The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1938-02-24
Mummy Of Booth, Exhibited
Here, Subject of Article
JUNK HAS TRAILED ITS
OWNERS; HISTORIANS
DOUBT THEIR STORY

DOUBT THEIR STORY
Residents of the Redwood Falls
community who were fascinated
by mummy, purported to be that
of John Wilkes Booth, which was
exhibited at the street carnival
here last June will be interested
in Alva Johnston's article John
Wilkes Booth On Tour" in the
current issue of the Saturday Eve
ming Post.
The story of the mummy's ex-
hibition is especially of interest to
Evon Lauster and Mary Finn of
the Gazette staff who signed as
witnesses to the annexation of the
leathery corpse by Jay Gould.
AS the reportorial and adver-
Using departments of the paper
recall it, the Glencoe Snowman
drew up papers agreeing to extoll
the charms of the mummy from
the loud speaker following each
stage show by his Million Dollar
Gems, receiving a percentage of
the gate" on John. Mr. and Mrs.
John Harkin of Wheaton, Illinois,
retained ownership of the body
for which they originally paid
$4,000.
LOCALITIES completed, Gould, the
Harkins, Mr.. LauSter and Miss
Finn toasted the mummy with
grape pop, the treat on Gould.
Subject of Argument
The Post story, we'll illustrated
with even picture of the num-
my itself, tells of the travels of
John, the object of a historical
bubble in which it is alleged that
the assassin of Lincoln was not
really shot in CARROTS barn but
lived in Texas and Oklahoma I'M
der the names of Ney, st. Helen,
Ryan and George.
The story goes that the Texas
Oklahoma Booth committed sui
eide in Enid, Oklahoma, in 1908
and that his body, practically
permanently embalmed with ar
Senic, was left to Finis L. Bates,
an attorney to whom he had con-
fessed his identity and the Lin
coin shooting.
Bates sought to deliver John
alive to the War department be-
fore his death and then attempted
to have the Booth family claim
the body but was unsuccessful.
He retained the mummy, wrote
a book, 1.-THE Escape and Suicide
of John Wilkes Booth, Written for
the Correction of History" and
then proceeded to commercialiZe
on the body, hiring it out to show
men from time to time. He final
ly sold it to William Evans, car
nival king of the southwest, for
$1,000.
Not a Moneymaker
Bad luck has logged the own
ers of John in his postmortem car
eer. Evans suffered setback after
setback in the show business, fin
ally retiring to a potato farm in
Idaho where he hung out out a
sign advertising the mummy to
tourists.
A Kansas City lawyer named
WllkerSon had run across some
historical material alleging that
Stanton, secretary of war; Vice
President Johnson and other
northern Confederacy haters
wanted to put Lincoln out of the
way. There is some evidence that
high officials helped pave the way
for Booths escape and that the
man killed in CARROTS barn was
not Booth, but sandy haired
fellow who in no way resembled
him.
Travelling in the west, Wilker-
son saw Evans sign and viewed
the mummy. He examined it for
a cut on the right eyebrow which
Booth had sustained in a duel
scene during his acting career and
found it. Then he discovered a
broken right thumb and scar on
the back of the neck which cor
responded to similar deformities
borne by Booth.
Get Affidavits
Wilkerson took John over, gath
ering thousand of pounds of affi-
davits from Booth relatives and
persons who had known st. Helen,
or George or Ney in Oklahoma
and Texas, to the effect that the
mummy was really that of the
actor.
He was unsuccessful financial
ly.
Harkin, formerly the chief tat
toed man with the Wallace-Hag-
enbeck circus, saw John six years
ago and bought him. At the time
of the purchase he had retired
from the show business, having
made fortune and invested it in
Chicago real estate. Then Johns
hoodoo set in, negroes moved to
the sections in which Harkin'S
property was located and his ten
ants moved out. John was seized
by his last owner because the fin
al installment on his purchase
had not been paid and Harkin was
forced to sell his property for
only $500 above the mortgage to
recover the mummy.
But with Jay Gould's addition
of the mummy to his troupe here
in June, the Harkins fortune
changed.
He made it pay" says John
ston in The Post, she is the first
American Snowman who had the
genius to operate an American
mummy successfully.