Booth's mistress, Ella Starr, and other "unknown" Booth ladies!

[Gene C]

I don't recall Kauffman stating the source of the rumors. Does anyone know?

[JMadonna]

(01-16-2013 05:22 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  I just have trouble with Booth really being serious about marrying Lucy. Given his past lifestyle, I have trouble picturing him as a settled, married man. How long would such a marriage last?

As JFK famously told his brother Ted on his wedding day; "Being married doesn't mean you have to be faithful to your wife." Politicans and actors seem to view marriage differently than you or I. Marrying for social status is a big factor.

I think Booth knew that his days as an action-hero matinee idol would fade as he aged. Marrying into a political family would be a good career move.

[RJNorton]

I would love to see a source for the story that has Lucy studying Spanish with Robert Lincoln on the afternoon of Lincoln's assassination.

[Linda Anderson]

(01-16-2013 10:18 AM)Gene C Wrote:  I don't recall Kauffman stating the source of the rumors. Does anyone know?

In the footnote for the section I quoted above, Kauffman cites The Unlocked Book by Asia Booth Clarke, which I do not have; Alfred Smith's testimony in the Lincoln Assassination Suspects File which states that Booth registered with a lady at the Aguntneck Hotel in Newport on April 5; and John McCullough telling George Alfred Townsend that McCullough, who was married, and Booth would "keep their trysts secret by using the code names 'Jack' and 'Bob' for the ladies." San Francisco Chronicle, July 30, 1882.

Odd that Jerry mentions the Kennedys and the code names for the ladies are "Jack" and "Bob."

[Jenny]

I don't think Booth would have stopped cheating if he had married Lucy or anyone else, unfortunately. Whether Lucy would have stood for it or not is a good question! While we are talking letters to ladies, here's the one he *supposedly* wrote to Ella Starr.

My Dearest Love-
Although I have not been long away from you, still it seems an age. I divide the world into two parts, where you are, and where you are not. I am indeed separated from you in body, but joined to you in soul.
I was detained longer in Baltimore than I anticipated, but I hope it will all be right in the end. There will be a change before long, which will greatly influence my fortune, but of one thing rest assured, that whatever may occur, whether in time or eternity,
I am ever yours,
J. Wilkes Booth

I think the source for this was the book The Great Conspiracy written right after the assassination (someone will have to remind me who the author was) in 1866 (?) so it's not 100% confirmed but interesting nevertheless.

[Laurie Verge]

I think that Booth respected women in general, no matter what their station in life. However, I would question how many of his liaisons were truly of a sexual nature. I'm sure there was hanky-panky in all areas in the early centuries, and I know that those in the theatrical world were looked down upon for various reasons. However, the photo collage of Booth's girlfriends that is currently making the rounds would have him consorting with about 25 women. Friendships could still be friendships (even today, despite the media attention!).

That said, I have always had a gut feeling that Ella Starr Turner shared a certain part of Booth's heart in a true romantic way just because he seemed to stick with and turn to her on a fairly regular basis. I think the "fire" in Henrietta probably intrigued him, and I do think that he was definitely infatuated with Isabelle Sumner.

As for Lucy Hale, as wonderful as the current historians seem to make her, I just have my doubts about the love interest there. I think she was a means to an end - acceptance into society and politics - and perhaps intriguing for her liberated views (and I would like to see definite proof of that from the indiscretions angle).

I'm going back to sleep now...

[Art Loux]

Jenny (and Laurie), Thanks for the great summary. I look forward to the rest of the story. Here is and additional sighting of Ella and Mollie.
In the NY Sunday Telegraph, May 23, 1909 quoted in JWB by Francis Wilson, p. 84, John Deery, a billiard champion, stated he kept a billiard saloon in front of Grover’s Theatre in Washington. He claimed he had known Booth since they were youths. Deery said, “At this time [April 65] he [Booth] and I boarded together in the same house at 13th and I Streets, and while I was paying court to our young landlady, Wilkes Booth had won her rather cold younger sister to a state of slavish admiration.” Booth always roomed and boarded at the National Hotel when in Washington, so Deery was wrong about rooming with Booth. The address Deery gave, 13th and I, is interesting. Ella Starr lived and worked at her sister’s house at 13th and Ohio. Perhaps the passage of years dimmed Deery’s memory and “Ohio” became “I.” Another news clip, “New Lincoln Figure Also in Almshouse,” undated, but after 1914, provides more information from Deery. Deery said he and Booth were attentive to two sisters in Washington. “Deery said that the name of the woman to whom he had laid court was Mollie Turner, but he did not recall that of her sister.”

[Laurie Verge]

For years, I always thought that Ella's domicile in D.C. (her sister's brothel) was at 13th and Ohio. However, in finding some things for Jenny, I pulled out the Provost Marshal's records for the Department of Washington, 22nd Army Corps, 1864-65 (Vol. 298, RG 393, National Archives). They contained a list of all the bawdy houses in the nation's capital.

Mollie Turner, Ella's sister, ran an establishment at No. 62, C Street - not 13th and I nor Ohio - according to those records. A Louise Turner ran another at 406 19th Street. I doubt there is a family connection.

BTW: Mollie's establishment carried a first-class rating and had three "inmates," the latter being a term used for inhabitants of any dwelling. Louise's was also first-class with five inmates.

[Jenny]

Great "Ella and Mollie" sightings, Art! Thank you for sharing! "Slavish admiration" is probably correct in regards to Ella.

Oh, that reminds me. On The Historical Society of Washington D.C.'s website in the Kiplinger Research Library online references, I did find a possible photo of the bawdy house as it was in the 1920's. The photo is from the Joseph E. Bishop Photograph Collection. The house's address was changed to 1353 Ohio Avenue after the war, and the photograph in question was taken as a "General view north down 13 1/2 Street NW from Ohio Avenue" and shows the 1300 block of Ohio Ave. We know the house was a corner house due to newspaper reports from 1865 but I've heard there has been confusion on whether the house was on 13 threet or 13 1/2 street.

Here is the link to the info on the HS site:
http://www.historydc.org/library/searchc...5&ID=47314

Not knowing if this was even the right street, I ordered the cheapest copy of the picture the library offered... and it came out looking like a sketch drawing. Serves me right for being a cheap skate. I might order a better version if you guys look at the link and think it's a possibility that this could be the right street. The picture is terrible and I didn't buy "posting rights" to it so I don't feel right posting it here... but I would go back and buy the rights to do so if people are interested.

I have a book called "Those of Little Note" in which there is a map of the bawdy houses... I will look into that again to make sure I'm on the right track re: the street.

---

Thanks for posting, Laurie! I'd forgotten all about that! Oops! The 13th street picture possibility might be out after all.

[RJNorton]

(01-16-2013 01:20 PM)Laurie Verge Wrote:  However, the photo collage of Booth's girlfriends that is currently making the rounds would have him consorting with about 25 women. Friendships could still be friendships (even today, despite the media attention!).

Here's the ebay link for this. (Thank you, Bob Cook)

[Jenny]

Thanks for the link again, Roger. Although I doubt Booth was running around with even half of those ladies, they were all gorgeous girls and it's a fun collage to look at!

[Tom Bogar]

Dare we collectively take on the task of trying to identify all the ladies? I can offer up two: #7 (top right corner) is Laura Keene and #31 (looking left) is Maggie Mitchell.

[Gene C]

There is a list of the ladies at the bottom of the ebay listing.

Interesting card, but expensive for me.

[John Stanton]

There is one more "Lady", who had a relationship with JWB, that is not commonly known and never spoke about. "French Kate".
This woman was believed to have been Sarah Slater, just bec.ause they both spoke French, and Kate knew too much about the Assassination plot.
Briefly. In about May of '65. this Kate arrived in the town of Pithole, PA -and became an infamous prostitute. PITHOLE, is in the far NW section of PA, in the oil producing region of that State.
Kate was managed by a ner-do-well with the name Ben Hogan. Later in life, Ben wrote his biography and noted that "Kate knew more about the Assassination plot than Mary Surratt and should have been hanged in her stead". It is easy to see how the two women were misidentified each for the other.
In conclusion, Kate could not have been Sarah, because Sarah was living elsewhere at the same time of these fun and games in Pithole.
If Kate knew so much about the activity in Washington in late '64 and early '65, she must have learned it from one of her customers. JWB was an oil speculator in Pithole, I assume she learned it from a frequenter visitor to her "Palace", JWB. But, Ben didn't write his Life's History until many years after the events, and maybe juiced up his memory -to assure sale of the book.
P.S. Isn't Pithole, a neat name for a town with this reputation?
P.S. 2 I wrote to Pithole to research these events and there was a "French Kate" and a Ben Hogan, and they operated as described. Attached to their reply was a note asking 'WHY I HAD ANY INTEREST IN THIS PROSTITUTE? (I never replied.)

[RJNorton]

I had this image on my hard drive labeled French Kate. But I do not recall where it came from.