Grave of John Wilkes Booth

[RJNorton]

Many thanks to Kieran McCauliffe for sending this link:

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/grave...7ebe1a69fb

[L Verge]

If you read that link, it will also lead you to this - The World's Tallest and Ugliest Lincoln Statue:

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/world...oln-statue

[ELCore]

Pennies on the head stone. Brilliant. Thanks for posting.

[L Verge]

Another anecdote from my past regarding the Booth obelisk tombstone: One of the great, unsung researchers in the assassination field was John C. Brennan. An afternoon with him was better than a whole semester with some of the PhD's that I endured in college.

Going on day trips with JCB was an experience, and he was very big on cemeteries. First, we would arrive at his apartment, and he would be making pineapple sandwiches for us to picnic on. That would be two slices of white bread, a ring of pineapple, and mayonnaise! You ended up getting used to the taste...

On one excursion to Green Mount Cemetery, we arrived at the Booth plot to find that some midnight boozer had left several bottles of "the world's finest" resting against the base of the main tombstone. Mr. Brennan quietly removed them and then announced to us that, "Junius always did have a drinking problem."

[RJNorton]

Laurie, does this photo bring back memories?

[BettyO]

OMG - It brings back memories to me - my dear friend, John C. Brennan (known as "Jay-Bo" to his friends) - what a terrific fellow! Sure miss him, JOH, General Tidwell, Father Keesler - I'm so lucky myself to have known them all - I think of them often..... what great times we had! This photo shows him "dowsing" JWB's grave. We used to do a lot of that in those days.

[L Verge]

(01-20-2017 04:51 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Laurie, does this photo bring back memories?

It sure does! We went through quite a few cemeteries with those dowsing rods being held by a bunch of us. Mr. Brennan had fashioned them out of coat hangers and garden hose.

On one expedition to St, Mary's Catholic Church in Bryantown, we dowsed the graves of Dr. Sam and Sarah Frances Mudd. Mr. Brennan was quite sure that Sarah is buried on the other side of her husband - not as indicated by the tombstone. This was decided after using the old plumb-line trick.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Please forgive my ignorance on the matter (and I'm just too curious) - why dowsing, what did you (hope to) find out? (Forgive - isn't that a "spiritual" method?) And what is "the old plumb-line-trick"?

[L Verge]

Dowsing in a cemetery can supposedly identify suspected, unmarked graves. Just like those in search of water, I believe it works somehow based on the presence of water? Someone help!

Plumb-lines use the carpenters' tool of a plumb-line, but the device is held over a grave (or a pregnant lady's stomach). If I remember correctly, the pendulum will swing in a circular motion if the grave or the belly holds a female subject; or it will swing back and forth if the test case is male. I actually had the plumb-line used on me during my pregnancy (by Russian in-laws) before I had even met Mr. Brennan. The line was correct. I had a baby girl -- in the days when you found out your offspring's sex after the delivery. I suppose it works if you want it to work??? The faith of the believer??

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Here's one dower's instructions on how to dowse and how it possibly works: http://www.tommymarkham.com/gravedowsing.htm

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks, Laurie - very interesting. I've never actually seen such practiced. In any case sounds a fun endeavor especially with such catering provided. Those sandwiches sound like "toast Hawaii", an absolute party must-have in the1950s:
   
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toast_Hawaii

[L Verge]

(01-21-2017 03:26 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Thanks, Laurie - very interesting. I've never actually seen such practiced. In any case sounds a fun endeavor especially with such catering provided. Those sandwiches sound like "toast Hawaii", an absolute party must-have in the1950s:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toast_Hawaii

Mr. Brennan's pineapple sandwiches would have been a bit more tasty with the ham and cheese and marachino cherry!

I forgot to add that the dowsing rods could also (supposedly) identify the sex of the grave occupant by crossing each other when encountering a "female grave." Don't laugh, but I held those rods and walked through cemeteries and still cannot explain what caused them to move - and to be accurate a lot of times.

I believe that Mr. Brennan dowsed for the grave of Edman Spangler when Mike Kauffman suggested that the Surratt Society and the Mudd Society join in a project to re-mark his grave. Dr. Richard Mudd vaguely remembered the section of the old St. Peter's Church graveyard where there had been a simple, wooden cross marking his grave.

In the 1950s, however, the cemetery was very grown over and pretty much abandoned. A local man was hired to clean it up and decided to do so with heavy equipment. In the process, existing stones were damaged and others shoved over into the nearby woods. Spangler's was no doubt either long gone or destroyed at that point.

The dowsing rods may have been used to locate the grave in the region where it was remembered to have been marked. In any case, that's where the monument is now placed.

That was the first of the tombstones that the Surratt Society replaced. Years later, Rich Smyth of this forum was able to confirm the "new" location of Elizabeth Keckly's reburial, and the Society raised the funds for an impressive stone. Within the past decade, the Society has also marked the grave of Mrs. Surratt's lawyer, Frederick Aiken.

[LincolnMan]

I would like to visit the cemetery someday. Is it well kept or no?

[loetar44]

(01-19-2017 12:51 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Many thanks to Kieran McCauliffe for sending this link:

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/grave...7ebe1a69fb

The article reads: “Visitors today believe the small, plain, unmarked headstone denotes John Wilkes Booth’s final resting spot. In lieu of flowers or stones, people leave pennies behind on the headstone, as if to give Lincoln the final word.”

However, the unmarked stone is NOT marking JWB’s final resting place. It is the footstone of Booth’s sister Asia. I’ve draw boxes for Asia, Booth’s parents and Rosalie (picture below) to show that each grave at the Booth family plot at Greenmount Cemetery has a headstone and a footstone. The yellow arrow is pointing to Asia’s footstone, mistakenly seen as JWB’s stone.

   

At the 6 x 9 meter plot are 4 generations Booth interred.

   

(1) Edwin T. Booth (nephew JWB). 2. Dr. Joseph A. Booth (JWB's brother and Edwin’s father). Joseph’s 2nd wife Cora E. Mitchell Booth is at Joseph’s right side. His first wife (Margaret C. Hatfield Booth) and her little baby are also interred here, however unmarked. 3. Booth Monument. 4: Richard Booth (JWB's grandfather); 5. Rosalie A. Booth (unmarried). 6. Here are the unmarked graves of JWB’s siblings Mary Ann Booth, Frederick Booth and Elizabeth Booth (all died young). 7. Junius Brutus Booth (JWB’s father). 8. Mary Ann Holmes Booth (JWB’s mother). 9. Asia S. Booth Clarke (JWB’s sister). JWB’s brothers Henry B. Booth, Junius Brutus Booth Jr. and Edwin T. Booth are respectively interred in Londen, Engeland; Manchester, Massachusetts and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

John Wilkes Booth’s grave is UNMARKED and is somewhere at the family plot, nobody knows where the exact spot is (maybe somewhere near the red question marks ?).

[L Verge]

(01-22-2017 10:04 AM)LincolnMan Wrote:  I would like to visit the cemetery someday. Is it well kept or no?

Bill - Are you inquiring about the old St. Peter's Cemetery in Southern Maryland, where Spangler rests or Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, which holds the remains of the Booths? In both cases, the cemeteries are well-maintained.

There is a problem with Green Mount in that it is in a decaying section of the city. I have not been there in over a decade, but it was then the practice to close the cemetery at dusk and release the dogs. Can anyone on the forum confirm the safety issue there now?

It is a shame that many of our venerable old cemeteries have been threatened by their neighborhoods over the generations. Congressional Cemetery in D.C. is one that has fought back and survived.

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(01-23-2017 07:14 AM)loetar44 Wrote:  

(01-19-2017 12:51 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Many thanks to Kieran McCauliffe for sending this link:

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/grave...7ebe1a69fb

The article reads: “Visitors today believe the small, plain, unmarked headstone denotes John Wilkes Booth’s final resting spot. In lieu of flowers or stones, people leave pennies behind on the headstone, as if to give Lincoln the final word.”

However, the unmarked stone is NOT marking JWB’s final resting place. It is the footstone of Booth’s sister Asia. I’ve draw boxes for Asia, Booth’s parents and Rosalie (picture below) to show that each grave at the Booth family plot at Greenmount Cemetery has a headstone and a footstone. The yellow arrow is pointing to Asia’s footstone, mistakenly seen as JWB’s stone.



At the 6 x 9 meter plot are 4 generations Booth interred.



(1) Edwin T. Booth (nephew JWB). 2. Dr. Joseph A. Booth (JWB's brother and Edwin’s father). Joseph’s 2nd wife Cora E. Mitchell Booth is at Joseph’s right side. His first wife (Margaret C. Hatfield Booth) and her little baby are also interred here, however unmarked. 3. Booth Monument. 4: Richard Booth (JWB's grandfather); 5. Rosalie A. Booth (unmarried). 6. Here are the unmarked graves of JWB’s siblings Mary Ann Booth, Frederick Booth and Elizabeth Booth (all died young). 7. Junius Brutus Booth (JWB’s father). 8. Mary Ann Holmes Booth (JWB’s mother). 9. Asia S. Booth Clarke (JWB’s sister). JWB’s brothers Henry B. Booth, Junius Brutus Booth Jr. and Edwin T. Booth are respectively interred in Londen, Engeland; Manchester, Massachusetts and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

John Wilkes Booth’s grave is UNMARKED and is somewhere at the family plot, nobody knows where the exact spot is (maybe somewhere near the red question marks ?).

Thanks for correcting that article's misconception that a footstone for Asia is actually a headstone for JWB. Someone didn't do their homework.

I would also like to make one comment about the plaque which gives a general listing of those who died at an early age. According to information brought out by historians and cemetery officials during the court case of the 1990s requesting the exhumation of John Wilkes's remains, the siblings who died at an early age were removed from their graves at Tudor Hall at the time of the assassin's reinterment at Green Mount. Their remains were co-mingled in a single coffin, which was then placed on top of John's as it was buried.

This was one of the decisive pieces of information that enabled the judge to rule against the petition to exhume John's body for examination. It is a time-honored "rule" evidently that one should not disturb the bones of others while working at another grave.

I say this to clarify that the marker which lists the other children very likely refers to a general, not specific, location of their bodies and that of their brother. Otherwise, there would be no mystery as to where Lincoln's assassin is buried.

[PaigeBooth]

I had a great experience when I first visited the cemetery about two years ago. There are maps of the cemetery which you can pick up when you arrive. In addition to the Booth family plot, there are other notable people buried at Green Mount Cemetery, including Harriet Lane, Confederate Generls Joe Johnston and Isaac Trimble, and Reverdy Johnson. Also, the Weaver Vault is not to miss. That is where JWB's remains where kept prior to his burial.

Although the cemetery does close at a certain hour, from my experience it is perfectly safe to visit. The only hazardous part of the cemetery that I encountered was that many of the stones are very old and weak (the cemetery dates back to the 1830's) So people with young children who visit need to be careful their children do not try to push or climb these heavy, fragile stones.