I am wondering if anyone else has a family "legend" about John Wilkes Booth. As you may know there is some historical controversy on whether or not Booth was actually killed in the barn on Richard Garrett's property on April 26, 1865. Many conspiracy theories have been spun. Whether or not my family has one of those or not remains to be seen, but they do have a story whereby they do not believe John Wilkes Booth died in the barn on Richard Garrett's property.

The fact that they were southerner's (from Kentucky) may have helped this theory; however, family legend says that my great-great-uncle Jim Webster, who was a child in the late 1880s, had a teacher that the family thought was John Wilkes Booth. They said he resembled JWB, except he was clean-shaven, he walked with a limp in the same leg that JWB broke when jumping from the theater seat to the stage. Additionally, Uncle Jim always claimed that when this teacher was teaching history and they took a field trip to the birthplace of Lincoln (which was nearby), the teacher would always mention going just a little further down the road to the birthplace of the "real" President (Jefferson Davis). Lastly, when the subject of Lincoln's assasination would come up in history class, the teacher would skip over that section and say, "Well you all know what happened."

Kari Farnell