Decapitation of the Union

[John Fazio]

Laurie, Meade, Eva, Susan, et al.:

1. Was the cut-out of Booth's signature taken from the August 13, 1864, hotel register also a fraud?

2. We do not know exactly when Booth's erysipelas first manifested symptoms sufficient to incapacitate him. Observe that he is said to have had his meeting in Barnum's with Arnold and O'Laughlen some time during the first two weeks of August and then spent time putting his affairs in order elsewhere. The 13th is not out of reach on that account.

3. I see no relevance in the Munson letter. Nor in the fact that Booth did not stay in Room 22 on June 10 and 29. We are talking about where he stayed on August 13, not June 10 and 29.

4. An engagement in Meadville? Why not. Perhaps he was doing a favor for his friend John Ellsler of the Cleveland Academy of Music, who, with Booth, had substantial investments in the western Pennsylvania oil regions.


We should be careful not to reject tradition too quickly and too easily. Truth is often stranger than fiction. I read and listened for years to skeptics of the Barlow-Gordon meeting on the field of Gettysburg, until I looked for and found six sources to confirm it, proving the naysayers wrong again.

John

[RJNorton]

(10-03-2015 09:57 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  So - is the image Roger posted above an original photography of this original corpus delicti?

Early in 2013 Dave Taylor posted some photos he took.

Click here and here and here.

Dave wrote, "The pane is still in existence though it has suffered a crack sometime over the years. It is part of the NPS' Ford's Theatre collection (FOTH). The artifact is currently in storage and not on display."

[Wild Bill]

I hate to do this, as he and I disagree on so much of the Lincoln Assassination, but John Fazio is essential correct about the Meadville incident, which I wrote about in Last Confederate Heroes as far back as 2002. Meadville was a tank town on what became the Erie Railroad and on the direct route from the oil fields to New York City. Booth could have been there for any umber of reasons.

[John Fazio]

(10-04-2015 05:32 AM)Wild Bill Wrote:  I hate to do this, as he and I disagree on so much of the Lincoln Assassination, but John Fazio is essential correct about the Meadville incident, which I wrote about in Last Confederate Heroes as far back as 2002. Meadville was a tank town on what became the Erie Railroad and on the direct route from the oil fields to New York City. Booth could have been there for any umber of reasons.

Wild Bill:

Do not hate to do it; do it with alacrity, with enthusiasm, because truth is more important than orientation, more important than partisanship. Furthermore, our differences are molehills. Where mountains are concerned, we are on the same page. As far as I am concerned, you have only to accept one truth and your entire outlook will change, and it is that "at every crossroads on the path that leads to the future, tradition has placed 10,000 men to guard the past". When you have accepted that truth (IF you accept it), that alone will be new. The rest is merely arrangement.

John

[Susan Higginbotham]

The signature affixed to the pane (see page 891 of the Century article) bears no date. It could have been taken from the register for June. (Apparently, none of the registers have survived.)

I'm inclined to accept the evidence of the hotel cashier, who gave only June dates for Booth's stay in Meadville. Why would he conceal an August 13 stay? And if Booth did indeed perform in Meadville, why do we know nothing about what he performed and who he performed with? Surely a stage appearance by a famous actor in the oil country would have excited some comment.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Sorry, John. I can't let your new definition of 'hearsay' escape unscathed. (Nice segue to make the glass the central point when it's peripheral)

The point about Weichmann and the pane of glass is not that he wasn't the perpetrator but that he did not witness anything that he wrote about in connection with Meadville, Booth's illness and travels at the time.

All he is doing is regurgitating other people's words - at what remove we do not know. I discount all that he writes that is not his personal knowledge but is ex post facto parroting/creative writing

noun: hearsay
information received from other people that one cannot adequately substantiate; rumor.

•Law
the report of another person's words by a witness, usually disallowed as evidence in a court of law.

[L Verge]

John and Bill - I'm sorry, but how you can ignore critical and primary evidence such as Susan has posted here in favor of (once again) suppositions is beyond me.

[John Fazio]

(10-04-2015 11:15 AM)L Verge Wrote:  John and Bill - I'm sorry, but how you can ignore critical and primary evidence such as Susan has posted here in favor of (once again) suppositions is beyond me.

Laurie:

I am not ignoring it, and I'm sure Bill isn't either. Susan makes some very good points. I hold, merely, that we do not have a clear answer.

John

[Rob Wick]

Not that any of this matters to me, but in my research on Ida Tarbell, I found a great deal of information on Booth's oil activities in Pennsylvania (given that Tarbell lived in Titusville and went to Allegheny College in Meadville). This will make up only a few paragraphs in my book, which is going very well, thank you.

I don't recall seeing much, if anything, about the Meadville window, but Tarbell was particularly interested in Booth's association with The Dramatic Oil Company in Franklin, Pennsylvania. Indeed, Tarbell wrote an article toward the end of her life about Booth, which did not achieve publication in her lifetime as it was rejected by the New York Times among others. It was later published posthumously in the journal Pennsylvania History. The editor of that piece also wrote another on Booth's activity in the Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine.

Tarbell corresponded with George S. Bryan, author of The Great American Myth about this. There are numerous files in her papers regarding Booth's oilfield activities as well as the assassination. They are located here, here, here, here, here and here. There may be some duplication in the particular folders, given that Allegheny College has some of the same material tagged with different subject headings.

Best
Rob

[L Verge]

https://journals.psu.edu/wph/article/viewFile/7909/7682 Scroll down for short article on Booth and Meadville pane.

There is also a site (that I forgot to note) that mentions similar writings by Booth on windowpanes at the Valley Depot and at Mrs. Webber's boardinghouse in Franklin, where Booth and his partners roomed and took meals at the U.S. Hotel. Did this man have a fetish with windowpanes? Another question: Do we know that this man had a diamond ring?

[Eva Elisabeth]

(10-04-2015 04:27 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(10-03-2015 09:57 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  So - is the image Roger posted above an original photography of this original corpus delicti?

Early in 2013 Dave Taylor posted some photos he took.

Click here and here and here.

Dave wrote, "The pane is still in existence though it has suffered a crack sometime over the years. It is part of the NPS' Ford's Theatre collection (FOTH). The artifact is currently in storage and not on display."

If I understand correctly, the photo shows the original windowpane and thus handwriting of the culprit. This handwriting is totally different from Booth's on the calling card I posted - I couldn't write that differently.

E.g. compare the "A"/"a" in Booth's calling card and the windowpane message. The way the pen is following is completely different. Also, Booth writes the "t" in one line while the pane-"t" makes a new start for the dash. And also compare the "B" and "y" in "By" to JWB's. At all, JWB's handwriting looks very male, the other rather docile and more sophisticated. I bet a graphologist's expertise would show two different persons wrote these messages. And why should JWB have concealed his handwriting on the pane?
Finally, even if JWB was in town he was certainly not the only one there to hate Lincoln and capable of scratching messages into windowpanes.

I would like to hear others' thoughts on this point, especially Mr. Fazio's and Wild Bill's - thanks.
.

[Wild Bill]

(10-04-2015 01:06 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  

(10-04-2015 04:27 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(10-03-2015 09:57 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  So - is the image Roger posted above an original photography of this original corpus delicti?

Early in 2013 Dave Taylor posted some photos he took.

Click here and here and here.

Dave wrote, "The pane is still in existence though it has suffered a crack sometime over the years. It is part of the NPS' Ford's Theatre collection (FOTH). The artifact is currently in storage and not on display."

If I understand correctly, the photo shows the original windowpane and thus handwriting of the culprit. This handwriting is totally different from Booth's on the calling card I posted - I couldn't write that differently.

E.g. compare the "A"/"a" in Booth's calling card and the windowpane message. The way the pen is following is completely different. Also, Booth writes the "t" in one line while the pane-"t" makes a new start for the dash. And also compare the "B" and "y" in "By" to JWB's. At all, JWB's handwriting looks very male, the other rather docile and more sophisticated. I bet a graphologist's expertise would show two different persons wrote these messages. And why should JWB have concealed his handwriting on the pane?
Finally, even if JWB was in town he was certainly not the only one there to hate Lincoln and capable of scratching messages into windowpanes.

I would like to hear others' thoughts on this point, especially Mr. Fazio's and Wild Bill's - thanks.
.

[MajGenl.Meade]

(10-04-2015 12:05 PM)John Fazio Wrote:  

(10-04-2015 11:15 AM)L Verge Wrote:  John and Bill - I'm sorry, but how you can ignore critical and primary evidence such as Susan has posted here in favor of (once again) suppositions is beyond me.

I am not ignoring it, and I'm sure Bill isn't either. Susan makes some very good points. I hold, merely, that we do not have a clear answer.

"We do not have a clear answer" and yet, John, on page 17 of your book you state, in regard to Booth's alleged presence in Meadeville and the inscripted window: "We may be certain that Booth made the inscription. We may also be certain that it is a clear indication that as early as August 1864..... Booth had killing, rather than kidnapping, on his mind".

Your footnote (#32) to this entire story is again, Weichmann's book, written long after the event and relating occurrences that Weichmann could not have witnessed or had any personal knowledge of because he did not even meet Booth until 4-5 months later. He did at least have the honesty not to claim that Booth told him about the window later

What actual evidence is there that Booth performed in a play in Meadeville "for one performance only, and when it was over he retired to his room (and) left the city next morning" (page 17)? Perhaps it is Weichmann again.

Surely, the contemporary evidence that does exist is that Booth was most likely in New York on August 13 and there is no evidence of any kind that he was in Meadeville or any other place on earth?

[Apropos nothing, I am beginning to develop a healthy suspicion of Major Eckert. His fingerprints seem to be all over the shop]

[Wild Bill]

I seriously doubt that anyone's scratches on a windowpane or any upright surface are going to match one's handwriting. So I am going to say something that will cause everyone to question my qualifications as an historian. After working on or with John Wilkes Booth for the past 15 years, Believe that a biographer develops a connection with his subject. This episode just FEELS like something Booth would do. He is a show-off from the word go. He loves to needle those whom he despises and act in a silly but daring way--almost as a dare to his opponents.

I have heard others in the Sutrratt Society say they feel like they live in the 19th century. Hell, I AM the 19th century, from my study of the Era of Andrew Jackson, the Old South, the Civil War and Reconstruction. I was so wrapped up in these things when I taught them in college, that I sometimes seemed to loose contact with the current world. Ask my wife--ask my former students. I spent 30 years shoeing and wrangling horses and mules the old fashioned, 19th century, cowboy way, just like Peter Trotter did at Bryantown for Booth and the one-eyed horse he bought from Dr. Mudd's neighbor, George Gardiner. I can tie a diamond hitch on a sawbuck of a pack animal, take a rope and construct a halter and bridle by hand--I even loaded a flat-bed truck with lumber and building supplies and tied them on with a diamond hitch. "I never saw that done before," the yardman said.

I do not force you to believe me about anything, but I know when I am correct, or as Barry Goldwater said in his slogan when he lost in his run for the presidency, "In your heart you know he is right." In my heart, I know that The Last Confederate Heroes is closer to right than wrong, and so am I. I feel it in my bones.

And I admit that it is totally irrational. But it is so, nonetheless. The Navajos did't call me "wild" for nutting'--I guarantee!

---

Excuse my spelling. My eyesight thought and fingers do coordinate too well

[Jim Page]

On this weird sideshow to the assassination, I have to side with Wild Bill. It just seems like something Booth would do. That, plus the fact that Herold was working at a place that supplied drugs and likely other things to the Lincoln White House, seem to tie it in to Booth's band.

I recall thinking when I read about the window inscription in Weichmann's book, "Well, that seems plausible, given Booth's bragging after shooting Lincoln."

Can it ever be proven that Booth scratched those words? Probably not.

--Jim