US Rathbone, Clara Harris

Clara Harris Rathbone
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Born: September 4, 1834

Birthplace: Albany, New York

Birthname: Clara Hamilton Harris

Father: U.S. Senator Ira Harris 1802 – 1875
(Buried: Albany Rural Cemetery, Menands, New York)​

Mother: Louisa Tubbs 1809 – 1845
(Buried: Albany Rural Cemetery, Menands, New York)​
Step Mother: Pauline Rathbone
(Married to her father Ira Harris on August 1, 1848)​

Husband: Major Henry Rathbone 1837 – 1911
(Buried: Stadtfriedhof Engesohde, Hanover, Germany)​
Married: July 11, 1867, at Albany, New York

Children:

Henry Riggs Rathbone 1870 – 1928​
(Buried: Rosehill Cemetery & Mausoleum, Chicago, Illinois)​
Gerald Laurence Rathbone 1871 – 1936​
(Buried: Cypress Lawn Memorial Park, Colma, California)​
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Clara Pauline Rathbone Randolph 1872 – 1918​
(Buried: Grace Episcopal Church Cemetery, Casanova, Virginia)​

Antebellum History:

1848: When Clara was nearly 14 years old, her father married the widow Pauline Rathbone, making her son, Henry Rathbone, age 11, Clara's step-brother. They all began living in the same household after that. Soon, to their parents’ dismay, Henry and Clara fall in love and became engaged.​
1861: The Harris / Rathbone family moves to Washington, DC, living just off Lafayette Square at 15th and H streets​
Civil War History:

When the war began, Henry enlisted as an officer in the 12th U.S. Infantry.​
With Henry off to war, Clara had become a confident, cultured woman in the capitol, making friends with Mary Todd Lincoln, visiting the White House, and going to the Theater, all being part of her regular weekly routine.​
1865: Attended the April 14, performance of Our American Cousin with her fiancé, Major Henry Rathbone, President Abraham Lincoln and First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, in the Presidential Box at Ford's Theater in Washington, DC.​
That night, Clara Harris & Henry Rathbone Witnessed the Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth.​
A few weeks after the assassination, Clara posed for photographer Mathew Brady, reportedly in the white dress she wore to Ford's Theater the night Lincoln was shot.​

Postbellum History:

1867 – 1883: Wife of Major Henry Rathbone​
1882: After husband is appointed U.S. Consul to the Province of Hanover, Germany by President Chester A. Arthur, Clara moves with the family to Germany.​
1883: On Christmas Eve, afraid that he might harm the children, Clara coaxed Henry, who had never fully recovered from the Lincoln assassination, and was plagued with unexplained ailments and disorders, to the Master bedroom of their apartment in Germany, and closed the door. There, Henry shot Clara several times with a gun and killed her, before stabbing himself with a knife in an attempted murder-suicide.​

Died: December 23, 1883

Place of Death: Hildesheim, Germany

Cause of Death: Murdered by Husband

Age at time of Death: 49 years old

Burial Place: Stadtfriedhof Engesohde, Hanover, Germany
(Grave disinterred and disposed of in 1952 due to neglect, and lack of interest from the family.)​

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This is apparently a photo of "a Mrs. Harris" from the 1860s, not "the" Clara Harris of "Ford's Theater at the Lincoln Assassination" notoriety. It seems a small clerical error in the 1960's compounded by the power of the internet has made this one of the biggest mis-identified photos that you'll see.

Read All about The Mistake here...

 
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I did not know till last week when a biography was done on Mr.Rathbone that Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris were step brother and sister.

Well, they shared neither father nor mother, in so far they are actually not really step brother and step sister. But they spent some time of their youth in the same household. Clara's widowed father had married Henry's widowed mother, but both Clara and Henry are children of their parent's respective first marriage.
 
Burial Place: Stadtfriedhof Engesohde, Hanover, Germany

The grave no longer exists, though.

This may not be a photo of Clara. Somewhere I saw a website that went into some detail on the subject.

Find a Grave says the same:
 
So many fascinating and overlooked details in this tragic tale.

The photo mystery is deepened by the well-documented fact that a week or so after the assassination, Matthew Brady talked Clara into sitting for a photo while wearing the same blood stained dress she had worn to the theater.

This would be a pretty definitive picture, but no one has been able to locate it.

We've been told that Booth caught a spur on the flag draping the President's loge, which caused him to tumble onto the stage and break his leg, but it was more likely Rathbone who, even though severely wounded, managed to grab part of Booth's coat as he jumped,which caused him to lose his balance.

The young couple accompanied Lincoln across the street to the hotel, where Clara sat on the floor holding Henry's head. When the doctor who had been tending to Lincoln came over tohave a look he recognized that Rathbone was very seriously woulnded and had him taken to a nearby hospital.

Clara stayed with Mary Lincoln all night, and helped her back to the White House.

Clara died protecting her children. Rathbone had slipped into utter madness, some said out of guilt over not being able to stop Booth. He was convinced Clara was cheating on him, which does not seem to have been the case.

One night, after a furious row, he took a pistol and a knife and headed to the bedroom where their 3 children were sleeping, intending to kill them. Clara managed to distract or provoke him into instead following her into another bedroom, where he shot and stabbed her to death.

Rathbone spent the balance of his life in an institution for the criminally insane. One of their sons eventually became a Congressman.

As a sad post script, the couple were buried side-by-side in England, but in 1952 the cemetary was looking for more space and determined that no one ever visited their grave, so their remains were dug up and disposed of.
 
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As a sad post script, the couple were buried side-by-side in England, but in 1952 the cemetary was looking for more space and determined that no one ever visited their grave, so their remains were dug up and disposed of.

A small correction: it was not in England, but in Hannover, Germany, where they were buried. The grave was destroyed in 1952 due to lasting neglect.

According to Thomas Mallon's (the author of the novel "Henry and Clara") research, Henry Rathbone had suffered from depression, anxiety and other mental troubles from early on. He was aware of it himself and even reluctant to really getting married - which was almost embarrassing for Clara as she was already 32 when they finally got married - pretty late for the mid 19th century.
 
Well, they shared neither father nor mother, in so far they are actually not really step brother and step sister. But they spent some time of their youth in the same household. Clara's widowed father had married Henry's widowed mother, but both Clara and Henry are children of their parent's respective first marriage.
They must have a different definition of step brother and step sister in Germany. "Clara's widowed father married Henry's widowed mother"...sounds step to me.( in America anyway) We're talking step not half.
 
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They must have a different definition of step brother and step sister in Germany. "Clara's widowed father married Henry's widowed mother"...sounds step to me.( in America anyway) We're taking step not half.

Oops, you are right! I must admit that I have used "half..." and "step ..." as synonyms and I guess a lot of people here do that. But you are right and I will keep that in mind from now on! Thank you!
 
A small correction: it was not in England, but in Hannover, Germany, where they were buried. The grave was destroyed in 1952 due to lasting neglect.

According to Thomas Mallon's (the author of the novel "Henry and Clara") research, Henry Rathbone had suffered from depression, anxiety and other mental troubles from early on. He was aware of it himself and even reluctant to really getting married - which was almost embarrassing for Clara as she was already 32 when they finally got married - pretty late for the mid 19th century.

Yeah, I don't know what odd corner of my brain England came from.

But your post really raises the question: since, as you say, everybody pretty much knew Rathbone was borderline insane, why on Earth did Chester A. Arthur name him ambassador to Hanover? Nothing bad on old Chet, but is it common to send diplomatic envoys with loose screws out into the world?
 
To me the woman in this picture seems to be a different lady than the one who is usually shown to be Clara Harris Rathbone. But I'm no expert here, I have great difficulties to decide if a person is the same or different when shown in a different angle, at a different age or with a different hairdo. What do you think, is this lady here the same as the one in the OP?

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Source

Here is another picture:

1581004647676.png

 
So many fascinating and overlooked details in this tragic tale.

The photo mystery is deepened by the well-documented fact that a week or so after the assassination, Matthew Brady talked Clara into sitting for a photo while wearing the same blood stained dress she had worn to the theater.

This would be a pretty definitive picture, but no one has been able to locate it.

We've been told that Booth caught a spur on the flag draping the President's loge, which caused him to tumble onto the stage and break his leg, but it was more likely Rathbone who, even though severely wounded, managed to grab part of Booth's coat as he jumped,which caused him to lose his balance.

The young couple accompanied Lincoln across the street to the hotel, where Clara sat on the floor holding Henry's head. When the doctor who had been tending to Lincoln came over tohave a look he recognized that Rathbone was very seriously woulnded and had him taken to a nearby hospital.

Clara stayed with Mary Lincoln all night, and helped her back to the White House.

Clara died protecting her children. Rathbone had slipped into utter madness, some said out of guilt over not being able to stop Booth. He was convinced Clara was cheating on him, which does not seem to have been the case.

One night, after a furious row, he took a pistol and a knife and headed to the bedroom where their 3 children were sleeping, intending to kill them. Clara managed to distract or provoke him into instead following her into another bedroom, where he shot and stabbed her to death.

Rathbone spent the balance of his life in an institution for the criminally insane. One of their sons eventually became a Congressman.

As a sad post script, the couple were buried side-by-side in England, but in 1952 the cemetary was looking for more space and determined that no one ever visited their grave, so their remains were dug up and disposed of.
"The young couple accompanied Lincoln across the street to the hotel...." This has been a learning thread , which hotel? I must have missed something as I had always thought Lincoln was taken directly from the theater to Peterson's House. Was it just a house owned by a guy named Peterson or a boarding house called the Peterson House?
 
Yeah, I don't know what odd corner of my brain England came from.

But your post really raises the question: since, as you say, everybody pretty much knew Rathbone was borderline insane, why on Earth did Chester A. Arthur name him ambassador to Hanover? Nothing bad on old Chet, but is it common to send diplomatic envoys with loose screws out into the world?

Well, he had not been exactly "insane" - and I guess only those who him better would have known. Others might just have suspected something from erratic behavior now and then. He himself knew that he was different, but tried to conceal it from third parties. Clara clearly knew, of course but admitted that she loved him all the more for it. The mistake many wives make who think they can heal their depressed or paranoid husbands through love alone ...
I think a lot of people (ordinary people and VIPs) are "mentally challenged" (is that the correct term for it?) but far from being entirely insane. And seemingly his mental health declined further during his time here in Germany. I don't think that he would have become consul if his "loose screws" had been generally known...
 
This may not be a photo of Clara. Somewhere I saw a website that went into some detail on the subject.

Finally found the website you probably were referring to:

 
Finally found the website you probably were referring to:


fascinating. thank you for posting
 

Good find.

The inscriptor is Henry Riggs Rathbone, Clara's son and a Congressman from New York until his death in 1928
 
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