John Wilkes Booth. Actor. Murderer of a President. Hunted. Cornered.
Killed. End of story? No. Only the beginning in this case it would seem.
Had
Sergeant Thomas "Boston" Corbett not fired that fatal shot against orders
and killed the man trapped in Garrett's barn, then perhaps this story would have
had a more simple conclusion. Had Corbett been part of a secret government plot
by then Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to remove Lincoln from power? Arrested
immediately by troops for having shot and killed the man many believed to be Booth, Corbett
was ordered released by Stanton himself and hailed as a patriot. Booth's recovered
diary is of equal interest because it wound up in Stanton's possession
within days of it's recovery. Invaluable evidence it would seem, yet never would it be
used at the 1865 Conspiracy Trial. It would, in fact, mysteriously "disappear" for two years, only to
re-appear in 1867 after it was "rediscovered" in a forgotten War Department
file.
The diary was noted to be now
missing a large number of it's original pages, apparently torn from it.
While information
regarding Stanton's alleged involvement in an assassination plot to kill Lincoln
would not appear until many years later, it would eventually. Along with information
that Thomas "Boston" Corbett had now taken up residence in the midwest. Corbett,
a religious fanatic who had self-casterated himself in 1858, using a pair of sissors in order
to "avoid the temptation of prostitutes", was, by the turn of the century, believed to be
working for W.W. Gavitt & Co.--a medicine distributor, located in Enid, Oklahoma.
In December 1902, a stranger in his mid 60s checked himself into the
Grand Avenue Hotel in Enid, Oklahoma. Several weeks later, he checked himself out--
by committing suicide via rat poison. His death was painful and
slow. His agonizing cries brought company but not help.
There was nothing to be done. The end was too near. With his final last breath, his fading
whispers uttered simply,
"I am not David E. George. I am John
Wilkes Booth...the murderer of President Lincoln." Those present sat
stunned. Surely this could not be true? The news spread like wildfire.
Finis L. Bates ,
a lawyer from Memphis, Tennessee rushed to Enid. The now deceased "David E. George" had once
lived in Memphis--under the name "John St. Helen". He had come to Bates originally as a client
in 1872 (only 7 years after Lincoln's assassination) and the two eventually became friends. In
1878 however, "St. Helen" became gravely ill and was feared to be on his deathbed. He summoned
Bates and told him "the truth". Bates at first disbelieved him, but upon listening further at
the details and specifics he came to regard the information as true. This man IS John Wilkes
Booth! Death did not claim him and soon "St. Helen" recovered--and denied everything he had told
Bates, blaming it on his condition at the time. Bates however, believed different and would later
contact the War Department, offering to deliver Booth to them, in an effort to stake claim on
the formerly-offered reward money. The War Department replied that it was "not interested". Bates
and "St. Helen" lost touch and drifted apart. Years later, when Bates heard about the
man who had died in Enid, he rushed there to see for himself if this was the same man
he had once known in Memphis. It was.
The body was embalmed, posed and kept in the funeral parlor for approximately eight years,
so as to give both the government, as well as Booth's family a chance to
investigate further. An investigation that would never take place. The body appeared to contain,
most--if not all, of everything that would
have identifed it as actually being the infamous assassin...even down to the ankle fracture Booth
had sustained when leaping from Lincoln's box. But if the man was not Booth, who in the
devil was he? And why the stark similarities? The questions were never quite answered
to full satisfaction one way or the other. Despite an array of evidence, which included even
an identification by
Booth's own nephew, no one seemed to care. Bates would eventually convince an Oklahoma judge to
release the body to him--the judge thinking that the body was bound for burial. But the future
of the deceased man many believed to be Booth was destined for a fate unlike any other. Bates,
after several unsuccessful attempts to get the government's interest, began leasing out his
former client's body to carnivals and sideshows. The body, so perfectly embalmed, would eventually
turn into
a mummy. Every carnival, sideshow or other owner who leased out the mummy for display
experienced extreme tragedy, death and/or financial ruin not seen since the opening of King Tut's
tomb. Finis Bates himself died in 1923, and with him, much of the so-called "evidence" backing
up the mummy's alledged authenticity. Last heard from in 1968 in Ohio, the mummy of "Old John"
has kept a pretty low profile in recent years. But it is still around. All but forgotten about.
