Wilkes Booth

For years, people have just wanted to ignore the Gothic-style house at the end of a country road outside Bel Air.Tudor Hall, after all, had always occupied a dubious place in American history: at one time home to both world-renowned Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth and his brother, John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.But now, the four-bedroom brick dwelling is attracting national interest, with an Oct. 16 auction prompting a desperate rush by everyone from history buffs to actors to preserve it."

Of all the millions of bullets fired during the American Civil War, that with the most resonance was the fatal shot into the back of Abraham Lincoln's head by the assassin John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre in Washington on the night of April 14, 1865.Coming just 12 days after the fall of Richmond and five after Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, that murderous moment served as the climax of the Civil War.Presence of LincolnEven now, watching a modern-day musical in this handsomely restored 19th-century theater, one senses Lincoln's melancholy presence behind the drapes of that always-vacant box. At the annual Ford's Theatre Gala celebrations held early every spring (the 1997 gala ended last month)

WHEN THE late William S. James, the former state treasurer and president of the Maryland Senate, was introducing legislation as a young member of the House of Delegates from Havre de Grace, so the story goes, he was admonished by a colleague: He had failed to show the proposal first to the editor of Harford County's hometown newspaper, the Aegis. Mr. James realized his omission and, after the fact, ran his idea past Editor John D. Worthington Jr.Opined the Aegis' subsequent editorial of Mr. James' bill: "Good idea, poorly presented."

ANNAPOLIS -- No legitimate historical controversy exists and John Wilkes Booth "should be left to rest in peace," the lawyer for Green Mount Cemetery told the Court of Special Appeals yesterday.Francis J. Gorman urged the three-judge panel to uphold Baltimore City Circuit Judge Joseph H. H. Kaplan's ruling last May that there is "no compelling reason" to exhume the body of the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln.Distant Booth relatives asked the court to allow the disinterment to establish finally whether Booth is in the grave or whether he escaped and died years later -- as one long-standing theory holds.

They're still trying to dig up John Wilkes Booth -- or whoever is in his grave in Baltimore's Green Mount Cemetery.Booth relatives who want to disinter the body buried in 1869 as that of President Lincoln's assassin will ask the Court of Special Appeals today to authorize the exhumation.Saying the case concerns "the preservation of the accuracy of American history," Mark S. Zaid, lawyer for the Booth relatives, is asking the court to help "expose a 130-year-old historical fraud."Booth shot the president in Ford's Theater in Washington, April 14, 1865.

Don't blink while driving south along busy Route 5 in Charles County. If you do, you could easily miss Bryantown.This inconspicuous crossroads, 10 or so miles east of La Plata, the bustling county seat, and 25 or so miles from Washington, was once one of the county's largest mercantile centers -- second only to Port Tobacco, the former county seat. But today Bryantown is barely noticeable from the main highway, which is lined by soybean fields, tobacco patches, subdivisions and strip shopping centers.

Actor Gary Sloan can think of only three families who qualify as acting dynasties: the Booths, the Barrymores and the Redgraves.So he suggests it's more than merely notable that Lynn Redgrave is coming to Maryland this weekend to support efforts to restore Tudor Hall, the Harford County home of Junius Brutus Booth, patriarch of classical acting in America.Was it, perhaps, pre-ordained?After all, when Ms. Redgrave stepped inside the front door of Tudor Hall for the first time in April, she said, "I'm home," Dorothy Fox says.

John Wilkes Booth will continue to rest in peace -- wherever he is.Baltimore Circuit Judge Joseph H. H. Kaplan yesterday denied a petition by two Booth family members for exhumation of the remains in a Baltimore cemetery.The aim was to resolve a century of questions about whether Abraham Lincoln's assassin really was cornered and shot by federal troops in 1865, as the history books say, and later interred in the Booth family plot in Green Mount Cemetery.The decision was a defeat for Nathaniel Orlowek and Arthur Ben Chitty, researchers and conspiracy buffs who say Booth escaped, forcing the government to cover up by burying someone else in his place.

A Baltimore Circuit judge was to decide today whether to permit exhumation of the remains buried as Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth for possible positive identification.Four days of testimony and argument ended yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court before Judge Joseph H.H. Kaplan, who will decide whether the request is simple curiosity, or a genuine historical controversy that might be resolved by digging up the grave in Green Mount Cemetery.Mark S. Zaid, lawyer for Booth relatives seeking exhumation, argued that there has been a controversy since 1865 whether Booth escaped from Federal troops at a Northern Virginia farm April 26, 12 days after he shot President Abraham Lincoln in Washington.

For 130 years, a cloud of controversy has surrounded John Wilkes Booth's escape from Washington after he assassinated President Lincoln.Mainstream history texts say John Wilkes Booth was shot to death after Army troops cornered him on a Virginia farm. Booth's body was buried first in a Washington prison cell, moved to another site in the prison, then reburied in the family plot in Baltimore.But some of Booth's relatives tell another tale. They say he escaped to Enid, in what was the Oklahoma Territory, where he lived under the alias of David E. George until he committed suicide in 1903.