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Our American Stories

How Boston Embraced The Brothers of John Wilkes Booth Following Lincoln's Assassination

Our American Stories

iHeartPodcasts

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.6817 Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2024

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On this episode of Our American Stories, 26-year-old actor John Wilkes Booth was killed just 12 days after assassinating Abraham Lincoln. Here’s Christopher Klein with the story of how the city of Boston embraced the Booth brothers.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

This is an IHeart podcast.

0:14.4

And we continue with our American stories.

0:18.4

Our next story comes from our regular contributor, Christopher Klein. Klein is the author of four books,

0:24.7

and is a frequent contributor to the History Channel. Twenty-six-year-old actor John Wilkes Booth was killed

0:32.2

just 12 days after he assassinated Abraham Lincoln. Here's Christopher Klein with the story of how the city of Boston

0:39.8

embraced the Booth Brothers.

0:42.7

Let's take a listen.

0:43.5

Let's take a listen.

1:09.0

Thank you. On April 15, 1865, the shrouded grief descended upon Boston as the city awoke to learn of Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Flags that had been waving proudly since Robert E. Lee's

1:12.1

surrendered at Appomattox just days before now drooped sorrowfully at half-mast. The bells of

1:19.1

Boston's churches told for an hour at the news of the President's murder, and the assassin's

1:26.2

older brother hurt every anguish peal as he stared at his cold breakfast.

1:30.3

For as John Wilkes Booth was taking center stage in an American drama at Ford's Theatre the night before,

1:37.3

Edwin Booth stepped before the footlights of the packed Boston Theatre to star in the Iron Chest.

1:43.3

Little did the country's most famous thespian know, however, that the lines he had

1:48.0

exclaimed as a villain draped in black velvet, where is my honor now?

1:53.4

Mountains of shame are piled upon me.

1:58.0

Just three columns to the left of the breathless page one report on the assassination in that morning's Boston Daily advertiser

2:04.6

blared an advertisement trumpeting Edwin Booth's scheduled mannay performance as Hamlet to conclude his successful three-week Boston engagement.

2:14.0

The show, of course, would not go on.

2:26.3

A fearful calamities upon us, would not go on. A fearful calamity is upon us, Boston theater manager Henry Jarrett wrote to his star, informing him of the performances cancellation. The president of the United States has fallen by the hand of an assassin, and I am shocked to say,

2:32.3

suspicion points to one nearly related to you as the perpetrator

...

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