July 2013 Auction Ends Tuesday, July 23rd, 5pm Pacific
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/23/2013
Amazing autograph letter from Washington, D.C. Police Superintendent Almarin C. Richards, in the audience at Ford's Theater the night President Lincoln was assassinated, to Louis Weichmann, chief prosecution witness at the assassination conspirators' trial. Richards searched for suspected conspirators John Wilkes Booth and John Surratt at the boardinghouse of Mary Surratt, John's mother. In the 24 December 1900 letter, he reviews his memory of events for the book on the assassination Weichmann was writing. Richards states, ''...The fact is well and certainly known that Booth was the assassin of Lincoln before 12 o'clock midnight of the day of the assassination...[actress] Laura Keene had stated before that hour that while she did not know who had shot the President but that the man who jumped from the President's box on the night was J Wilkes Booth...there seemed to be a peculiar hesitancy on the part of the theatre people...to disclose information...yet Miss Keene did not hesitate to state as above indicated. It was information that I had that Booth had been an associate of John Surratt's for a few weeks prior to the assassination that led me to visit Mrs. Surratt's house soon after midnight on that night...'' Signed, ''A.C. Richards''. John Surratt fled the country. Booth also fled but was gunned down on a Virgina farm. Mary Surratt, tried along with other conspirators, was hanged for her part in the assassination. Minor smudging to 7.75'' x 9.75'' single page letter, written front and verso. Overall very good.
Amazing Eyewitness Letter Detailing Lincoln Assassination Events -- ''...It became 'absolutely certain' that Wilkes Booth was implicated in that crime...''
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