Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1882-03-04
ALAS, POOR YORIcKl
The Skull That Edwin Booth
Handled in the Grave Scene
Never Gave Utterance to
Lovett's Jibes.
A BIOGRAPHY CORRECTED.

Courier-JoSrnal.l
The following is an extract from
Mrs. Asia Booth Clark's biography of
her father, Junius Brutus Booth, and
Edwin Booth, her brother:
Many stories have been told about
Edwin Booths handling the skull of
a friend in the grave scene in Ham
let" The facts appear to be that,
during a visit to the Louisville Jail,
the horse-thief Fontaine, alias Lovett.
was pointed out to the elder Booth.
1t was remarked that he had no means
of obtaining counsel, and Mr.. Booth,
although assured that his case was
hopeless, sent him a lawyer and de-
frayed the expenses of his trial, for
which kindness, when Lovett heard
of it, he b~eQueathed him his skull, de-
string hat it should be given, after his
execution, to the actor Booth, with
the request that no would use it on the
stage in Hamlet" and think, when
he held it in his hands, of the gratitude
his kindness had awakened. The
skull was accordingly sent to his resi-
dence while he was absent from the
city, but Mrs. Booth, finding what a
horrible thing had been loft in her
house, Immediately returned it to the
doctor to whom it had been intrusted
for preparation and delivery. In 1857
the doctor, who had retained the skull,
sent it to Edwin Booth, who used it
in the graveyard scene in Hamlet
on several occasions, and afterward
had it buried.
A Courier Journal reporter obtain
ed an entirely different, and probably
correct account of the disposition Of
Lovett's skull after he was hanged in
this city, together with Mike Jones, in
1887 or 1888, from a we'll known officer.
The subject was brought up in a con
versation, and the officer said:
1.-THE statement Of Mrs. Clark that
her brother, Edwin Booth, obtained
possession of Geo. Lovett's skull is
entirely incorrect. At the time Lovett
was condemned to be hanged for muir
der his accomplice, Jones, was also
condemned, and they occupied the
same cell in the jail. At that time DR..
Dunn, whom most of the old citizens
remember, was living and practicing
in this city, and was present during
the trial of Lovett and Jones, and
took considerable interest in them.
After they we're condemned and SEN
fenced to Jail he visited them daily and
fed them during their confinement.
On the day before their execution he
presented each of them with a suit of
clothes to wear on the scaffold. The
next day they were publicly hanged at
what is now the corner of Eighteenth
and Broadway. After they were cut
down both of the bodies were given to
DR.. Dunn, who conveyed them to a
house on the Point, and few nights
afterward dissected both bodies in an
old frame building that then stood on
the corner of Second and Walnut.
both of the skeletons he preserved,
and several years afterward he went
down to Memphis, Tenn, on a steam
boat, accompanied by his wife, and
carried Lovett's skeleton with him. |
went down on the same boat, and the
Doctor showed me Lovett's skeleton,
aud the head was with it, never hay-
ing been severed from the spinal col
umn. He kept the skeleton until
after the war, and it is still in the
possession of some member Of his
family, Loyett was not a professional
horse thief, but professional gambler,
and one Of the bravest and most dare
devil fellows | ever saw"