The Fathers and Saviors of Our Country: A Presidential Sale

One oblong sheet (241 x 159 mm), accomplished in manuscript, docketed on verso, creasing from old folds, very light soiling. by President J. Mathews, J.N. Fiske, and J.H. Simonds. Signed by Booth on the verso.

The last full engagement of John Wilkes Booth's theatrical career ended in Boston on 28 May 1864. For some time, Booth had examined additional ways of earning money, including buying stocks and, most notably, forming an oil company with business partners John A. Ellsler and Thomas Mears. Their venture, initially called Dramatic Oil and later renamed Fuller Farm Oil, had a promising start, with the partners producing 25 barrels of crude oil daily, before an ill-advised attempt to increase yields with explosives destroyed the well and forced Booth to sell his share in the oil company.

Following the end of the Civil War and the death of Abraham Lincoln, more information about Booth's activities during this period came to light, much of it confirmed in 1938 by the publication of his sister Asia's memoir of her disgraced brother, wherein she wrote of numerous conversations between them in which Booth confessed to acting as a blockade runner for the Confederate Army. It has been speculated that these activities played a large part in Booth's financial investments at this time.