Lincoln Reward Money Fraud?

[Dave Taylor]

And I get nothing for seconding Gene? Seconding someone in Eva's Trivia Advent Calendar earned the person points...

You, Roger, get one of your own favorite prizes: My best wishes for a great day!

(And my thanks too!)

[RJNorton]

Thanks, Dave. I send all good wishes to you.

[maharba]

I see several Booth wanted posters, one headlined $100,000, another was $30,000. And then the various (suggested and then final?) allotment of the Reward for John Wilkes Booth. Along the lines of 'reward money fraud', I notice Pension frauds, signup enlistment frauds, and maybe bounty land warrant frauds. For whatever reasons, many folks of the day seemed to believe that the Federals actually had NOT paid out any reward money for 'Booth's Capture'. I wonder...in a hypothetical where JWBooth had escaped and then really was captured say 1870, if there was no mistaking that such a (hypothetical) man truly was John Wilkes Booth, would the government then have paid out another reward?

[Gene C]

, would the government then have paid out another reward?

No, and they would have wanted what they paid out, back

[Dave Taylor]

, would the government then have paid out another reward?

No, and they would have wanted what they paid out, back

Actually, the government would have never paid out the money in the first place unless they were 100% certain that it was Booth. That is why, in 1865, they went to such extremes to positively identify Booth. There's no way the government was going to shell out that much money on anyone other than the real assassin.

[L Verge]

I believe that Finis Bates suggested to the government that he was due reward money for finally giving them Booth over 35 years later. Guess how far he got with his claim...

[RJNorton]

Many thanks to Blaine for sending this fascinating letter.

Blaine writes, "After Bates died, his widow attempted to sell the mummy to Henry Ford. Fred Black (Ford's publicist) responded to her with this letter.

The letter is in the Fred Black archives at Oakland University in Michigan.

[Gene C]

You gotta love that last line of the letter, "We can buy cadavers in Detroit for much less"

[maharba]

One might...unless he had met Henry Ford's squads of strikebreakers and ex-con's. Then the ominous closer about ready access to cadavers has a fuller meaning. Bringing the 'erudition' of Henry Ford into the picture, suggests yet another player 'gone over the edge'. With each new Ford of that era, the customer got a strange conspiratorial and antisemitic tract, at no extra charge. I believe Ford lost a defamation lawsuit, which ended the visible aspect but didn't restore Ford's sanity or public image. It's too bad that Ford didn't just buy the mummy, and it could today be DNA tested.

[Gene C]

Well that certainly explains why he didn't buy the mummy

[maharba]

This is not really the right (mummy) Thread to mention it, but I have read that Finis Bates may not even have used David George/Booth mummy. Some say that he came up with another body and used that instead of 'the original Booth', others say that he was running several mummies at the same time, in various parts of the country. So even if 'the mummy' was today located, it might not even be David George who died 1903 Enid OK, but a switch that lawyer Bates had made, many years back. And so, the DNA wouldn't match with Booth or George, etc. And I wonder how well Phineas Bates ever knew the man John St.Helen to begin with. I tend to believe that in writing his book, Bates invented facets of 'what St.Helen had told him about escaping and traveling as John Wilkes Booth'. Later, when a man calling himself JWBooth died in Enid OK, Bates eventually shows up and recognizes him as the same man (so Bates says) from earlier Granbury, TX. As with the Lincoln fiction and Corbett glosses, Bates was smoothing and adding a narrative, I tend to believe. If John St. Helen was John Wilkes Booth, the truth of the matter was greatly muddled with Finis Bates coming into the picture.

[Gene C]

but I have read that Finis Bates may not even have used David George/Booth mummy. Some say .... others say that....

I tend to believe that in writing his book, Bates invented facets of 'what St.Helen had told him about escaping and traveling as John Wilkes Booth'. As with the Lincoln fiction and Corbett glosses, Bates was smoothing and adding a narrative, I tend to believe. If John St. Helen was John Wilkes Booth, the truth of the matter was greatly muddled with Finis Bates coming into the picture.

This sounds like your are changing direction with some of your ideas, which is fine, making a new decision based on additional information.

Please share with us, where & what have your read that you are basing your comments on.