The Fathers and Saviors of Our Country: A Presidential Sale

2pp., 8vo (216 x 178 mm), sheet separated in half, some marginal losses affecting text.

"I AM GOING TO TELL YOU SOMETHING NOW THAT NO [OTHER] [LIVING] MAN IN THIS COUNTRY CAN..."

The present manuscript details an incident that occurred in Boston in the spring of 1864, in which Phillip Lord Kimball, an employee of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, claims to have overheard a conversation between John Wilkes Booth and an unidentified man. During this time, Booth was performing in the last full engagement of his career at the Boston Museum.

In part: "I am going to tell you something now, that no othel liveing man in this country can. John Wilks Booth shot Abrahan Lincon in Ford's Theater I think it was April 13th 1865 by the side of his wife and then jumped on to the stage and so doing brook his leg. The young folks of no[w] think it was done on the impulse of the moment. It was not. So I can prove it to you in 1864 May 11th I was working the Lord and Ross on the old Colong [text lost] at South Boston... 1 of them was the best looking and best dresst man I ever laid my eyes on... He was planing to put a ball through someone but no names caled. The other man sed I think John I think it would be a riskey job. Booth sed why it can be done as easy as the pulling of a bag [illegible] him when he is coming down south A Avenew step up and put a ball through him..."

An additional note written in the hand of Kimball's daughter Lucy reads at the bottom, in part: "This was written by my father, Phillip Lord Kimball, around 1929, when he was 90 years old. He left school at 12 yrs of age (by choice) to work..."