List of Ford's Theatre Attendees

[jbarry]

Hello everyone,

In case you have not visited Dave Taylor's site recently, I have started a project to list all known attendees at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865. Yes, it's ambitious, but thanks to the great work of previous authors, the spreadsheet has nearly 500 names, including the theater employees.

My aim is to have a single location to summarize or evaluate eyewitness accounts, for example: how many people heard Booth utter which phrase, and at which part of the theater; how many people claimed to carry Lincoln across the street, etc.

Much work remains to fill in the details, as I have prioritized listing the names with basic sourcing info. I wanted to publish this sooner rather than later, in hopes others can contribute. To that end, please let me know if you're award of additional attendees, or errors in the list. In time, this can be a valuable source for genealogy and research.

For more info, and the link to the spreadsheet, visit here: https://lincolnconspirators.com/2026/04/...joe-barry/

[RJNorton]

Joe, do you have a copy of We Saw Lincoln Shot - One hundred Eyewitness Accounts by Tim Good? This book would be a valuable resource for you.

[jbarry]

(04-17-2026 12:56 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Joe, do you have a copy of We Saw Lincoln Shot - One hundred Eyewitness Accounts by Tim Good? This book would be a valuable resource for you.

Absolutely, Roger! The names from that book are present, as well as from several other sources. I welcome additions and corrections from all, but especially family lore that may not (yet) be on the record!

[Steve]

Great Idea! Looking at your list there are a bunch of names that I never heard of before.


Here's a name that wasn't on you list, Dr. Samuel Sabin:

https://archive.org/details/ninthnewyork...up?q=Sabin

I don't know if he actually went into the box or just told his wife that he did, so she wouldn't wonder/ask questions of why he didn't go to the box as a surgeon.



Laura Keene account from the 17 April 1865 edition of the New York Herald:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:...ccount.jpg



Here's a bunch of articles I posted to this Forum about Jacob Soles:

https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussi...l#pid70179

Reading the articles, I don't find Soles very credible


In addition to the Soles articles, there's dozens of newspaper articles that I found which I had posted to the Forum over the years recounting events at Ford's Theatre and Petersen House by eyewitnesses. I emailed the images to Roger and he posted large images of them on Forum threads, most of them in the Assassination section. You can try and find them using the search function.



A couple of question hopefully you project will answer:

Who's the man who initially assisted Dr. Leale and William Kent with Lincoln? Dr. Leale said two men initially assisted him in taking down the President and searching for the wound. Kent's trial testimony mentioned two men carrying Lincoln from the chair to the floor (one of them a doctor) as he came into the box. So who's the other man? I don't think I've come across one eyewitness account which matches this; well credible accounts which don't contradict Leale's acount anyway.


Who's the soldier wearing the (sky blue color) Veterans Reserve Corp uniform who climbed into the box assisted by Clara Harris and mentioned in her affidavit?

Lt. John T. Bolton?:

https://archive.org/details/rarelincolni...7/mode/2up

or Capt Edwin Bedee?:

https://archive.org/details/historyoftwe...4/mode/2up

Bolton was in the VRC, but his account is very late and reading it I'm not really convinced he was there. Bedee, though not in the VRC, was definitely there at Ford's Theatre because there's contemporary records of him at the theater and helping by carrying the correspondence/papers from Lincoln's pocket across the street to Petersen House. Bedee had gotten a head wound during a battle and was functionally blind in one eye because of it. I suppose if Clara was focused on that it could lead her to misremember the uniform. Then again Bedee was prone to exagerating with his personal history so could definitely have been trying to magnify his role by inserting himself into other's actions. His claim of rushing the stage does seem to echo Joseph Stewart.

Of course it could've been somebody else who never came forward.

[Linda Anderson]

Thanks, Steve. I agree that's a great idea.

Hi, Joe, I replied to your post on Dave's site a couple of days ago but my post hasn't been approved yet. (Dave's conducting his escape route tours this weekend.)

I wrote about Dr. Sabin in 2014 after I discovered him when I was researching the Seward family. Dr. Sabin was accompanied to Ford's Theatre by Lieut. Jakeway R. Hoff.

Where do you think Sabin was going here? Was he on the stage?

"My first thought was that a boy in the gallery had fired off one of those large firecrackers which we have been hearing for the last week, and that one of the president's party had been seized with a fit, or had suddenly become insane, and I ran towards the back to stop him, supposing, as he went behind the scenes, he had instead jumped to the floor and was coming towards the door. As I got to the door, someone said, 'The president is shot,' and, thinking there would be no surgeon at hand I might be of service, I ran immediately to the president's box."

Here's the link to the Sabin thread:

https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussi...Cousin%22.