New Booth Pic?

[tom82baur]

New Booth Pic?
I stumbled on this yesterday. Curious to know what this forum thinks of it.

"A Gettysburg researcher who happens to be a scholar on the life of John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, has stumbled on what she believes might be a previously undocumented portrait of Booth apparently taken during a visit to Tamaqua.

Michele Behan, a Missouri native and graduate of St. Louis University, discovered the portrait in late October 2015 at a Gettysburg antiques shop."

This is the caption to the photo: "Researcher Michele Behan of Gettysburg rummaged through old photos in an Adams County antiques shop recently and discovered what many say is an original portrait of John Wilkes Booth taken at Baily Studios in Tamaqua."[Image: 30%20news%20booth.jpg]

"She says she found an online story from the book “Iron Steps — Illustrated History of Tamaqua, Pa.” by Donald R. Serfass. The book includes a chapter that tells of Booth’s visits to the town, based on published newspaper reports dating back to the 1800s.

It was during one of those visits when Booth reportedly told Tamaqua barber Simon Jefferson about his plans to shoot the president.

Jefferson was the first black resident of the community and claimed to be a descendant of Thomas Jefferson through slave Sally Hemmings. Booth and Jefferson were both natives of Maryland, a common bond that helped to forge a friendship.

Jefferson said he warned town police and officials about Booth’s plans, stories well-documented by Jefferson in early newspaper interviews.

But, it appears, nobody was ready to pay attention to a black man, not even a free black man, in those days.

Jefferson said he even took a train to Washington, D.C., to warn Lincoln of impending doom.

But his attempts fell on deaf ears. The rest is history."


Here is the link: http://www.tnonline.com/2016/jul/30/hist...in-tamaqua

[Jim Garrett]

I don't think it's even close. While I think it would be great for a new discovery of a previously unknown image, this isn'y it.

[Dennis Urban]

Agreed. I do not think this looks like Booth at all.

[John Fazio]

Tom:

Both the interpretation of the photo as Booth and the story that goes with it--Booth telling a black barber that he intended to kill the president; the barber's being related to Thomas Jefferson through Sally Hemmings; and the barber trundling off to Washington to warn Lincoln--are tortured. The man in the photo bears only a very slight resemblance to Booth; he is wearing a hat we have not seen Booth wear in any other photo; and his clothes are singularly pedestrian compared to the finery we usually see on Booth in the photos of him about which there is no controversy. Conclusion: The photo is almost certainly not of Booth and the story has all the earmarks of fiction, and not very good fiction at that.

John

[tom82baur]

(08-05-2016 09:37 PM)John Fazio Wrote:  Tom:

Both the interpretation of the photo as Booth and the story that goes with it--Booth telling a black barber that he intended to kill the president; the barber's being related to Thomas Jefferson through Sally Hemmings; and the barber trundling off to Washington to warn Lincoln--are tortured. The man in the photo bears only a very slight resemblance to Booth; he is wearing a hat we have not seen Booth wear in any other photo; and his clothes are singularly pedestrian compared to the finery we usually see on Booth in the photos of him about which there is no controversy. Conclusion: The photo is almost certainly not of Booth and the story has all the earmarks of fiction, and not very good fiction at that.

John

This is the pic that is claimed to be Booth.

The comment below was recently added to the page linked in the original post. And I agree that the purported resemblance is..... a stretch.
"alceso | Aug 2, 2016
I volunteer for Tudor Halll, the home of the Booth family including John Wilkes Booth. The photo being shown here on this article is definitely not John Wilkes Booth. You can check out the real photos of John Wilkes Booth on my good friend, Dave Taylor's website here: https://boothiebarn.com/picture-galleries/jwb-photos/"

And here is one of the Boothie Barn pics:
https://boothiebarn.files.wordpress.com/....jpg?w=490

[RJNorton]

Just a note for folks following this thread...there are additional comments from forum members regarding this topic here.

[LincolnMan]

It doesn't look like him!

[Carolyn Mitchell]

(08-06-2016 10:03 AM)tom82baur Wrote:  

(08-05-2016 09:37 PM)John Fazio Wrote:  Tom:

Both the interpretation of the photo as Booth and the story that goes with it--Booth telling a black barber that he intended to kill the president; the barber's being related to Thomas Jefferson through Sally Hemmings; and the barber trundling off to Washington to warn Lincoln--are tortured. The man in the photo bears only a very slight resemblance to Booth; he is wearing a hat we have not seen Booth wear in any other photo; and his clothes are singularly pedestrian compared to the finery we usually see on Booth in the photos of him about which there is no controversy. Conclusion: The photo is almost certainly not of Booth and the story has all the earmarks of fiction, and not very good fiction at that.

John

This is the pic that is claimed to be Booth.

The comment below was recently added to the page linked in the original post. And I agree that the purported resemblance is..... a stretch.
"alceso | Aug 2, 2016
I volunteer for Tudor Halll, the home of the Booth family including John Wilkes Booth. The photo being shown here on this article is definitely not John Wilkes Booth. You can check out the real photos of John Wilkes Booth on my good friend, Dave Taylor's website here: https://boothiebarn.com/picture-galleries/jwb-photos/"

And here is one of the Boothie Barn pics:
https://boothiebarn.files.wordpress.com/....jpg?w=490

I left that comment on that website.

[tom82baur]

(08-06-2016 10:22 PM)Carolyn Mitchell Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 10:03 AM)tom82baur Wrote:  

(08-05-2016 09:37 PM)John Fazio Wrote:  Tom:

Both the interpretation of the photo as Booth and the story that goes with it--Booth telling a black barber that he intended to kill the president; the barber's being related to Thomas Jefferson through Sally Hemmings; and the barber trundling off to Washington to warn Lincoln--are tortured. The man in the photo bears only a very slight resemblance to Booth; he is wearing a hat we have not seen Booth wear in any other photo; and his clothes are singularly pedestrian compared to the finery we usually see on Booth in the photos of him about which there is no controversy. Conclusion: The photo is almost certainly not of Booth and the story has all the earmarks of fiction, and not very good fiction at that.

John

This is the pic that is claimed to be Booth.

The comment below was recently added to the page linked in the original post. And I agree that the purported resemblance is..... a stretch.
"alceso | Aug 2, 2016
I volunteer for Tudor Halll, the home of the Booth family including John Wilkes Booth. The photo being shown here on this article is definitely not John Wilkes Booth. You can check out the real photos of John Wilkes Booth on my good friend, Dave Taylor's website here: https://boothiebarn.com/picture-galleries/jwb-photos/"

And here is one of the Boothie Barn pics:
https://boothiebarn.files.wordpress.com/....jpg?w=490

I left that comment on that website.

Yes, I saw that on the other thread. I agree with you.

[HistoryFan]

Good evening to all ... I am the person who found the photo mentioned on this thread and thought I'd post a few comments about it here.

First of all, to make it easier to actually see the man in the photo, here is a cropped portion of the photo showing just the man's face.

   

[HistoryFan]

Well, I thought I had added a photo to the post, but apparently I only added a link. If anyone can tell me how to show the actual photo in the post, I'd appreciate it.

Anyway, to address some of the comments on this thread, the story of the barber -- which I discovered online after I found the photo with the Tamaqua backmark --- dates back to the actual era of the assassination, according to Donald Serfass, the author of the article as well as the local history book mentioned in the article.

The thing I found most intriguing about that barber story was the fact it was a contemporary account, documented not in the 20th or 21st century, but actually featured in newspapers of the period. Apparently, according to a story published in the Tamaqua Anthracite Journal immediately after Lincoln's death, Jefferson admitted to having seen Booth perform in a play in Virginia.

According to Donald Serfass' account of the story told by Jefferson and printed in the newspaper, Jefferson reported the plot to John F. Bland, president of the Little Schuylkill Co., and George Brown, LSC mine superintendent.

Also, the same story is documented in Simon Jefferson's lengthy obituary in the Tamaqua Evening Courier on August 28, 1886. In the Courier article, Jefferson claims that, "Booth came to Tamaqua on his way from Canada to Virginia."

Anyone who studies history knows that contemporaneous accounts carry more weight than later-told mythology and the fact that this barber story dates from the era of, and within 20 years of, the assassination gives it a bit more credulity, as much as it may seem to our cynical modern eyes like "tortured fiction."

Also, there is another strange fact not addressed in the article due to space issues, but told by Mr. Serfass to me. I asked him about the location of Baily's photo studio and what its proximity was to the building known to house the barber shop (which still stands in the town of Tamaqua). To my surprise, Mr. Serfass told me that not only was the photography studio located on the same block as the barber shop, but it was even on the same side of the street.

If you look at these bits of information as pieces of a puzzle, the pieces seem to uncannily fit together very neatly.

Now to address some concerns about the photo itself, I must say that I enjoyed the description of the man's outfit on this thread as "singularly pedestrian compared to the finery we usually see on Booth in the photos of him about which there is no controversy." Yes, that is true; the outfit in this photo is rather pedestrian. But if he was traveling and impulsively popped into a photo studio on the way to or from the barber shop, it would be expected that he wouldn't be wearing his finer clothes.

The "known" photos were heavily distributed and, being an actor, Booth undoubtedly controlled the distribution of the photos he used to cultivate his professional image.

Also, many comments were made about the hat in the photo. It is notable that there are no markings on the brim or any hat badge to indicate it is part of an official uniform.

In addition, Booth literature documents at least a couple of "lost" photos: A young boy present at the burning of Booth's stage costumes by his brother, Edwin, in 1873 mentions a photograph of John Wilkes in an Indian costume that was burned by Edwin together with the matching costume.

This is documented in “Burned Booth’s Clothes: How John Wilkes’ Wardrobe was Destroyed”, Boston Daily Globe, Jan. 26, 1896. Authored 3 years after Edwin Booth’s death by his devoted property man, “Garry” Davidson's story was reprinted in at least two other newspapers: “Burned Booth’s Clothes: How Edwin Disposed of his Brother’s Stage Costumes”, Galveston Daily News, March 1, 1896 and “Booth’s Clothes. How Edwin Disposed of his Brother’s Stage Costumes,” Denver Post, March 14, 1896.

Also, an acquaintance of John Wilkes who lived in Montreal alluded to another missing photo: "I remember him distinctly in the yellow fox-skin cap which he wore when photographed by George Martin, in his St. Peter Street studio."

That photo itself has never been discovered and I find it intriguing that Booth was apparently modeling a hat which likewise has not appeared in any "known" photo of him. This description of the unknown photograph is documented in The Great American Myth: The True Story of Lincoln's Murder by George S. Bryan.

So we know there are at least some undiscovered photographs of Booth mentioned by contemporaries in literary accounts of Booth and yet not extant in the compilation of known Booth photographs.

Without contemporary identification or a chain of provenance, it is often impossible to "prove" photos, because they're so subjective. I knew that some people would see a resemblance and some would not. I find it best to merely lay out facts and let them speak for themselves. I view this as an intriguing mystery and let's face it ... the story is very intriguing!

[Gene C]

(08-15-2016 12:36 AM)HistoryFan Wrote:  This is documented in “Burned Booth’s Clothes: How John Wilkes’ Wardrobe was Destroyed”, Boston Daily Globe, Jan. 26, 1896. Authored 3 years after Edwin Booth’s death by his devoted property man, “Garry” Davidson's story was reprinted in at least two other newspapers: “Burned Booth’s Clothes: How Edwin Disposed of his Brother’s Stage Costumes”, Galveston Daily News, March 1, 1896 and “Booth’s Clothes. How Edwin Disposed of his Brother’s Stage Costumes,” Denver Post, March 14, 1896.

Thanks for mentioning this. I don't recall reading about it before.
Strangely, I just read about this in the past week, as it is mentioned and possibly quoted (four pages) in the book I just reviewed, "Booth and the Spirit of Lincoln".

It starts in the lower right of page 271,..... "The Last of John Wilkes Booth....."
https://archive.org/stream/boothandthesp...1/mode/2up

The photo is also discussed on another thread, "New Booth Photo"
http://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussio...-3086.html

[Eva Elisabeth]

Welcome to the forum, Michele, and thank you for sharing more with us - yes, the story is intriguing. Thank you also for the enlarged portion of the photo that - for me - shows up well in your post.

Please allow me to re-post it next to one photo of JWB that allows everyone to compare ears and nose as these especially help to identify a person.
       

[RJNorton]

(08-15-2016 08:38 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Welcome to the forum, Michele, and thank you for sharing more with us - yes, the story is intriguing. Thank you also for the enlarged portion of the photo that - for me - shows up well in your post.

Michele, I second Eva's welcome, and your enlarged photo also shows up well on my monitor.

In the other thread that Gene mentioned I had posted that I thought the man in question also looked (to my aging eyes) like actor E. A. Emerson. Is this a possibility?

[Gene C]

This link is for a biography and photo's of E A Emerson from - Find A Grave

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi...d=48542967