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Boy Witnesses to Lincoln’s Assassination
Tad Lincoln
Twelve-year-old Tad Lincoln was at Grover’s Theatre watching Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp when his father was shot at Ford’s Theatre the night of April 14, 1865. Although his youngest son was thus spared witnessing the President’s assassination, two other boys did see the historic and heinous event unfold.
Another twelve-year-old, Joseph Hazelton (or Hazleton) sometimes worked as a program boy in Washington theatres. Through this occupation, he became familiar with many actors, including John Wilkes Booth. The evening of April 14, 1865, he handed out programs for the comdey Our American Cousin starring Laura Keene at Ford’s Theatre. He was, therefore, in the house when John Wilkes Booth sneaked into the presidential box. Hazelton did not claim to see Booth fire his derringer at the President, but in a 1927 signed letter he wrote, “I was an eye witness to the assassination of our most beloved President. I saw Wilkes Booth jump from the box and make his escape.”
Hazelton eventually became an actor himself, first in live theater then in silent films. Over sixty years after Lincoln’s death, he was interviewed by Good Housekeeping magazine, which published his account of the assassination in February 1927. In it Hazelton went beyond a mere eyewitness account to include details that could have been learned only well after the event. He seems fascinated by Booth, with whom he claimed to have conversed on the morning of April 14.
The timing of the Good Housekeeping article was propitious for Hazelton. At age 74, with his acting career winding down, he recast himself as a lecturer, using the nation’s admiration of Lincoln and the notoriety of Booth to attract audiences for nearly a decade until his death in 1936.
While Hazelton had the advantage of familiarity with Ford’s Theatre, the opposite was true for the youngest witness to Lincoln’s murder. At age five, Samuel Seymour was being treated to a holiday by his godmother, Mrs. George R. Goldsborough, whose husband employed Samuel’s father. Mrs. Goldsborough had decided to accompany her husband and the elder Seymour on a business trip to Washington from their home in Talbot County, Maryland. She included fourteen-year-old Sarah Cook in the party as a nurse/companion for Samuel and hoped to provide her godson with a grand adventure.
Samuel, who had not previously been away from home, found the trip overwhelming. In a article appearing in the February 7, 1954, issue of The American Weekly, he recalls riding the 150 miles from his home to the capital in a coach drawn by horses which were “stubborn” when being loaded aboard a steamboat for part of the journey.
Once in Washington, young Samuel was amazed by “the biggest house I ever had seen,” the hotel in which his party would stay. He was frightend by seeing men with guns in the street, not realizing the Civil War had ended and soldiers were gathering in celebration.
He felt better when his godmother said she was taking him and Sarah to a “real play” where he would see President Lincoln. Samuel was more impressed with the idea of a play, which he took to be a game, than with seeing the President.
The Presidential box was directly across the theatre from the seats of Mrs. Goldsborough, Sarah, and Samuel. When the Lincolns arrived, the audience stood as the President smiled and waved. Only then did Samuel begin to feel relaxed, a feeling soon cut short by John Wilkes Booth’s shot.
Samuel recalled hearing the shot and seeing Lincoln fall forward in his seat. Not comprehending what had happened, he was concerned about “the poor man who fell down” to the stage and begged Mrs. Goldsborough to help him. Instead, she grabbed Samuel and carried him from the theater.
In his 1954 article, 94-year-old Samuel Seymour stated, “I sometimes still relive the horror of Lincoln’s assassination, dozing in my rocker as an old codger like me is bound to do.”
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Ford’s was a state-of-the-art theater in 1865. It had recently been renovated and boasted gas lighting. The twentieth century brought many changes to the entertainment world, some that permit us to hear the eyewitness accounts of Hazelton and Seymour in their own words.
Hazelton made more than twenty silent films between 1912 and 1922, but in 1933 an audio recording was made of his Lincoln assassination lecture at the May Company Exposition Hall in Los Angeles. The record, a rare 16″ disk, is securely housed at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. However, a recording made from the original can be heard at http://youtube.com/watch?v=3SvKPACbxU
Seymour lived to see the emergence of television and spoke about seeing Lincoln assassinated on It’s News to Me in 1953 and on I’ve Got a Secret in 1956. Both were panel game shows developed by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman for CBS television. Seymour’s I’ve Got a Secret segment can be seen on You Tube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RPoymt3Jx4&t=18s .