What did john wilkes booth have to do with boston, massachusetts?
The Deringer by Henry Deringer of Philadelphia
What did john wilkes booth have to do with boston, massachusetts?
John Wilkes Booth prepared to be a Bostonian
John Wilkes Booth purchased property in the newly developed Back Bay area, at 115 Commonwealth Avenue in 1863. This was not a speculative financial purchase. His brother resided in Boston for 15 years. Instructions to thes real estate agent were clear that this would be his home.
“Dear Joe, Did you or Orlando send me that catalog of Back Bay lands to be sold April 9th. However, find out about them. For lots No. 5,6,7 or 9 (any one of them) on the north side of Commonwealth Avenue. I will bid as high as $2.70 per foot (their minimum value is $2.25). If you fail to get any one of the above, I will bid on corner lot (Commonwealth Avenue) No. 20. as high as $3.25 per foot. If you are not out bid and fail to get any of them, I will bid on any one (single lot) on south side of Marlborough Street as high as 20 percent above its minimum valuation (a corner lot preferred.) Attend to this, dear Joe. See Keach who said something about the auctioneer being sorry he did not know I wanted to buy last time. Let Orlando see this. Advise with him about it. He promised to buy from me, or to let me know about it. I don’t care about the lots on Marlborough St. If I buy one of them, it will be on spec. So if you miss Commonwealth Ave, strike light on the first….Yours truly, J. Wilkes Booth”[i]
Here are some financial comparisons of the property value then and now at 115 Commonwealth Avenue
http://historyofmassachusetts.org/john-wilkes-booth-owned-property-in-boston/Rebecca Beatrice Brooks
American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies; Michael W. Kauffman; 2005
Classic Realty; 115 Commonwealth Avenue Boston: www.classic-realty.com/115-commonwealth-avenue-boston/
http://www.bu.edu/bhr/2015/05/11/boston-the-booth-brothers-and-the-parker-house/By: Susan Wilson
End Notes
[i] “Brooks, Rebecca Beatrice. “John Wilkes Booth's Boston Property.” History of Massachusetts, 26 Oct. 2017, historyofmassachusetts.org/john-wilkes-booth-owned-property-in-boston/.
[ii] Per REDFIN
[iii] http://www.bu.edu/bhr/2015/05/11/boston-the-booth-brothers-and-the-parker-house/By: Susan Wilson
[iv] https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=13523390
John Wilkes Booth purchased property in the newly developed Back Bay area, at 115 Commonwealth Avenue in 1863. This was not a speculative financial purchase. His brother resided in Boston for 15 years. Instructions to thes real estate agent were clear that this would be his home.
“Dear Joe, Did you or Orlando send me that catalog of Back Bay lands to be sold April 9th. However, find out about them. For lots No. 5,6,7 or 9 (any one of them) on the north side of Commonwealth Avenue. I will bid as high as $2.70 per foot (their minimum value is $2.25). If you fail to get any one of the above, I will bid on corner lot (Commonwealth Avenue) No. 20. as high as $3.25 per foot. If you are not out bid and fail to get any of them, I will bid on any one (single lot) on south side of Marlborough Street as high as 20 percent above its minimum valuation (a corner lot preferred.) Attend to this, dear Joe. See Keach who said something about the auctioneer being sorry he did not know I wanted to buy last time. Let Orlando see this. Advise with him about it. He promised to buy from me, or to let me know about it. I don’t care about the lots on Marlborough St. If I buy one of them, it will be on spec. So if you miss Commonwealth Ave, strike light on the first….Yours truly, J. Wilkes Booth”[i]
Here are some financial comparisons of the property value then and now at 115 Commonwealth Avenue
- The purchase price was $8,192
- The land was recorded in his mother's name
- Booth did not develop the property. It appears he subsequently suffered financial losses in the oil business
- In 1876 Walter Hastings Jr. purchased the property and built a house on it that cost twenty-six thousand dollars
- 115 Commonwealth Avenue, sold for $10,600,000, on September 5, 2010[ii]
- The sale price in 2010 was $1,012, a square foot, compared to the original lot sale price of $8,192
- Yearly taxes today are three times the value of the house and land in 1876
- John Wilkes Booth stayed at the Parker House in April 1865
- He practiced shooting with a pistol on School Street over the five-day stay in April 1865
- He was killed by pursuing Union soldiers April 23rd, 1865
- The Union soldier that shot and killed Booth at the Garrett barn in Port Royal, Virginia, was also a Bostonian; Sergeant Thomas P. “Boston” Corbett
- His brother Edwin Booth was a long-term Boston resident
- After the assassination, Boston was sympathetic to the burden Edwin endured
- Edwin Booth's wife Mary was buried at Mt. Auburn Cemetery, in 1863[iii]
- Edwin remarried in 1869
- Edwin declared bankruptcy during the depression of 1873. His theatre folded
- His second wife died in 1881
- After two strokes Edwin Booth died June 6, 1893, and was interred next to his first wife, Mary
- Asia Booth Clarke, younger sister to the two Shakespearean actors, died at age 52 on May 16, 1888, in England ending a lightly threaded marriage to John Sleeper Clarke of Boston comedial acting fame
- Her body was returned to the Booth Family site in Barltimore, Maryland
- John Wilkes Booth’s body was eventually returned to the Booth family sight, at Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore Maryland, joining his family in eternity[iv]
- After the assassination, John Wilkes younger brother, Junius, managed for many years the "Boston Theatre", ran a retreat for actors at Manchester By The Sea and married in Boston and raised four children. He died in 1886.
- Learn of the Bostonian that killed John Wilkes Booth
http://historyofmassachusetts.org/john-wilkes-booth-owned-property-in-boston/Rebecca Beatrice Brooks
American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies; Michael W. Kauffman; 2005
Classic Realty; 115 Commonwealth Avenue Boston: www.classic-realty.com/115-commonwealth-avenue-boston/
http://www.bu.edu/bhr/2015/05/11/boston-the-booth-brothers-and-the-parker-house/By: Susan Wilson
End Notes
[i] “Brooks, Rebecca Beatrice. “John Wilkes Booth's Boston Property.” History of Massachusetts, 26 Oct. 2017, historyofmassachusetts.org/john-wilkes-booth-owned-property-in-boston/.
[ii] Per REDFIN
[iii] http://www.bu.edu/bhr/2015/05/11/boston-the-booth-brothers-and-the-parker-house/By: Susan Wilson
[iv] https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=13523390
