John Wilkes Booth Descendants Think He Escaped

History tells us that John Wilkes Booth, the young actor who assassinated Abraham Lincoln, was cornered in a barn near Port Royal, Virginia, and was shot to death on April 26, 1865. Legends have persisted ever since that date that Booth escaped and lived to an old age.

According to an article originally published in the Philadelphia Inquirer and found on azcentral.com, two Booth descendants believe the legends about their infamous ancestor. Now, aided by Booth researchers and historians, the two sisters are close to obtaining DNA tests which just might prove (or not) the legends of Booth's survival to be factual.

Genetic samples purported to be those of Booth are preserved in both Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. and could be compared against those known for sure to be of his brother, the famous actor Edwin Booth. Genetic material from Edwin is preserved in New York, New York.

It should be noted that the overwhelming majority of Lincoln experts don't buy into the theory of Booth's escape, as there is at this point absolutely no proof of any kind to support such a claim. Indeed, Edward Steers Jr., the author of "Blood On The Moon," the definitive study of Lincoln's assassination, doesn't even include this theory of Booth's survival in his latest book, "Lincoln Legends, Myths, Hoaxes, and Confabulations Associated With Our Greatest President."

It will be interesting to find out the results if and when the DNA testing is conducted. Hopefully, it will prove once and for all that John Wilkes Booth was given the ultimate justice for his heinous crime.

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New Lincoln Memorial For Indiana

From the Fort Wayne, Indiana Journal Gazette comes a story about a new memorial to Abraham Lincoln. The memorial will be installed near his homestead in Indiana, where he lived from 1816 to 1830. A Fort Wayne team has been given a grant of $300,000 by the Indiana Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission to build and sculpt the memorial, which will be a new addition to the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial.

The new memorial will consist of a circular plaza with granite obelisks marking significant events of Lincoln's life. The illustration I've included is an artist's concept of the memorial's appearance.

This new memorial is to be installed in 2009, the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth.

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Statues Of Old Abe Are Rejected

From the April 19, 2008 edition of the Lincoln Courier (Lincoln, Illinois) newspaper comes a story about how donated statues of Old Abe have been rejected for display in the local courthouse.

Seems that Mr. Lester Van Bibber and his wife commissioned two larger-than-life statues of Abe out of solid granite and wanted to donate them to the tourism bureau of Logan County, Illinois. One statue was meant to be displayed on the third floor of the Logan County courthouse, but when it was discovered that each 6'6" statue weighs 1200 pounds, it was rejected as being too heavy. Another statue was supposed to be donated to the Postville Courthouse State Historic Site, a replica of the courthouse where Lincoln practiced law. But that offer was rejected by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.

The Van Bibbers are extremely disappointed and blame officials for rejecting the statues. After seeing the photo of the one statue, I'd have to say I don't blame the officials. It bears about as much resemblance to Lincoln as a bad Lincoln impersonator does. Seems to me that the money would have much better spent establishing funds for scholarships or perhaps for an interpretive exhibit about Lincoln's work within Logan County.

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Lincoln Assassination Letter To Be Donated To Museum

Here's an interesting little story about a Greeley, Colorado family which has possessed a letter which contains an eyewitness account of the Lincoln assassination on April 14, 1865. The family has owned the letter since the 1930's, when the letter was found in an old trunk.

The letter, written in 1897 by Ohio congressman James Morris, gives a detailed account of how the shooting interrupted the play. It also quotes John Wilkes Booth as having said "Sic Semper Tyrannis" (Thus Always To Tyrants) on stage after the shooting before making his escape.

The letter will be donated this week to the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois. It's admirable that the family would do this, because they could certainly earn a few thousand dollars from selling it. Now the letter will be available for everyone to enjoy and research. The Museum has authenticated the letter. It would be interesting to know if Congressman Morris was truly at Ford's Theater that night or simply "remembered" being there.

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Bad Lincoln "History"

Bad history is all around us, as documented in the book "Lies Across America" by James W. Loewen. Examples include a small town in Texas which claims that it's the site of the true first flight, never mind what we've read about the Wright Brothers in Kittyhawk, North Carolina. Another example is the Christopher Columbus statue in the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus which perpetuates the myth that until Columbus sailed, everyone thought the Earth was flat.

But now I've seen everything. Tomorrow, April 12, 2008 marks the opening in North Carolina of something called "The Bostic Lincoln Center Museum" which continues the unproven claim that Abraham Lincoln was actually born near the little town of Bostic in Rutherford County, North Carolina. Various people have tried to make the case for over 100 years now that Lincoln was born there, the illegitimate son of Nancy Hanks. Never mind that this claim is based on hearsay, oral traditions, and local lore without a single shred of evidence. The website for the "museum" in Bostic provides various links to other websites attempting to prove that Lincoln was really a North Carolinian.

A while back, I posted on this blog about the recent book "Lincoln Legends, Myths, Hoaxes, and Confabulations Associated With Our Greatest President," authored by Dr. Edward Steers, Jr., one of the leading Lincoln scholars. Chapter 2 of this book, simply titled "Lincoln's Father" describes in great detail this long-time claim about Lincoln, his parentage, and his place of birth. He includes research about Thomas Lincoln, Nancy Hanks, a man named Abraham Enloe (supposedly Lincoln's real father), wedding licenses, and so on. It's very interesting and enlightening.

Steers' conclusion? "While there may have been a woman named Nancy Hanks who lived in western North Carolina in the early years of the 19th century, and while she may have given birth to a baby boy fathered by a man named Abraham Enloe, neither the mother nor the baby had any relationship to Nancy Hanks Lincoln and her son, Abraham Lincoln." In his opinion, people who claim otherwise, that Lincoln was born illegitimately in North Carolina, do so to somehow stain Lincoln's place in history.

Sounds about right to me. I'd believe the conclusions of Dr. Steers over some "museum" in the hills of North Carolina. No one who is truly knowledgeable about Abraham Lincoln will buy this myth which persists to this day. I hesitated to even post about this "Lincoln Center Museum" for fear of partially legitimizing it, but I chose to do so to illustrate that people should not believe everything they read or everything they are told. We all need to be aware of bad history, and this "Bostic Lincoln Center" is one of the worst examples I've yet seen.

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Pennsylvania Museum Displays Lincoln Assassination Relic

The main goal of this blog is to help educate people about the nation's 16th president, Abraham Lincoln. I never cease to be surprised by just how much additional knowledge I have personally gained about him since I started the blog back in November 2007. The learning continues. Just today, I stumbled upon the story of the "Abraham Lincoln Flag," which supposedly was used at Ford's Theater to cradle Lincoln's head after he was shot on April 14, 1865. I had never heard of this flag, which is on display at the obscure Pike County Historical Society in Millford, Pennsylvania. Here is the story behind the flag.

After the shooting, pandemonium reigned in the theater. Doctors rushed to Lincoln's side to tend his fatal injury, but there were also others present in the presidential box. One was Miss Laura Keene, the star of that night's play, "Our American Cousin." Keene cradled Lincoln's head in her lap for a few minutes in an attempt to at least provide him with some comfort. But then the doctors wanted Lincoln laid flat on the floor of the box so they could examine his wound. This is where the Lincoln Flag comes into the story.

It seems that a gentleman named Thomas Gourlay, an actor with the theater and a part-time stage manager reached over the presidential box, grabbed one of the American flags, and placed it under Lincoln's head. After Lincoln was moved to the Petersen House across the street, where he died the next morning at 7:22 a.m., Gourlay kept the flag until his death in the 1880's. He passed it on to his daughter, who in turn passed it on to her son, who finally donated it to the Pike County Historical Society in 1954.

The flag was basically unknown to the "outside" world until the 1960's when famous Lincoln scholar Edward Steers (author of "Blood On The Moon" among many other books about Lincoln) happened to stop at the museum and learned about the legend of the flag. He in turn wrote an article about it and the flag became famous, at least within the Lincoln community.

Scientific research done in 1996 seemingly confirmed the authenticity of the flag. The red dye is natural, not synthetic, for example. Synthetic dyes were not invented until the 20th century. The blood stain still visible on the flag is in a pattern of coming into contact with a bleeding human. If it had been forged, the forger most likely would've splattered blood on it.

The reader may click on the link in the opening paragraph of this posting to read more about the history of this flag. An additional article here talks about how interest in the flag is increasing with the approaching bicentennial of Lincoln's birth. The Lincoln Flag is still on display at the museum.

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Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today marks the 40th Anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. which occurred April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. King had been in Memphis leading marches of sanitation workers who had been on strike in Memphis for weeks. He was there to give hope, strength, and courage to the workers, who were mostly African-American. As everyone knows by now, Dr. King was the primary leader of the Civil Rights movement in our country, originally coming on to the scene in the 1950's during the Selma, Alabama protests and boycott of that city's bus system for requiring people to ride the back of the bus (or stand), simply based on the color of their skin.

While Dr. King of course has no direct ties to Abraham Lincoln, he served as a guiding force and conscience to President Lyndon Johnson on the question of Civil Rights as Frederick Douglass did for Lincoln on the question of slavery. Just as Lincoln was slow and deliberate in coming around to the total abolition of slavery, President Johnson moved slowly towards the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Without Dr. King's ideas and moral force demanding justice for his people, the Act may have never come to pass.

Dr. King is primarily known today for his spell-binding "I Have A Dream" speech given on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963. I am too young to remember his speech, but I never cease to get chills every time I watch it. You may find it here in its entirety of nearly 18 minutes.

On the night of King's assassination, Robert F. Kennedy gave one of the most brilliant speeches in American history in Indianapolis, Indiana at what was to be a campaign appearance. Speaking entirely without notes, Kennedy eulogized Dr. King, but also appealed to every American to avoid violence and continue to work for Dr. King's dream. This speech may be found here. I would urge my readers to watch it.

Our nation has come a long way since that fateful day in Memphis. Who would've guessed that 40 years to the day after King's death that the leading candidate for the Democrat nomination for president would be an African-American? Yet, there is still much to be done. There remains much discrimination in this country based on nothing more than skin color, or sexual orientation, or religious beliefs. Conservatives disparage liberals and vice versa. The rich grow wealthier every day while our senior citizens must choose between medicine, food, and heat. Jobs disappear to other countries while the companies which send them abroad get tax breaks for destroying the lives of Americans.

But I feel there is still hope. If we keep Dr. King's dream alive and remember Abraham Lincoln's words, trusting in the "better angels of our nature," we can truly bring liberty and justice to all. We need to hope. We need to believe. We all need to say "I Have A Dream."

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