important to emphasis that Corbett was a liar and a coward, as I have. Because that fact unravels more of the "legend".

Please don't misquote me.
I have asked this- " What point are you trying to make?"
And I did say this - " I think you may be overstating the point that historians have overlooked the fact that Corbett stretched the truth and embellished his story. It has been noted, they just haven't made as big a deal out of it as you seem to want to."

[maharba]

A striking young man arrives in New Orleans in the late 1860s, having spent time recently in old Mexico. He is seen and noted by several as John Wilkes Booth. He passes on into southern Arkansas and stops at the homes of several, once very
highly placed Confederates. He spends a night and is given money and a fresh horse. He makes his way west into Texas, and always seeming to know where to find the residences of prominent Confederates. These are men who certainly had known and would recognize the celebrated actor John Wilkes Booth. He is greeted cordially, exchanges old stories with them, and is helped along his way. Is he the same man who appears in 1870 Granbury, Texas?

[L Verge]

(01-17-2016 10:22 AM)maharba Wrote:  A striking young man arrives in New Orleans in the late 1860s, having spent time recently in old Mexico. He is seen and noted by several as John Wilkes Booth. He passes on into southern Arkansas and stops at the homes of several, once very
highly placed Confederates. He spends a night and is given money and a fresh horse. He makes his way west into Texas, and always seeming to know where to find the residences of prominent Confederates. These are men who certainly had known and would recognize the celebrated actor John Wilkes Booth. He is greeted cordially, exchanges old stories with them, and is helped along his way. Is he the same man who appears in 1870 Granbury, Texas?

Is this the opening paragraph for an intended novel? If so, the subject has been covered before.

[Gene C]

That reminds me of an old cartoon "Fractured Fairy Tales" - The Frog Prince"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXC66yMe...6&index=29

Seems like someone is trying to turn a bad story (the frog) into something it's not.

[maharba]

These are men who certainly had known and would recognize the celebrated actor John Wilkes Booth...Is he the same man who appears in 1870 Granbury, Texas?

LVerge
Is this the opening paragraph for an intended novel? If so, the subject has been covered before.

You claim the subject, in this case the 1870 Granbury records, "have been covered"? Does any one of the 'Lincoln experts books' show that they have ever yet researched the 1870 census for this man? I'm still waiting for those same experts, in ANY of their books, to show the listing of Abraham Lincoln in the 1840 census. It's been 175 years now, do you think the 'published experts' may get onto that research, fairly soon?

[Eva Elisabeth]

Why don't you write if you know it all better?

[RJNorton]

(01-18-2016 05:39 AM)maharba Wrote:  I'm still waiting for those same experts, in ANY of their books, to show the listing of Abraham Lincoln in the 1840 census. It's been 175 years now, do you think the 'published experts' may get onto that research, fairly soon?

If the census taker missed Abraham Lincoln in 1840 why is that meaningful? I am being as honest as I can when I ask that question. To me it is meaningless that he was missed; to you there is importance in that fact. Can you please explain? Thanks! (I realize you have talked about this before, but could you possibly summarize briefly again)

[Gene C]

I remember reading somewhere, Lincoln missed the censes because that was the year he was taken aboard the flying saucer.
He is greeted cordially, exchanges old stories with them, and is helped along his way.

[Susan Higginbotham]

There's a good article about the census here. As it points out, taking the census was far from an exact science. People got missed.

https://www.ancestry.com/wiki/index.php?....S._Census

As someone on the blog linked to below pointed out in response to "glomfeld" (would that be you, by any chance?), Lincoln may have been in Taylorsville on the date the census was taken, so perhaps that's why he was missed.

http://sangamoncountyhistory.org/wp/?p=6743&cpage=1

Or perhaps there was a Great Conspiracy to obliterate Lincoln from history by omitting him from the 1840 census. If so, it failed pretty miserably.

[maharba]

Roger, I believe you, as much as any present day student of Lincoln, may have seen and noted countless books, papers, theses, articles, etc on even the tiniest minutiae of Lincoln. Many of these papers seem absurd to me: they will again revisit some facet, and will now 'switch' and to claim that...Lincoln did NOT do or say such and such...because of some (believed) opinion they have manufactured. Then, they write at great length on that breakthrough idea. I mention to the other poster, who maintains "all the work has been done, the experts have written all the books", that in fact it is easy to demonstrate that is not at all the case. I cite the lack of basic census work done in several instances. In a genealogy of even the most humble man, a researcher makes an effort to find the person in all the census years. If not found, he notes this and makes a comment or two why he thinks there is an absent listing. With Lincoln and the 1840 census, we are not dealing with a forgotten farmer, but a future War president "lost in a census in a formative period of his life', I think it bears mentioning. It actually speaks volumes that the past 'Lincoln experts' have neither made an effort to research this, or even made a passing mention of it. Then returning to the man/men calling himself John Wilkes Booth, I see the identical lack of basic research. Instead, lots of articles and books with copyover material about the traveling mummy, and which leads some to claim "all that work has been done".

[Dave Taylor]

(01-18-2016 08:36 AM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  There's a good article about the census here. As it points out, taking the census was far from an exact science. People got missed.

https://www.ancestry.com/wiki/index.php?....S._Census

For what it's worth, Edwin Booth missed the census as well and was not enumerated in the 1870 census:
http://boothiebarn.com/2013/10/05/wheres-edwin/

[L Verge]

(01-18-2016 05:39 AM)maharba Wrote:  These are men who certainly had known and would recognize the celebrated actor John Wilkes Booth...Is he the same man who appears in 1870 Granbury, Texas?

LVerge
Is this the opening paragraph for an intended novel? If so, the subject has been covered before.

You claim the subject, in this case the 1870 Granbury records, "have been covered"? Does any one of the 'Lincoln experts books' show that they have ever yet researched the 1870 census for this man? I'm still waiting for those same experts, in ANY of their books, to show the listing of Abraham Lincoln in the 1840 census. It's been 175 years now, do you think the 'published experts' may get onto that research, fairly soon?

I think the published experts have never considered the census questions you pose of any significance -- especially when working with the known facts that are pertinent to their story lines.

Please continue your investigations to see if you can prove that they missed anything. You apparently have not been able to answer your own questions through research, and don't expect anyone else to answer them for you -- to your satisfaction.

On this forum, you swat away any logical responses, change the subject quickly at the moment, and seldom give citations. Good scholars eventually get to a point where they can solidly answer their own questions or admit that they were wrong or that the evidence is not there to support their contentions.