Lucy Hale

[Gene C]

The hotel registry page went up for auction a few years ago
http://historical.ha.com/itm/autographs/...14-61205.s

Nice place
http://newport.toursphere.com/en/john-wi...29819.html

[Thomas Kearney]

With my apologies to Sally & Susan.....

Is this ironic or what? (the artist, the song title and the lyrics)
This is for you Thomas Kearney

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRBCI_IBuBE

Good music! Wrong Lucy Hale!

[Eva Elisabeth]

What do you (forum members) think - did JWB seriously love Lucy Hale and take fiancee"ship" serious (would he have married her?), did he just/mainly (intend to) "use" her respectively her status, was it somewhere in between - or one "along the way"?
Thanks for your thoughts!

[Rogerm]

I think that Booth was cynically using her. Is it known if she shared her father's political point of view?. If so, there is no way that she and Booth could ever have gotten along as a married couple.

[Gene C]

I agree with Roger

[L Verge]

I agree with Rogerm also. I have two takes on Booth using Lucy. One, of course, is the possibility of her being of some secondary use in planning against Lincoln. However, I also think that Lucy's social status could elevate him into the higher classes that he had a craving to be part of.

While I do not think that there was a rivalry between him and Edwin serious enough for him to seek fame through assassination, I do think that he likely wanted to move in the higher circles like what Edwin was doing mainly in the North. Lucy could be a ticket to that stratosphere -- one that neither his father or mother ever achieved.

[Sally]

Here’s my theory: I think he started romancing Lucy as a means of embarrassing, or at least irritating her father, who was a long-standing and outspoken abolitionist, unapologetically in favor of punishing the South when the war was over. This is similar to Booth’s wooing of Isabel Sumner the previous year—he might have thought Isabel was related to Charles Sumner and hoped to scandalize him in some way by seducing his young relation. Sumner was also a vehement abolitionist and shared many of Hale’s views. In fact, Sumner was one of the few Republicans in Washington in 1865 who was still friendly with Hale. Once Booth realized Isabel had no real connection to Charles Sumner, he allowed things to break off between them. Despite the overheated love letters he wrote to her, and the ring he gave her, I’ve never believed he was actually in love with Isabel.

Booth may have started courting Lucy with the same intentions. But unlike Isabel Sumner, who had been in Boston living under her parents’ roof while Booth was travelling hither and yon, Lucy Hale was in Washington with him, living at the same hotel. They had more opportunity for meetings. Lucy was also older and more sophisticated than Isabel. And we can’t forget about that “indefinable fascination” of hers. Booth may have come to enjoy her company. Maybe he even liked her. But I don’t believe he loved her, and certainly he never intended to marry her. He was already plotting to (at the very least) kidnap the President before he met her. If all had gone as he’d hoped, did he intend to take Lucy with him to Mexico, or wherever he’d planned to escape? That seems unlikely. A new bride would have severely slowed his progress.

All the professions of love for Lucy that Booth apparently made to his family and friends were only another one of his performances, meant to provide a reason for his hanging around Washington that winter instead of touring and earning money. Lucy served his purposes.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thank you for your great replies! Lucy Hale is said having been a man-izer I wonder if this also referred to her outward appearance? Was she considered a belle in those days? JWB himself was very anxious about his outward appearance and shape, and I would tend to think this was of some importance to him as for his sweethearts, too.
       

[RJNorton]

What do you (forum members) think - did JWB seriously love Lucy Hale and take fiancee"ship" serious (would he have married her?), did he just/mainly (intend to) "use" her respectively her status, was it somewhere in between - or one "along the way"?
Thanks for your thoughts!

But I don’t believe he loved her, and certainly he never intended to marry her. He was already plotting to (at the very least) kidnap the President before he met her. If all had gone as he’d hoped, did he intend to take Lucy with him to Mexico, or wherever he’d planned to escape? That seems unlikely. A new bride would have severely slowed his progress.

I doubt he was really serious with Lucy. I think we should include Ella Starr Turner in the mix of women whom Booth may/may not have loved. As far as I know she is the only one of "Booth's women" to make a suicide attempt once it was learned Booth was the assassin. She took chloroform but was saved. Booth's picture was found hidden under the pillow of her bed. Harry Hawk said Booth was "infatuated with a woman named Ella Turner." Ella wrote a note to Booth which said, "My darling Boy, Please call this evening or as soon as you receive this note & I'll not detain you five minutes - for god's sake come." This note was found in Booth's trunk. Like Lucy Hale, she was never called to testify although there were indications he spent a lot of time with her. Despite the fact that Ella was a prostitute, IMO the evidence shows that the relationship goes much beyond a typical prostitute/client relationship.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Does any photo of Ella Starr exist?
My personal view (and I may be an exception) is that anyone who considers the services of prostitutes (or the male version) an option does at least not share my moral understanding of being serious about/with women (men), love, and relationship. Poor Lucy, perhaps she didn't know.

[RJNorton]

I have never seen a photo, but James Patton Ferguson, who owned the bar/restaurant next to Ford's Theatre, said "she was one of the most beautiful women I ever saw."

Ferguson also said, "After the assassination, when she heard that I was the first man to report the murder at the police station, she sent me word that she would blow my head off the next time she saw me."

(Source: Terry Alford's book)

[Eva Elisabeth]

I have never seen a photo, but James Patton Ferguson, who owned the bar/restaurant next to Ford's Theatre said "she was one of the most beautiful women I ever saw."

Ferguson also said, "After the assassination, when she heard that I was the first man to report the murder at the police station, she sent me word that she would blow my head off the next time she saw me."

(Source: Terry Alford's book)

Thanks, Roger - so in my imagination she'd look about like she (but Ferguson might not have agreed):
   
(And the suicide attempt would match, too.)

[Wild Bill]

Remember that allegedly Lucy has some interesting friends--Robert Lincoln, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., John Hay. Possibly Booth was seeking to embarrass more than John Hale? Or gain inside information on the Lincoln Administration? Or just out to defeat a Lincoln (Robert) in the woman-chasing department? Many thought the latter was the real motive and an interesting, lengthy newspaper article, "Booth and Bob Lincoln," appeared in the Chicago Inter-Ocean newspaper (June 18, 1878) theorizing it.

[Eva Elisabeth]

In another post Laurie wrote that registering "Booth with lady" at hotels would have made Lucy a "loose woman".
What was public about Lucy Hale's relationship to Booth, and Booth's to a prostitute? Wouldn't any relationship to Booth, also as for his profession, have made her a "loose woman"?

Bill, that article sounds interesting! I think an unassuming connection to the administration was perhaps the strongest motive, and the others nice additional "pleasures".

[L Verge]

I have never seen a photo, but James Patton Ferguson, who owned the bar/restaurant next to Ford's Theatre, said "she was one of the most beautiful women I ever saw."

Ferguson also said, "After the assassination, when she heard that I was the first man to report the murder at the police station, she sent me word that she would blow my head off the next time she saw me."

(Source: Terry Alford's book)

Somewhere, I remember reading that Ella was a petite redhead. Didn't we have a thread going on Lucy and the Hales early on that included a full-length photo of Lucy from the Hale museum up north? It showed a much more attractive Lucy than this standard CDV. I have often questioned whether or not the CDV is actually Lucy, but everyone seems to accept that it is.

Terry Alford tells me that he traced Ella after 1865 and that she married well. I have begged for further information, but so far I have not coaxed it out of him. I was hoping that he would include it as a side note in Fortune's Fool, but... For some of us, that would have been the "scoop" of the day for his book.