JWB Breach of Promise incident

[jparkuntz]

I wonder if anyone can help me identify the incident referred to in the attached very poor quality clipping from the Philadelphia Sunday Mercury of April 16, 1865.

It refers to JWB promising to marry a young woman of Philadelphia, near Arch St., which caused Gov. Packer of Pennsylvania to request that Gov. Henry A. Wise of Virginia surrender JWB to face that charge.

Further, it says that Philadelphia lawyer Robert M. Lee, Jr. "connived" to get JWB out of that scrape.
This had to have occurred in 1858-1860, if the governors named were involved.

Lee Jr. was born in 1836, and would have been 22-24 years old. He later practiced law, but in 1858-1860 I believe he was still clerking for his father, Robert M. Lee Sr.

Do you know the young woman's name? Or have you run into Booth's connection to Robert M. Lee Jr. before?

Jerry Kuntz
Warwick NY

[Steve]

The incident, if it happened, would've had to occurred in the summer of 1858 when Booth left an extended performance at the Arch Street Theatre in Philadelphia to start an extended performance in Richmond. I checked the newspapers at the time and found no mention of the incident, so if it happened it was kept pretty quiet. Considering this newspaper article came out a couple of days after the assassination, I would have to attribute it to some of the unsubstantiated rumors that were flying around at the time unless some evidence corroborating it is found.

[jparkuntz]

I will check to see if the requisition sent or received by the involved governors might still exist.

This has the scent of truth; these were literally the first sentences written about Booth by this Sunday Philadelphia newspaper. I think it was too early for the paper to print a character-impugning rumor--this was the first thing to came to the editor's mind when recalling JWB in Philly. The mention of specific names: the Governors and of Robert M. Lee Jr., also seems like too much detail for a rumor.

Jerry Kuntz
Warwick NY

[Steve]

(11-05-2017 04:07 PM)jparkuntz Wrote:  I will check to see if the requisition sent or received by the involved governors might still exist.

This has the scent of truth; these were literally the first sentences written about Booth by this Sunday Philadelphia newspaper. I think it was too early for the paper to print a character-impugning rumor--this was the first thing to came to the editor's mind when recalling JWB in Philly. The mention of specific names: the Governors and of Robert M. Lee Jr., also seems like too much detail for a rumor.

Jerry Kuntz
Warwick NY

I don't think the Mercury is in the newspaper databases that I searched (or if it is the search results didn't bring up your article). If you have access to their issues, you can try searching 1858 to early 1859 to see if they reported on it at the time as well.

[jparkuntz]

The Sunday Mercury in is Genealogybank.com, but just 49 issues between 12/18/1864 and 12/3/1865. Many, like the April 16th edition, are of such poor quality that the OCR process picked up nothing--so they're digitized, but not searchable.

Both PA and Virginia Archives say they might have these records, if they exist. Research trip!

Jerry Kuntz
Warwick NY

[Steve]

Genealogybank is one of the databases I use, along with Newspapers.com, and Chronicling America.

For New York state newspapers the Old Fulton Postcards can help find more obscure newspapers, but it's difficult to use.

According to Library of Congress website, issues of the Mercury are hard to come by so it's lucky that you were able to find that article.

Free newspaper database links:

Chronicling America:
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/#tab=t...ced_search

Old Fulton Postcards:
http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html

[Gene C]

Thanks for those newspaper links.

[jparkuntz]

Another essential one is Pennsylvania Civil War Newspaper Collection:

http://digitalnewspapers.libraries.psu.e...panel=home

[Steve]

(11-06-2017 05:11 PM)jparkuntz Wrote:  Another essential one is Pennsylvania Civil War Newspaper Collection:

http://digitalnewspapers.libraries.psu.e...panel=home

Thanks.