Something to Solve

[L Verge]

(01-20-2018 12:15 AM)SSlater Wrote:  

(01-19-2018 06:59 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Get out your Sherlock Holmes hat and magnifying glass 'cause we may have a case to solve. I will hopefully have more details next week, but I rec'd a phone call today from a gentleman whose family "inherited" a cross that supposedly once belonged to John Wilkes Booth and was displayed about 75 years ago in a museum somewhere that was dedicated to the assassin.

They got the cross at the request of a dying man who claimed that he had stolen it from said museum about 75 years before - but he didn't say where that museum was. He just called it the John Wilkes Booth Museum.

In our conversation, there was mention of a tie with Texas. My first instinct is to think of Granbury, Texas, and its tie to the Booth Escaped theory. Anyhow, I'll be back with more when I learn more.

At least this request is better than the 20-30 per year that I get to verify that a photo is of John Wilkes Booth -- when I know full well that it's not...

Laurie. I don't have the slightest idea about your quest, But
1 Try the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia. They brag about their Booth items.
2. Try the "1938 Carnavel Display (That was 80 years ago when they moved the Bates Mummy around the US.) Time magazine did an extensive coverage.
I'll work on some more ideas!

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(01-20-2018 12:15 AM)SSlater Wrote:  

(01-19-2018 06:59 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Get out your Sherlock Holmes hat and magnifying glass 'cause we may have a case to solve. I will hopefully have more details next week, but I rec'd a phone call today from a gentleman whose family "inherited" a cross that supposedly once belonged to John Wilkes Booth and was displayed about 75 years ago in a museum somewhere that was dedicated to the assassin.

They got the cross at the request of a dying man who claimed that he had stolen it from said museum about 75 years before - but he didn't say where that museum was. He just called it the John Wilkes Booth Museum.

In our conversation, there was mention of a tie with Texas. My first instinct is to think of Granbury, Texas, and its tie to the Booth Escaped theory. Anyhow, I'll be back with more when I learn more.

At least this request is better than the 20-30 per year that I get to verify that a photo is of John Wilkes Booth -- when I know full well that it's not...

Laurie. I don't have the slightest idea about your quest, But
1 Try the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia. They brag about their Booth items.
2. Try the "1938 Carnavel Display (That was 80 years ago when they moved the Bates Mummy around the US.) Time magazine did an extensive coverage.
I'll work on some more ideas!

How about a book "The postmortem Career of John Wilkes Booth "?
(The mummy was last seen in New Hope (?) in 1976.)

Thanks for the suggestions, John. I think the Mutter Museum is more medical and anatomically interested in Booth items, but I'll check. I've not been in touch with them for at least a decade when they lost their wonderful curator.

P.S. Actually, to my knowledge, the mummy was last seen by a member of the Surratt Society in the 1980s here in the D.C. suburbs - private collection, along with numerous other types of stuff. The owner told us that he knew at the time of purchase that the Bates story was bogus, but that it made the mummy famous. From what I have been told, this collector got sick of being hounded by reporters and put the mummy in hiding "where few would find it." We have been perfectly happy to let it stay hidden.