The Booths of Tudor Hall

[L Verge]

As most of you know, Tudor Hall in Bel Air, Maryland, is the ancestral home of the Booths in America and The Junius B. Booth Society, Inc. is struggling valiantly to get the site established as a full-fledged museum to the theatrical history attached to the site.

The Society puts out a very nice, quarterly newsletter (thank you, Tom Fink), and this summer issue has a great article excerpted from an 1859 book written by Adam Badeau, a writer, theater critic, and member of the New York society class before the war - and an aide to U.S. Grant during the war.

Badeau was also a close friend of Edwin Booth, and the book (The Vagabond) has a great story of how he and Edwin traveled to the deserted Tudor Hall after the clan had moved to Baltimore. He tells of going through old papers, books, costumes, etc. that were still stored there and which told the story of the greatness of Junius Booth the Elder. The descriptions of their overnight stay are great.

This Society is a very commendable endeavor, so please check out http://www.JuniusBooth.org for further information (on membership?), and I bet that a note and $1 sent to the Junius B. Booth Society, Inc., 2223 Kentucky Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21213 will get you a copy of this Summer 2014 issue so you can read the entire excerpt from Badeau's book.