The Montreal Link

[Leon Greene]

(11-29-2018 08:50 PM)JMadonna Wrote:  

(06-16-2018 06:51 PM)Barry Sheehy Wrote:  Richard Montgomery is one of at least three double agents in Montreal, the other two were Godfrey Joseph Hyams and Sanford Conover (Charles Dunham),and there were probably more. On the other hand, it's clear the CSS had a lot of powerful friends in the north beyond just copperheads.

Just read a passage from Adam Mayers -. Dixie & the Dominion: Canada, the Confederacy, and the War for the Union.

He states that at the famous Parker House recruitment meeting:

"(Godfrey) Hyams met Booth there, and a check of hotel registers found that Booth had stayed at the Parker House in Boston along with Hyams, a man registered as H.V. Clinton, and two others giving false names and Canada as their address."

Can anyone confirm that Hyams was one of the agents at that meeting? Does anyone know the other false names that were registered.

John Wilkes Booth was registered at the Parker House in Boston on July 26, 1864, along with H. V. Clinton from Hamilton, Canada West, a name also found on the register of the St. Lawrence Hall in Montreal. Three others were Charles R. Hunter from Toronto, Canada West, A. J. Bursted (or Rursted) from Baltimore, and R. A. Leech from Montreal. Neither Hyams' name nor his alias "J. W. Harris" was on the Parker House Register that day, or other days in July or August, though it is known that he was in Boston at the time. Hyams was not known to use an alias "H. V. Clinton;" he most commonly used "J. W. Harris." Some historians question whether one of the men present might have been Marshal George P. Kane from Baltimore (perhaps the "Bursted" entry on the ledger).