January 9, 2025 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, John Wilkes Booth wasn't the only famous member of his family when he assassinated President Lincoln—his brothers were also famous in their own right. Here’s Christopher Klein with the story of how the city of Boston embraced the Booth brothers after their family name became synonymous with the events of April 20th.
Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Our next story
comes from our regular contributor, Christopher Klein. Cline is the
author of four books and is a frequent contributor to
the History Channel. Twenty six year old actor John Wilkes
Booth was killed just twelve days after he assassinated Abraham Lincoln.
(00:32):
Here's Christopher Klein with the story of how the city
of Boston embraced the Booth brothers. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
On April fifteenth, eighteen sixty five, the shrouded grief to
send it upon on Boston as the city awoke to
learn of Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Flags that had been waving
proudly since Roberty Lee's surrendered at Appomattox just days before,
now drooped sorrowfully at half mast. The bells of Boston's
churches told for an hour at the news of the
(01:17):
president's murder, and the assassin's older brother heard every anguish
peal as he stared at his cold breakfast for as
John Wilkes Booth was taking center stage in an American
drama at Fort's Theatre the night before, Edwin Booth stepped
before the footlights of the packed Boston Theater to star
in the Iron Chest. Little did the country's most famous
(01:40):
thespian know, however, that the lines he had exclaimed as
a villain draped in black velvet, where is my honor?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Now?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Mountains of shame are piled upon me. Just three columns
to the left of the breathless page one report on
the assassination in that morning's Boston Daily advertised or blared
an advertisement trumpeting Edwin Booth's scheduled man a performance as
Hamlet to conclude his successful three week Boston engagement. The show,
(02:10):
of course, would not go on of fearful calamities upon us.
Boston Theater manager Henry Jarrett wrote to his star informing
him of the performance's cancelation. The President of the United
States has fallen by the hand of an assassin, and
I am shocked to say suspicion points to one nearly
related to you, as the perpetrator of this horrid deed.
(02:35):
Suspicions of complicity also enveloped a Booth family in Cincinnati,
hands that had the night before applauded the performance of
Junius Brutus Booth Junior as Shylock and the Merchant of
Venice now tore down playbills branded with his name. A
vengeful mob stormed his hotel, only to be turned away
by a quick thinking clerk who falsely claimed that the
(02:56):
eldest Booth brother had already skipped down. Not until two
days later could friends safely smuggle juniors out of the
hotel and onto a train bound for Philadelphia, where his sister,
Asia Booth Clark had been placed under virtual house arrest.
With John Wilkes still on the run and news spreading
(03:16):
that the assassin himself had visited Boston just days earlier,
Edwin increasingly feared for his safety. If the Booths found
themselves under siege elsewhere, what would happen to him in
the abolitionist hotbed of Boston. Well, the answer turned out
to be quite unexpected. John Wilkes Booth had been a
familiar and even popular figure in Boston's theater scene. Although
(03:41):
lacking Edwin's talent, he regularly appeared on the city stages
during the Civil War, and even purchased an undeveloped plot
on Commonwealth Avenue in the newly created Back Bay neighborhood.
The last starring engagement of his life, a five week
run came at the Boston Museum on Tremont Street in
the spring of eighteen sixty four. In the wake of
(04:01):
the assassination, there were reports that Booth have been spotted
in the city just days before Lincoln's murder, and Iwin
Is told the Boston Evening Transcript the day after the
shooting that he spotted the assassin at the Floyd and
Edwards Shooting Gallery, where he practiced pistol firing in various
difficult ways, such as between his legs, over his shoulder,
and under his arm. Whether John Wilkes met with Edwin
(04:25):
on the trip is unknown, but by this point the Booths,
like the country itself, were a house divided. Not only
did John Wilkes sympathize with the rebels, but he had
met with Confederate Secret Service agents at Boston's Parker House
hotel on July twenty sixth, eighteen sixty four, to discuss
a plot to kidnap Lincoln. Edwin's roots in Boston ran
(04:49):
even deeper than his brothers. At age fifteen, he made
his professional stage debut at the Boston Museum, and his
lead performance in A New Way to Pay Old Debts
eight years later at the Boston Theater cemented his stardom
on the same stage. In eighteen fifty eight, he fell
in love with his Romeo and Julia co star and
(05:09):
future wife Mary Devlin, and he mourned over her dead
body five years later and her rented home in Boston.
Edwin befriended leading statesmen, religious leaders, journalists, and abolitionists such
as Julia Ward Howe. Those powerful friends rallied to his side.
On April fifteenth, eighteen sixty five. There is not a
(05:31):
more devoted friend to the Union than Edwin Booth, the
Boston Post assured its readers. Even Massachusetts Governor John Andrew
vouched for the actress patriotism. After Deputy US marshals found
nothing incriminating in a search of Edwin's trunks, they granted
him permission to leave Boston. On April seventeenth. The actor
(05:52):
returned to his New York City home, where he holed
up under a barrage of hate mail and death threats.
Compared to other family member or so, Edwin got off easy.
The youngest Booth brother, Joseph, was briefly jailed. Junius and
Asia's husband John were arrested in Philadelphia and spent weeks
incarcerated with other suspected conspirators in Washington's Old Capital Prison.
(06:16):
On his forced journey to the nation's capital in April
twenty fifth, Junius said little except that he wished John
had been killed before the assassination for the sake of
the family's name. The man hunt for his brother ended
the next day when a Union soldier named Boston Corbeck
shot him dead. Edwin admitted the news was a blessed relief.
(06:40):
All the Booths were eventually released from jail, but the
family name had become so toxic that Asia and her
husband eventually fled to Europe in eighteen sixty eight. Edwin
and Junius, however, eventually found an unlikely refuge much closer
to home. Shortly after Edwin ended his exile from acting
in January eighteen sixty six, he purchased the lease of
(07:01):
the Boston Theater. Nine months later, the actor finally set
foot on the floorboards he last proud on the night
of the assassination. Before Edwin could perform the title roland Othello,
men shouted, applauded, and stamped their feet for nearly two
full minutes, while ladies waved their handkerchiefs. The sold out
(07:22):
audience's thunderous reaction confirmed the Boston Evening Transcripts report Edwin
still enjoys a popularity greater than any other actor. Even
though Boston agrieved so deeply for Lincoln, it did not
hold the sins of John Wilkes against his brother. Edwin
convinced his older brother to come to Boston to be
(07:44):
his stage manager, and Junius, caught between one brother's fame
and another's infamy, found a comfortable niche in the city's
theatrical community. Junius fell in love with Boston as well
as with one of its leading ladies, Agnes Perry. Two
years after their eighteen sixty seven marriage, the pair joined
the growing summer colony of thespians and writers in the
(08:07):
suburb of Manchester by the Sea and built a seaside
cottage above the broad crescent of Singing Beach. In eighteen
seventy eight, Junius and Agnes built quite the addition to
their cottage, the sprawling one hundred and six room Masconomo House,
which became a premier summer resort with its bathhouses, tennis courts,
(08:28):
bowling alleys, billiard tables, and three hundred person dining room
overlooking a twelve acre emerald lawn that kissed the Sapphire Sea.
The Masconomo House became a playpen for Boston's rich and famous.
When Junius died in eighteen eighty three, his Boston area
ties were cemented for eternity, with his burial not in
(08:48):
the Booth family plot in Baltimore, but in Manchester by
the seas Rosedale Cemetery. In the same year, Edwin settled
among the Brahmins on Beacon Hill after the death of
his second wife. The wrought iron balconies and purple panes
of glass in the drawing room windows of the elegant
brick homb he purchased on Chestnut Street firmly established him
(09:09):
as a proper Bostonian. Four years later, he sold the
home and returned to New York City, where he died
on June seventh, eighteen ninety three. But edwinke Junius chose
not to rest in peace in Baltimore, but in Mount
Auburn Cemetery outside Boston, next to his first wife and
(09:29):
infant son, in one of history's eeriest coincidences, just as
the organists struck the opening cords of Chopin's haunting Funeral March.
At Edwin's funeral service, three floors of Ford's Theatre, which
had been purchased by the federal government in eighteen sixty
six and converted into War Department offices, collapsed into the basement.
(09:52):
Twenty two federal employees died. Rescue workers continued to pull
mangled bodies from the rubble a force the as grave
diggers bathed in the golden glow of a glorious sunset,
shoveled dirt on top of Edwin's antiquo coffin. Even in death,
Edwin was forced to share the stage with memories of
his infamous.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Brother and a terrific job of the editing and production
by Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to Christopher Klein.
And what a tribute to the people of Boston in
the time, embracing Edwin Booth and not holding the sins
of his brother against him. This was an abolition city
through and through, But again they didn't hold the sins
(10:36):
of John against the brother Edwin or the other brothers.
The story of the Booth brothers and how Boston embraced
them here on our American Stories
And we continue with our American stories. Our next story
comes from our regular contributor, Christopher Klein. Cline is the
author of four books and is a frequent contributor to
the History Channel. Twenty six year old actor John Wilkes
Booth was killed just twelve days after he assassinated Abraham Lincoln.
(00:32):
Here's Christopher Klein with the story of how the city
of Boston embraced the Booth brothers. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
On April fifteenth, eighteen sixty five, the shrouded grief to
send it upon on Boston as the city awoke to
learn of Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Flags that had been waving
proudly since Roberty Lee's surrendered at Appomattox just days before,
now drooped sorrowfully at half mast. The bells of Boston's
churches told for an hour at the news of the
(01:17):
president's murder, and the assassin's older brother heard every anguish
peal as he stared at his cold breakfast for as
John Wilkes Booth was taking center stage in an American
drama at Fort's Theatre the night before, Edwin Booth stepped
before the footlights of the packed Boston Theater to star
in the Iron Chest. Little did the country's most famous
(01:40):
thespian know, however, that the lines he had exclaimed as
a villain draped in black velvet, where is my honor?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Now?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Mountains of shame are piled upon me. Just three columns
to the left of the breathless page one report on
the assassination in that morning's Boston Daily advertised or blared
an advertisement trumpeting Edwin Booth's scheduled man a performance as
Hamlet to conclude his successful three week Boston engagement. The show,
(02:10):
of course, would not go on of fearful calamities upon us.
Boston Theater manager Henry Jarrett wrote to his star informing
him of the performance's cancelation. The President of the United
States has fallen by the hand of an assassin, and
I am shocked to say suspicion points to one nearly
related to you, as the perpetrator of this horrid deed.
(02:35):
Suspicions of complicity also enveloped a Booth family in Cincinnati,
hands that had the night before applauded the performance of
Junius Brutus Booth Junior as Shylock and the Merchant of
Venice now tore down playbills branded with his name. A
vengeful mob stormed his hotel, only to be turned away
by a quick thinking clerk who falsely claimed that the
(02:56):
eldest Booth brother had already skipped down. Not until two
days later could friends safely smuggle juniors out of the
hotel and onto a train bound for Philadelphia, where his sister,
Asia Booth Clark had been placed under virtual house arrest.
With John Wilkes still on the run and news spreading
(03:16):
that the assassin himself had visited Boston just days earlier,
Edwin increasingly feared for his safety. If the Booths found
themselves under siege elsewhere, what would happen to him in
the abolitionist hotbed of Boston. Well, the answer turned out
to be quite unexpected. John Wilkes Booth had been a
familiar and even popular figure in Boston's theater scene. Although
(03:41):
lacking Edwin's talent, he regularly appeared on the city stages
during the Civil War, and even purchased an undeveloped plot
on Commonwealth Avenue in the newly created Back Bay neighborhood.
The last starring engagement of his life, a five week
run came at the Boston Museum on Tremont Street in
the spring of eighteen sixty four. In the wake of
(04:01):
the assassination, there were reports that Booth have been spotted
in the city just days before Lincoln's murder, and Iwin
Is told the Boston Evening Transcript the day after the
shooting that he spotted the assassin at the Floyd and
Edwards Shooting Gallery, where he practiced pistol firing in various
difficult ways, such as between his legs, over his shoulder,
and under his arm. Whether John Wilkes met with Edwin
(04:25):
on the trip is unknown, but by this point the Booths,
like the country itself, were a house divided. Not only
did John Wilkes sympathize with the rebels, but he had
met with Confederate Secret Service agents at Boston's Parker House
hotel on July twenty sixth, eighteen sixty four, to discuss
a plot to kidnap Lincoln. Edwin's roots in Boston ran
(04:49):
even deeper than his brothers. At age fifteen, he made
his professional stage debut at the Boston Museum, and his
lead performance in A New Way to Pay Old Debts
eight years later at the Boston Theater cemented his stardom
on the same stage. In eighteen fifty eight, he fell
in love with his Romeo and Julia co star and
(05:09):
future wife Mary Devlin, and he mourned over her dead
body five years later and her rented home in Boston.
Edwin befriended leading statesmen, religious leaders, journalists, and abolitionists such
as Julia Ward Howe. Those powerful friends rallied to his side.
On April fifteenth, eighteen sixty five. There is not a
(05:31):
more devoted friend to the Union than Edwin Booth, the
Boston Post assured its readers. Even Massachusetts Governor John Andrew
vouched for the actress patriotism. After Deputy US marshals found
nothing incriminating in a search of Edwin's trunks, they granted
him permission to leave Boston. On April seventeenth. The actor
(05:52):
returned to his New York City home, where he holed
up under a barrage of hate mail and death threats.
Compared to other family member or so, Edwin got off easy.
The youngest Booth brother, Joseph, was briefly jailed. Junius and
Asia's husband John were arrested in Philadelphia and spent weeks
incarcerated with other suspected conspirators in Washington's Old Capital Prison.
(06:16):
On his forced journey to the nation's capital in April
twenty fifth, Junius said little except that he wished John
had been killed before the assassination for the sake of
the family's name. The man hunt for his brother ended
the next day when a Union soldier named Boston Corbeck
shot him dead. Edwin admitted the news was a blessed relief.
(06:40):
All the Booths were eventually released from jail, but the
family name had become so toxic that Asia and her
husband eventually fled to Europe in eighteen sixty eight. Edwin
and Junius, however, eventually found an unlikely refuge much closer
to home. Shortly after Edwin ended his exile from acting
in January eighteen sixty six, he purchased the lease of
(07:01):
the Boston Theater. Nine months later, the actor finally set
foot on the floorboards he last proud on the night
of the assassination. Before Edwin could perform the title roland Othello,
men shouted, applauded, and stamped their feet for nearly two
full minutes, while ladies waved their handkerchiefs. The sold out
(07:22):
audience's thunderous reaction confirmed the Boston Evening Transcripts report Edwin
still enjoys a popularity greater than any other actor. Even
though Boston agrieved so deeply for Lincoln, it did not
hold the sins of John Wilkes against his brother. Edwin
convinced his older brother to come to Boston to be
(07:44):
his stage manager, and Junius, caught between one brother's fame
and another's infamy, found a comfortable niche in the city's
theatrical community. Junius fell in love with Boston as well
as with one of its leading ladies, Agnes Perry. Two
years after their eighteen sixty seven marriage, the pair joined
the growing summer colony of thespians and writers in the
(08:07):
suburb of Manchester by the Sea and built a seaside
cottage above the broad crescent of Singing Beach. In eighteen
seventy eight, Junius and Agnes built quite the addition to
their cottage, the sprawling one hundred and six room Masconomo House,
which became a premier summer resort with its bathhouses, tennis courts,
(08:28):
bowling alleys, billiard tables, and three hundred person dining room
overlooking a twelve acre emerald lawn that kissed the Sapphire Sea.
The Masconomo House became a playpen for Boston's rich and famous.
When Junius died in eighteen eighty three, his Boston area
ties were cemented for eternity, with his burial not in
(08:48):
the Booth family plot in Baltimore, but in Manchester by
the seas Rosedale Cemetery. In the same year, Edwin settled
among the Brahmins on Beacon Hill after the death of
his second wife. The wrought iron balconies and purple panes
of glass in the drawing room windows of the elegant
brick homb he purchased on Chestnut Street firmly established him
(09:09):
as a proper Bostonian. Four years later, he sold the
home and returned to New York City, where he died
on June seventh, eighteen ninety three. But edwinke Junius chose
not to rest in peace in Baltimore, but in Mount
Auburn Cemetery outside Boston, next to his first wife and
(09:29):
infant son, in one of history's eeriest coincidences, just as
the organists struck the opening cords of Chopin's haunting Funeral March.
At Edwin's funeral service, three floors of Ford's Theatre, which
had been purchased by the federal government in eighteen sixty
six and converted into War Department offices, collapsed into the basement.
(09:52):
Twenty two federal employees died. Rescue workers continued to pull
mangled bodies from the rubble a force the as grave
diggers bathed in the golden glow of a glorious sunset,
shoveled dirt on top of Edwin's antiquo coffin. Even in death,
Edwin was forced to share the stage with memories of
his infamous.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Brother and a terrific job of the editing and production
by Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to Christopher Klein.
And what a tribute to the people of Boston in
the time, embracing Edwin Booth and not holding the sins
of his brother against him. This was an abolition city
through and through, But again they didn't hold the sins
(10:36):
of John against the brother Edwin or the other brothers.
The story of the Booth brothers and how Boston embraced
them here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.