New Booth Pic?

[HistoryFan]

(08-17-2016 12:35 PM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  Even without the hat, I still see an ordinary guy in ordinary clothing striking an ordinary pose. There's enough of a resemblance to Booth that the sitter might have found it prudent to keep close to home after the assassination, but I don't see any of Booth's smoldering good looks or hauteur in this photo.

Do you have a scan of the backmark? That might lend some clues as to its date.

If you click on the original story link and view all the photos, you will see an image of the backmark.

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(08-17-2016 11:33 AM)L Verge Wrote:  Having stared at the photo long enough, I went online to see if there was anything in Tamaqua's history that might give a clue. Interesting little town whose history rose and fell based around the coal industry and the railroad.

Since we can only theorize that Booth or his look-alike arrived in town via the railroad, I wanted to find out when the rail lines were put in. I could not find a date, but the town was not founded until 1799, and a passenger train station was not built until 1874 -- did any passenger trains pass through the town prior to that? Was the railroad strictly for the transportation of coal during the Booth era?

The demographics of the 19th-century town is what made me perk up! The discovery of anthracite coal in the region in the early-19th century led to the town's rise as a coal-producing community. The town was incorporated as a borough in 1832. Irish, Welsh, and German immigrants came to the borough in the 1840s and 1850s, followed by a large influx of Italians, Lithuanians, Russians, Ukrainians, Slovaks, and Poles. During the 1860s and 1870s, Tamaqua was the geographic center hub for the Molly Maguires. One murder commonly attributed to the Mollies was that of town policeman Benjamin Yost, who was shot to death early one morning while extinguishing a gas lamp at the corner of West Broad and Lehigh Streets.

Since Booth was known to be a Nativist or American Party follower, such a wide variety of ethnic groups would seem to me to have made the town uninviting to him, especially as the war drew to a close.

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The Victorian train station built by the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad in 1874 in Tamaqua was constructed to replace an earlier station, which was destroyed by fire. Trains were running to and from Tamaqua as early as 1831.

A brief history of Tamaqua's railroad excerpted from http://himedo.net/TheHopkinThomasProject...aHist.htm:

On November 18, 1831, the horse-drawn railroad officially opened. In two horse-drawn coaches built by Richard Imlay of Baltimore, Maryland, a group of dignitaries left Port Clinton for Tamaqua at 10 a.m. Upon their arrival I p.m., they were greeted by 15 gaily decorated coal cars surrounded by cheering Tamaqua miners. Six days later on the 23rd, the irst coal car was transported over the railroad to Port Clinton. Weighing three tons each, these first cars were driven by George Shoemaker and Henry Ray. Isaac Hinkley drove the first passenger coaches. Upon arrival at Port Clinton, the coal and passengers were transferred to barges for the trip to Philadelphia.

About this time, the history of the railroad becomes somewhat cloudy. It has been a widely accepted fact that the Catawissa and the Comet were the first steam engines used on the line. Yet, other research indicates that there were possibly two steam engines used earlier, with very limited success at first - the engines known as the Tamaqua and Tuscarora.

Built in England, the Tamaqua and Tuscarora were accompanied by two English engineers, George Mann and a Mr. Merrick. For whatever reasons, these early steam engines had difficulty running on the flat iron and wood rails. They jumped the track so often that they were stored away. It would not be until T-rails were used that these two engines were dusted off and put back in service. Some time later, Peter Marks and John Smith replaced engineers Mann and Merrick, historical articles note.

On March 9, 1833, two more steam engines, the Catawissa and Comet, purchased from an English builder, were placed in service. The Catawissa cost $5,000 and was the workhorse of the new pair. It ran two trips per day between Tamaqua and Port Clinton. However, just two years later, disaster struck when the Catawissa spread the rails and ran into the river. It was towed to Tamaqua by a team of horses where it was repaired. Later, when the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad leased the line, the Catawissa was sent to Harrisburg. One report has it being damaged in a collision and never repaired, while another claims it was rebuilt as a special inspection car and finally retired in 1865 and scrapped in 1870. At least two photographs of the Catawissa survive today and may be seen at the Tamaqua Historical Society Museum, West Broad Street.

The 1881 History of Schuylkill County reports: "On Monday, March 11, a novel and interesting spectacle was presented on the road. A trial trip was made by locomotive engine, running from Port Clinton to Tamaqua. It excited considerable interest, as it was the first locomotive introduced in Schuylkill County .. It is said that the engine was shipped from Liverpool to Philadelphia, where it was loaded on a wagon used for hauling marble, and with 16 horses hauled to Schuylkill County. "

Despite the early setbacks in track and engine design, it was all too obvious that railroads and steam engines were here to stay. Apparently, the state legislature agreed, and on April 4, 1833, issued a charter for construction of a railroad between Philadelphia and Reading. On December 5, 1839, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad officially opened. Later, the railroad was extended to Mt. Carbon and on January 1, 1842, the first train ran the entire track from Mt. Carbon to Philadelphia.

The Little Schuylkill Navigation Railroad continued to prosper with its connection to the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. As of February 2, 1850, the fare from Tamaqua to Port Clinton was 75 cents and from Tamaqua to Philadelphia, $3.50.

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Sorry ... I kept trying to reply to the train post directly under her post, but it kept landing at the bottom of the thread.