Did John Wilkes Booth Survive?
The ultimate fate of President Lincoln's assassin may be in doubt
It isn’t a well-known historical fact, but there were actually four people hanged for their role in t... View MoreDid John Wilkes Booth Survive?
The ultimate fate of President Lincoln's assassin may be in doubt
It isn’t a well-known historical fact, but there were actually four people hanged for their role in the conspiracy to assassinate US President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865.
However, the list of the executed did not include John Wilkes Booth, the person who many people mistakenly believe was solely responsible for the death of America’s 16th president. Booth escaped after shooting the president at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., and met his maker 12 days later in Virginia at the end of an exhausting chase.
This is the official verdict of history. But believe it or not, some scholars are skeptical of this story. They claim to have uncovered evidence that proves John Wilkes was not shot and killed by a marksman while hiding from a posse in a rural tobacco barn on Garret Farm on April 26, 1865, but instead escaped and went on to live several decades as a free man.
This theory may sound far-fetched. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
The Official History
The accepted story of John Wilkes Booth’s death is as follows:
Having surrounded the barn where the president’s assassin was hiding, Union soldiers waited as a lone man meekly made his way out from inside. This man, later identified as 21-year-old David Herold, was one of the conspirators behind the Lincoln assassination. Convinced that Booth was still inside, Lt. Edward Doherty ordered the barn set on fire in an effort to smoke out the fugitive. The occupant of the barn stubbornly refused to submit to this tactic and was subsequently shot by an impatient soldier named Boston Corbett.
The Garrett Farm near Port Royal, Virginia, is where John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, died. (National Park Service/Public Domain).
Or at least, someone was shot inside that barn. The pivotal question behind this entire conspiracy was: Who exactly was inside the barn in the early hours of April 26th, 1865? John Wilkes Booth? Or an unknown confederate?
Evidence Suggesting it Wasn’t John Wilkes Booth
Nate Orlowek is a historian who disagrees with what history states. Orlowek is convinced Booth wasn’t anywhere near Garrett Farm at the time of the soldier’s arrival. He isn’t the only one, either. In the years following those events, even some of the United States military have called into question the official events.
Just after the turn of the century, John Schmuker was General Counsel to the Department of the Army and went on record insisting that evidence supporting the conclusion that Booth was executed at Garrett Farm would not stand up to cross-examination in a court of law.
“It Doesn’t Look Like Him”
When Herold exited the barn, the first thing he was reputedly to have said was that Booth was not inside the barn. This has been hotly debated for many years now. After the second individual was shot, Doctor John May was summoned to make an identification. Being acquainted with Booth, he calmly let the presiding officer know that whoever the victim was, it was not John Wilkes Booth. May’s statement is now inside the National Archives, and in summation, it reads:
“I’m sure this is Booth. But it doesn’t look like him. But this is certainly John Wilkes Booth.”
“The New Colossus” (1883) by Emma Lazarus.
It was written to help raise money for the pedestal, and it reads:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to la... View More“The New Colossus” (1883) by Emma Lazarus.
It was written to help raise money for the pedestal, and it reads:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
The Great Depression Origins of Halloween Haunted Houses
People were outraged when teenage boys vandalized towns on October 31, 1933, so they found a way to keep them inside.
The Great Depression wa... View MoreThe Great Depression Origins of Halloween Haunted Houses
People were outraged when teenage boys vandalized towns on October 31, 1933, so they found a way to keep them inside.
The Great Depression was a time of great economic and social change that affected many parts of American life—including Halloween. Parents, concerned about their sons running amok on All Hallows' Eve, organized “haunted houses” or “trails” to keep them off the streets.
Halloween had long been a night of revelry for adults and children, seen as a positive outlet for young men to blow off steam. This ranged from stealing neighbors’ gates off their hinges to stealing dead bodies. In 1879, about 200 boys in Kentucky stopped a train by laying a fake stuffed 'body' across the railroad tracks. In 1900, medical students at the University of Michigan stole a headless corpse from the anatomy lab and propped it up against the building’s front doors.
“This is the only evening on which a boy can feel free to play pranks outdoors without danger of being ‘pinched,’ and it is his delight to scare passing pedestrians, ring door-bells, and carry off the neighbors’ gates,” espoused one boys’ craft guide. According to the guide, even if a boy had to fetch the gate he stole out of the tree he left it in, “the punishment is nothing compared with the sports the pranks have furnished him.”
There were plenty of people who didn’t see this as harmless fun before the Great Depression. However, the economic disaster exacerbated young men’s Halloween antics, leading to increased public concern and anger. In 1933, parents were outraged when hundreds of teenage boys flipped over cars, sawed off telephone poles, and engaged in other acts of vandalism across the country. People began to refer to that year’s holiday as “Black Halloween,” similarly to the way they referred to the stock market crash four years earlier as “Black Tuesday.”
Some cities considered banning Halloween altogether. Yet in many communities, the response was to organize Halloween activities for young people so that they didn’t run amok. They started to organize trick-or-treating, parties, costume parades—and yes—haunted houses to keep them busy.
The Library of Congress
“Hang old fur, strips of raw liver on walls, where one feels his way to dark steps,” advised a 1937 party pamphlet on how to create a “trail of terror.” “Weird moans and howls come from dark corners, damp sponges and hair nets hung from the ceiling touch his face… Doorways are blockaded so that guests must crawl through a long dark tunnel.”
Haunted or spooky public attractions already had some precedent in Europe. Starting in the 1800s, Marie Tussaud’s wax museum in London featured a “Chamber of Horrors” with decapitated figures from the French Revolution. In 1915, a British amusement ride manufacturer created an early haunted house, complete with dim lights, shaking floors, and demonic screams.
These early American haunted houses were small, non-profit affairs held in residential neighborhoods. In later decades, larger organizations began to host their own haunted houses as fundraisers or commercial attractions. The most famous and influential one was Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion in 1969, which had an extremely high production value for its day.
Since then, America’s haunted attractions have become more and more elaborate. American Haunts estimates there are over 1,200 haunted attractions that charge admission fees now. But as in the Great Depression, there are still plenty of small-scale haunts in American neighborhoods that parents put on for free—using their own homes, yards, and imaginations.
page=1&callback_module_id=groups&callback_item_id=2&year=&month=
Load More
