Trivia Advent Calendar

[J. Beckert]

Nice job, Laurie!! I've never seen a photo of it, but last night I found two. This is Mrs. Webber's boarding house in Franklin, Pa., where Booth boarded with his friend Joseph Simonds while in the area for his oil speculations. Joseph Booth also stayed there, occupying the same room, a few years later. Here's a little I found about it including a request of Booth's while he was there - most likely because it was dirty work.

Sarah Smith Webber and her husband Adam lived for many years in this house at the corner of Buffalo and Thirteenth Streets. After being widowed in the early 1860s, Mrs. Webber operated her home as a rooming house and assumed the position of postmaster, the job her husband had formerly filled.

Her house gained notoriety as the place where John Wilkes Booth roomed while living in Franklin. During his 1864 run in the region as an oil operator, Booth and his friend, J.H. Simonds, lived in the second floor corner room. Mrs. Webber remembered that Booth insisted on having his own towels, "and plenty of them."

In later years the basement bore evidence of having been dug over many times by those apparently in search of anything connected to Booth. The house was torn down in the early 1950s when the Elk's Club purchased the property.

You now vault into 2nd. place.

Roger 11
Laurie 7
Thomas 6
Me 5
Dave 4
Susan 1