The legend lives on: John Wilkes Booth

[scone]

This was a interesting story rgar was in the Tennesean yesterday.. First time I had ever heard of the Legend.

Regards, Steven

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The legend lives on: John Wilkes Booth
By SAMEH FAHMY Staff Writer Tennessean

Missing mummy could prove assassin escaped, fled to
Tennessee

One of the most infamous crimes in American history was committed 140 years ago this month, and some say historians still don't have the story right.

You're probably most familiar with the official version: As President Abraham Lincoln was watching a play at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April
14, 1865, actor John Wilkes Booth sneaked into the president's box and fired a shot into the back of his head. The assassin then famously shouted ''Sic semper tyrannis'' (Latin for ''Thus always to tyrants'') before fleeing to a waiting horse.

Booth eluded authorities for more than a week but on April 26 was cornered by federal troops in a barn near Fredericksburg, Va. He refused to surrender and was shot dead.

But there's another version that's quite different. In it, the feds kill the wrong man and Booth escapes. He moves to Tennessee and marries before changing his name and moving to Texas and then Oklahoma Territory,
where he commits suicide.

The latter makes for quite a tale, but can it be proven? Some Tennessee Civil War buffs say yes, and all they need to do is find Booth's mummy.

The signature

At the Franklin County Courthouse in Winchester, a marriage certificate dated Feb. 24, 1872, certifies the marriage of ''Jno. W. Booth to Louisa J. Payne.''
This might be chalked up to coincidence were it not for the testimony of a man who claimed to be Booth's stepson.

The writings of the late Arthur Ben Chitty, a historiographer at Sewanee, The University of the South, and one of the nation's foremost proponents of
the Booth legend, note that a man named McCager Payne claimed that Booth married his mother, Louisa.

Legend has it that Booth was tipped off that troops would soon surround his Virginia hideout, and he fled on horseback. He made his way south, finding refuge in safe houses set up by sympathizers. He came to Sewanee
in search of his friend and Confederate spy Jacob Thompson, a trustee of the newly founded University of the South.

At Sewanee, Booth met Louisa Payne, the widow of a Confederate soldier from Pelham, and stayed at the home of Cleburn C. Rose, the justice of the peace who married them. The home still stands just outside the
university's campus and is known by locals as the Booth house.

Legend has it that if it were up to Booth, he wouldn't have used his real name on his marriage certificate. But, according to McCager, Payne wouldn't marry a man using a false name. Booth acquiesced, and now the
staff at the Franklin County Courthouse has come to expect an occasional Civil War buff or researcher asking to see ''the Booth signature.''

Booth and Payne left Sewanee for Memphis, possibly to collect reward money from Southern sympathizers or to escape detection. Either way, Booth left a pregnant Payne in Memphis and headed to Texas, according to the
legend.

Deathbed confessions

Another Tennessean becomes involved in the Booth legend at this point. This time, it's Finis (rhymes with highness) Bates, a young attorney from Memphis
who started his practice in Granberry, Texas. In Granberry, Bates met a man named John St. Helen, a shopkeeper in need of legal advice. The two became
friends, despite what Bates saw in St. Helen as ''a restless and uneasy manner'' and a ''haunted, worried expression.''

During a life-threatening illness, St. Helen summoned Bates to his home. According to Bates' account, St. Helen said: ''I am dying. My name is John Wilkes Booth, and I am the assassin of President Lincoln. . .. Notify my Brother Edwin Booth of New York City.''

But St. Helen's deathbed confession turned out to be premature. He recovered and later skipped town again, heading for what was then called Oklahoma Territory. Bates headed back to Memphis, initially unconvinced
that St. Helen was Booth. Later, he'd make it his life's work to ''correct history.''

Booth supposedly made another deathbed confession in 1903, and this time, he died. The Daily Wave newspaper of Enid, Oklahoma Territory, published the account of the suicide of a man named David E. George, a man whom
Chitty notes had a name that is the composite of the names of two of Booth's co-conspirators: David E. Herold and George Atzerdot.

The paper and others reported that as he was near death, he confessed, saying, ''I killed the best man who ever lived, Abraham Lincoln. I am John Wilkes Booth.''

Nobody claimed the body, so the local undertaker mummified him for safekeeping. Eventually, word spread to Bates in Memphis. He went to Enid to see the mummy, identified him as Booth and took him back to Memphis.
He then wrote a book that would make the case that the American public had been lied to. The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth was published in 1907 and sold 70,000 copies.

''In the preparation of this book I have neither spared time nor money,'' he writes in the preface.

Bates' efforts to spread ''the truth'' were met with skepticism. He died in 1923, and his wife sold the mummy that had been taking up space in their garage to a traveling circus for $1,000.

The mummy changed hands several times, the story goes, and was last seen in 1976 in a sleazy carnival near New Hope, Pa.

The cover-up & critics

Proponents of the Booth legend have other evidence to back their claims. In a sworn affidavit, a soldier present at the Virginia shooting of Booth says the man killed by troops had sandy hair while Booth had dark, curly hair. The soldier said the dead man clearly wasn't Booth, but his superior officer told him that the less he said, the better.

Chitty contended that the cover-up was engineered by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who had presidential ambitions. ''Having been in charge of the safety of the president, his chances were zero if he let a presidential assassin get away,'' Chitty wrote.

In 1931, a group of doctors examined the mummy at the request of the Chicago press club and signed an affidavit saying that they had found three
distinguishing marks that Booth shared. The mummy (and Booth) had:

• A scar above the right eye; the actor was cut while rehearsing a sword-fighting scene.

• A mangled right thumb; Booth crushed his thumb in the gears of a stage curtain's machinery.

• A broken leg; Booth injured his leg while jumping off the balcony after shooting Lincoln.

But mainstream historians say that while the Booth legend may be interesting, it's not supported by much evidence. C. Wyatt Evans, assistant professor of history at Drew University in Madison, N.J., and
author of The Legend of John Wilkes Booth: Myth, Memory and a Mummy, explained that much of the evidence that proponents present, such as the
testimony of Booth's supposed stepson and the soldier and the newspaper accounts, is anecdotal.

Evans said Bates was ''a charlatan'' who stood to profit by displaying the mummy as Booth, and said there's evidence that the lead doctor performing the Chicago autopsy had worked with Bates.

Evans said the legend continues to have appeal because the idea of a government cover-up resonates among those with anti-government feelings while the portrayal of Booth as a Southern gentleman who escapes
Union troops capitalizes on Southern pride. ''It functions for some very important political and cultural reasons in America,'' he said, ''and those
reasons continue to give it legs.''

The man historians say is Booth is buried in a Maryland cemetery. Chitty, along with a Maryland Civil War buff and a Booth descendant, tried to have the body exhumed in 1995 to prove whether he was Booth. But their request and an appeal were turned down. Judges said the body in the grave was likely too badly decomposed to make a positive identification, and that
there wasn't sufficient reason to doubt documented history.

The search continues

But the Booth legend lives on, and another Memphian has taken on Bates' goal of ''correcting history.'' Ken Hawkes, a Civil War buff who works as a forensic assistant, said he didn't believe the Booth legend when he first heard about it. But after examining evidence, particularly the testimony of the Chicago doctors, he became convinced it was worth investigating.

He believes forensic tests such as DNA tests, X-ray exams and photographically comparing the mummy's skull to photos of Booth can determine if the mummy really is Booth. Hawkes has spent 15 years trying to track down the mummy, calling every known carnival.

So far, he hasn't had any luck. He suspects the mummy is in a private collection and has found that such collectors are reluctant to tell people about their hobby. Some think they're breaking health codes,
others worry about what the neighbors will think. But finding the mummy is the only way to put the legend to rest, so Hawkes won't stop looking.

''I really think this is something that needs to be followed up on until it's finally solved, until closure is finally done in this case.''

[30th_il]

I heard Booth is living with Elvis in Kalamazzo MI

[scone]

Might be lol

Tennesean had a picture of the marriage certificate. Who knows like the billy the kid and Jessie James Legends this one to will continue to go on.

regards, Steven