New Eyewitness Account?

[Steve]

Here's the references for the last group of articles if anybody is confused:

1. Boston Post 10 Aug. 1867 pg. 2

2. New York Evening Post 06 Aug. 1867 pg. 1

3. Boston Post 22 Aug. 1867 pg. 1

4. Chicago Tribune 16 Nov. 1865 pg. 1
(reprint of an article from pg. 2 of the 15 Nov. 1865 Louisville Daily Union Press)

5. Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield) 02 Nov. 1866 (ad)

Unless there's some "fake news" backstory with the author (using the pen name "Major Wisp") of the Evening Post's travelogue that I don't know about, there doesn't seem to be any reason to doubt that he visited the Tiltons' (Lincoln) home. And since Laura Keene performed in Springfield in Nov. 1866, there doesn't seem to be any reason to doubt the Tiltons' account of the dress scrap coming from her. Keene's behavior would be consistent with the Nov. 1865 newspaper account of Keene giving away a dress scrap in Louisville, Kentucky. ( I checked and Keene did perform in Louisville in late October 1865.)

Also, in Keene's 1897 biography is an account by a Cincinnati actress named Louisa Eldridge of Keene also giving her a piece of the dress a week after the assassination (which Eldridge lost in the intervening years):

https://archive.org/stream/lifeoflaurake...5/mode/2up

I agree with Roger, that if Robert had known about a Keene dress scrap hanging in the house, he would've asked that it be destroyed.

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(05-29-2018 12:15 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  In addition to denying the presence of Laura Keene, Clara Harris made another statement that no one else did (as far as I know). I believe this one was made much earlier (roughly a few weeks after the assassination) than what she said in the article David posted. Clara stated:

"Nearly one hour before the commission of the deed, the assassin came to the door of the box and looked in, to take a survey of the position of its occupants. It was supposed at the time that it was either a mistake or the exercise of impertinent curiosity. The circumstance attracted no particular attention at the time."

Am I correct when I say Clara Harris is alone in saying this --> did any other eyewitness state that Booth made a "trial run?"

Maybe Clara was misremembering Forbes bringing the dispatch from S. P. Hanscom to the President?