Identification of Booth's body

[Steve Whitlock]

(05-06-2019 05:40 AM)Steve Wrote:  

(05-05-2019 09:29 AM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  The identity of the man in the barn who died in Booth's place is a secondary issue. I still think Guttridge and others have made a credible case that his name was Boyd, especially since the Garretts said he used that name. But, maybe it was just a cosmic coincidence that a Confederate Boyd with an injured leg was in southern MD/northern VA at the same time a man named Boyd visited the Garrett farm and was shot there.

Without any credible evidence of Booth alive after the encounter at Garrett's Farm, how is the identity of the dead man in the barn a secondary issue? You don't doubt there was a body found, meaning that a man must've died. Herold the man captured with him said it was Booth before the man was killed. The man had Booth's "diary" and had been writing in it after he arrived at the Garretts. Since we know Herold was the other man and that he was a fugitive for his involvement in the assassination, how does it make any sense for "the other man" who is fleeing justice with Herold to give out his real name, Boyd, not knowing if the authorities have it or not?

How can you think Guttridge makes a credible case when the other other James Boyd who's supposed to account for the known 1866 death of the James Boyd that he wants to place at Garrett's barn, is given a made up military career in Guttridge's account of Boyd that you posted a link to? That Guttridge made such an error make you wary about uncritically accepting his account as reliable without doing any research yourself?

For the record here's the some of the most important sources I used in my above post:

Here's the James W. Boyd 1860 census:


Here's the 1845 marriage license for James W. Boyd from Madison County, Tennessee:


Here's the only James Boyd in Fielding Hurst's Cav. regiment who's too young to be the same person Guttridge described:


Here are all the other Boyds in Hurst's regiment who are all too young to be who Guttridge describes:


Do you have any other sources for what Guttridge describes about the other James Boyd being the man named James W. Boyd murdered in 1866?

To add to what Steve said with the documents he so graciously provided, here is a transcription of the Robert H. Cartmell diary, along with burial information, with notes, for the daughter of James W. and Caroline Atwood (Malone) Boyd:

MY RIVERSIDE CEMETERY TOMBSTONE
INSCRIPTIONS SCRAPBOOK
By Jonathan K. T. Smith
Copyright, Jonathan K. T. Smith, 1992

NOTES BY LOT (Pages 2-9)

SOUTH SLOPE, Near the Confederate graves
[Lot 426-B, Boyd, in Tombstone Inscriptions]

ELLEN MORAN
Daughter of
J. W. & C. BOYD
Born
August 20, 1646
Died
June 13, 1646

Daughter, probably of James Boyd and Caroline Malone who were married February 6, 1645.

In his diary, volume 3, under entry of Jan. 1, 1866. Robert H. Cartmell wrote:

Before I got to town (Jackson) this morning, a difficulty occured between James W. Boyd, who has lived a long time in the place and a man whose name I forget, did not know him. He was a lieut. in one of the companies of Newsom's (Rebel) regmt which resulted in the shooting & killing of Boyd. The difficulty originated in this man and some one else taking 2 fine horses last spring from one Major Smith's command of Yankees. Boyd with a squad of Smith's men was engaged to pursue them. Boyd leaves 5 or 6 children; his wife died last winter. Poor unfortunate man, poor fatherless and motherless children. Boyd was a wild, reckless man, considered by many, a bad man, he was certainly a wicked man. He possessed some good traits, was a man of considerable shrewdness, sad fate was his. He was a lieut. in 6th regmt of Tennessee, shot and killed a soldier at Union City. . . .


(Page 9)
************
Note that the beef with Rowark appears to have been the result of some horses being stolen last spring [of 1865] from a Yankee outfit, and James W. Boyd (previously in a Confederate outfit of Newsom's) worked with the Yankee command of Major Smith to pursue the stolen horses. That would be in keeping with the 15 Feb 1865 Oath of Allegiance that James W. Boyd signed, so he could be in Jackson, Madison, TN for spring. William Rowark [Roark] must have been involved in some manner with the horses that were stolen from Major Smith, and I suspect he resented a Southerner assisting the Yankees.

From the family and character details of James W. Boyd given by Robert H. Cartmell it is plainly obvious he knew the family and would certainly know that he was the man killed, even tho I haven't found a probate record for him. If someone could find court records there should be guardianship papers for his children involved. But that seems overkill. This IS the James William Boyd of interest, and falsely reputed to have replaced John Wilkes Booth at Garrett's Farm.

As for Leonard Guttridge and Ray Neff, it would take considerable time to list all the misinformation those folks have put out. For openers, the Kate M. Scott sworn statement is a hoax, along with the 1883 will of John Byron Wilkes. A letter attributed to Robert Burns Stewart and written to Elizabeth (Wilkes) Bossom, a daughter of the real John Byron Wilkes in Terre Haute, IN, is nonsense and appears to have an attempted forged signature. A quick look at census records proves there was no Sarah Katherine Scott (by any name), a daughter by Kate M. Scott from an alleged affair with John Wilkes Booth, born in Dec 1865 and left with Samuel Baysinger to raise, who didn't get married until 1867, to another woman than the one supposedly named by Kate M. Scott in her sworn statement, and on, and on. As Ed Steers pointed out there was no Andrew Giles Potter, (nor his brothers Earl and Luther Potter), so things that reference Mr Andrew Potter are a fiction, which includes Andrew Potter as the trustee of the Sarah Katherine Scott inheritance. It also includes the reference to Andrew Potter made in the Robert Burns Stewart letter. Why would Judge Stewart, then Atty Stewart, give an address for a nonexistent man? There were no Potters in the county named in the letter.

I would not use either Leonard Guttridge or Ray Neff as a source for anything without considerable verification from other sources. In a 1977 interview Ray Neff had the mythical Sarah Katherine Scott as the wife of Samuel Baysinger. There was no ancestry.com at that time to make fact checking so much easier.

Samuel Baysinger

in the Indiana, Marriage Index, 1800-1941

Name: Samuel Baysinger
Spouse Name: Lucinda A Wood [Lucinda A (Bruner) Wood]
Marriage Date: 11 Feb 1867
Marriage County: Putnam
***********************
Saml Baysinger

in the 1870 United States Federal Census

Name: Saml Baysinger
[Samuel Baysinger]
Age in 1870: 27
Birth Year: abt 1843
Birthplace: Kentucky
Dwelling Number: 57
Home in 1870: Jackson, Parke, Indiana
Race: White
Gender: Male
Post Office: Mansfield
Occupation: Farmer
Male Citizen over 21: Y
Personal Estate Value: 200
Inferred Spouse: Lucinda Baysinger
Inferred Children: Sylvester Baysinger
Cora A Baysinger
Household Members:
Name Age
Saml Baysinger 27
Lucinda Baysinger 25 [Lucinda A. (Bruner) Wood-Baysinger]
Sylvester Baysinger 6 [Sylvester Wood took the name Sylvester Baysinger after 1880]
Cora A Baysinger 4
*******************
Cora A. Baysinger

in the 1880 United States Federal Census

Name: Cora A. Baysinger
Age: 12
Birth Date: Abt 1868
Birthplace: Indiana
Home in 1880: Jackson, Parke, Indiana, USA
Dwelling Number: 35
Race: White
Gender: Female
Relation to Head of House: Daughter
Marital status: Single
Father's name: Samuel Baysinger
Father's Birthplace: Kentucky
Mother's name: Lucinda Baysinger
Mother's Birthplace: Indiana
Occupation: Works In House
Attended School: Yes
Neighbors:
Household Members:
Name Age
Samuel Baysinger 35
Lucinda Baysinger 34
Cora A. Baysinger 12
Francis L. Baysinger 9
Charles E. Baysinger 8
Dora E. Baysinger 5
John M. Baysinger 4
Nora O. V. Baysinger 9/12
Sylvester Wood 14
*****************************
Cora A. Baysinger (possibly Wood) married Harvey A. Ruark and was deceased before 1900, so she couldn't possibly be the daughter that Kate M. Scott claimed to have met in New Orleans in 1906, according to the sworn statement. Also, in the 1910 census Kate shows never having had any children. That's the same year she ostensibly claimed a child, Sarah Katherine Scott (also named in the bogus 1883 John Byron Wilkes of India will) in said sworn statement.

Lucinda Baysinger died in Sep 1900 and Samuel remarried to a widow, Sarah Phoebe (Barnes) Smith-Bush-Baysinger in 1903.

Sarrah P Baysinger

in the 1910 United States Federal Census

Name: Sarrah P Baysinger
Age in 1910: 65
Birth Year: abt 1845
Birthplace: Indiana
Home in 1910: Madison, Putnam, Indiana
Race: White
Gender: Female
Relation to Head of House: Wife
Marital status: Married
Spouse's name: Samuel Baysinger
Father's Birthplace: Kentucky
Mother's Birthplace: Kentucky
Native Tongue: English
Able to Read: Yes
Able to Write: Yes
Years Married: 7
Number of Children Born: 2
Number of Children Living: 1
Neighbors:
Household Members:
Name Age
Samuel Baysinger 64 [2nd marriage, Lucy died in 1900]
Sarrah P Baysinger 65 [Sarah Phoebe (Barnes) Smith-Bush-Baysinger 3rd marriage]
********************************
According to Neff-Guttridge papers Sarah Katherine Scott b: 8 Dec 1865 was given to a midwife, Sarah, who was to marry Samuel Baysinger shortly and raise Kate's daughter.

"As you know, I have a daughter who was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on December 8, 1865. To this day I have never told anyone who the father was nor the circumstances of her birth. While you may know some of the facts you do not know them all nor shall you, nor shall anyone else. Some things are so sacred as to be unmentionable.

As for the payments made to me and my daughter by the law firm of Weaver and Weaver, payments to me stopped a number of years ago and in 1886 when my daughter reached her majority, she received the residue of the annuity. She is happily married and is fully aware of all there is to know. I will not reveal her identity."

"When I visited my daughter in October of 1906 I found that she had talked with cousin John Celestina when she and her husband were in New Orleans. He was health[y] and had a family and was living the life of a gentleman. He had given up the sea after his release and had bought a country home and settled down to the quiet country life."

[From "sworn statement" of Kate M. Scott] Puhhleeeze!

Steve Whitlock (the other Steve)