Booths in New London CT

[tom82baur]

            I belong to a local Facebook page in New London CT that is largely devoted to miscellaneous nostalgia. However there is a subgroup of about a half dozen+ folks who share an avid interest in the history of our town. New London's history is mainly known for maritime events, as a "Whaling City' (second only to New Bedford, MA in the mid 1840s-50s), and for being the port where the famous Amistad slave ship landed. (No, Steven Spielberg, it wasn't New Haven!) Not to mention the only site in CT where a major battle of the Revolution took place, at which time the town was burned by local native son/traitor Benedict Arnold.
It was also a summer resort area for some of the rich and famous in the latter half of the 19th century. My wife and I took an historical house tour last fall, and discovered afterward, that one of the 'rich and famous' who spent some summers here, visiting his friend and partner, William Stuart.... was Edwin Booth. Needless to say THAT got my attention! As it turns out, his partner in the Winter Garden Theater (site of the famous 100 consecutive performances of Hamlet feat that made Edwin famous) owned a large house in the Ocean Beach area of town at the mouth of the harbor. Edwin took a voluntary temporary 'retirement' from the theater for about a year after the Lincoln Assassination, and spent part of that time in New London. Edwin came to like New London so much, that he bought an adjacent property from Wm. Stuart in 1867.
I had never heard any of this before, and I am a New London native! So I decided to do a little spelunking in the NL City Hall Records Vault. Sure enough, I found the transaction in which Edwin Booth purchased a good-sized tract on Alewife Cove from Wm Stuart, and then sold it in 1871, after a his relationship soured with Stuart over their theater partnership. He never built a house on the land, but there are notations that he originally intended to, with a spot picked out, but it never came to fruition.
Then it got interesting. Another NL page member, an indefatigable researcher, sent me a link showing an excerpt from Alexander Loux's John Wilkes Booth Day By Day. (see page 175 in Link.) In that excerpt, it states that John Wilkes Booth, returning from a trip to Boston, stopped in New London for several days to visit his brother Edwin and his sister Asia, who together with her children, were visiting William Stuart at Ocean Beach. At the end of the visit, John and Edwin departed together for New York. I found a second reference to his New London sojourn on page 166, also attached. No one in New London seems to know about this!
So my question is, is that the only time Wilkes Booth was in New London? And what was the status of the conspiracy at this point? I hope to safe this info with my fellow New Londoners. UPDATE: Somehow the word got out and I have now been contacted privately by the Booth family descendants in regard to this, and they indicate that they had no knowledge of this property in New London. They are not denying it.... the evidence is pretty clear.... but rather they are curious to learn more, as am I! You should find a map of the property from 1868, two excerpts from the book, and a copy of the deed signed by Edwin when he sold the property in 1871.
https://books.google.com/books?id=BN1uBA...on&f=false

[RJNorton]

(04-23-2018 01:40 PM)tom82baur Wrote:  And what was the status of the conspiracy at this point?

Here is what Messrs. James O. Hall and Michael Maione wrote in To Make Fortune - John Wilkes Booth: Following the Money Trail:

"There is a division of opinion among historians as to whether Booth's Lincoln capture scheme was his own idea or whether it was fed to him by Confederate agents. The possibility that he met with such agents from Canada during his stay at the Parker House was developed by the authors of Come Retribution.

To begin with, no record has been found to show that Booth was considering this scheme prior to the time he registered at the Parker House on July 26, 1864. Yet the evidence is persuasive that he left the hotel four days later for Baltimore to enlist the first two recruits into the evolving conspiracy that would ultimately take the life of Abraham Lincoln.

Booth checked out of the Parker House on July 30 and dropped off to spend a few days with various members of his family who were on vacation near New London, Connecticut, at the country home of one of Edwin's business associates."

So if Messrs. Hall and Maione are correct, this New London visit was at the very beginning of the conspiracy.

[tom82baur]

Thank you, Roger! I apologize for the delay in acknowledgement, but we have been away for a couple of weeks. We had hoped to include a visit to the Dry Tortugas (where some of the Lincoln conspirators were imprisoned) on our vacation, but our seaplane had to be cancelled at the last minute due to stormy weather conditions, and we were unable to re-schedule. That was an unfortunate disappointment, but .... maybe next time!