Throwing more Mudd in the game

[bob_summers]

(09-25-2013 09:56 AM)L Verge Wrote:  Thanks for responding to these posts, Bob. Your website is so great, and I learn something new every time I go on it - such as the mention of Nancy Tilly, which Roger found. Dr. and Mrs. Mudd seem to have been compassionate people who took in orphans or children needing proper care (I can't remember the name of the one young Irish (?) youth). Could Nancy have been someone like that? It has no real bearing on the assassination, just curiosity on my part.

As for the provisions, if they had been sent to the Mudds ahead of time, we can't be sure that Atzerodt pinpointed the weeks ahead (two) accurately. It could have been 3-4 weeks ahead. If we assume liquor and provisions, they would likely have been sent via the stagecoach in a secure box. The provisions would likely have been non-perishables like crackers or country ham that would be transported in a vehicle. When Booth and Herold did finally leave Mudd's, they had no room on horseback for large items. If those provisions were indeed at the doctor's house, I would think they were left behind by the fugitives - who were now depending on the generosity of others on the underground to whom they expected to be passed.

Laurie, I think the young boy you are thinking of is John Burke.

At the end of the Civil War, the New York Foundling Asylum, run by the Catholic Sisters of Charity, out-placed many children abandoned as a result of the war to families in Maryland and other states. In 1878, Dr. & Mrs. Mudd took one of these children, John Burke, who was one of 300 children sent to Maryland families.

The New York Foundling Asylum is now called the New York Foundling Hospital. I wrote to them asking for information about John Burke, but ran into the privacy wall. I also wrote to the Orphan Train folks, but they had no info.

Since the placement of these children was done through local Catholic churches, I also wrote to the pastor at St. Peter's Church near the Mudd farm and the pastor at St. Mary's in Bryantown asking if they had any record of these placements. They didn't.

The source for this information is Dr. Richard Mudd's genealogy of the Mudd family, and a 4-15-1942 letter from Genevieve Mudd Gardiner to Dr. Richard Mudd, on file with Dr. Mudd's genealogy papers at the Maryland State Archives in Annapolis.

- Bob