Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/372

BOOTH. conspired with other southern sympathizers to kill President Lincoln and the members of his cabinet. On the appointed night. April 14, 1865, he entered Fords theatre, where the President was in attendance, gained access to his box and shot him from behind, then leaped to the stage. shouting. "Sic Semper Tyrannis. The south is avenged!" and despite a broken leg caused by a fall, his spur becoming caught in the folds of a flag as he jumped from the box, he made good his escape on horse-back. He was concealed by southern sympathizers, and after eleven days was found in a barn at Bowling Green, Va. He refused to surrender and was shot by Boston Corbett a soldier of the searching party. His body was secretly buried by the government authorities, but after two years it was surrendered to his brother Edwin, and re-interred in the family plot in Baltimore cemetery. The date of his death is April 26, 1865.

BOOTH, Junius Brutus, actor, was born in London, England, May 1, 1796; son of Richard Booth, a successful solicitor. He received a cla.s.sical education, and, after trying sculpture and painting, entered his father's office to study law. This proving uncongenial, his friends procured him a commission in the navy. He had not joined his ship when it was ordered to Nova Scotia to take part in the hostilities against the United States in 1812. The father was an ardent Republican, and at his request young Booth resigned his commission. He became interested in amateur theatricals, and his success determined him to follow the profession of an actor. He played at a minor theatre in one of the provinces, and in 1814 made a tour of Holland and Belgium. The histrionic talent of the youth was so markedly brilliant that friends endeavored to procure for him a London engagement. The time was not ripe for this, and he made another provincial contract. On March 8, 1815, he was married to Mary Christine Adelaide Delaunoy, at St. George's, Bloomsbury, having come to London to fill an engagement at Covent Garden; but finding he was cast only for inferior parts he declined to act, and returned to Worthing, where he had been playing Richard III. with conspicuous success. Edmund Kean was then at the zenith of his fame, and when Booth appeared as his substitute in the character of Sir Giles Overreach in a "New Way to Pay Old Debts," the audience, indignant at his audacity, received him with coldness, but before the end of the play he had taken the house by storm. His fame spread and he was called to London, where, Feb. 17, 1817, he made his first appearance at Covent Garden theatre in the role of Richard III. Here he completely satisfied the critical metropolitan audiences, but was induced by Edmund Kean to join the Drury Lane company to play lago to Kean's Othello. This was a clever ruse on the part of the elder actor, and Booth was fortunate in finding flaws in the contract, which enabled him to free himself from the engagement. He returned to Covent Garden, where his reappearance was hailed with tumultuous applause; here he played on alternate nights Richard III. and Sir Giles Overreach, adding to his characters those of Posthumus in "Cymbeline"; Othello and Sir Edward Mortimer in "The Iron Chest." London theatre-goers were divided into two parties, "Boothites" and "Keanites," and their extreme partisanship led to a riot, Feb. 25, 1817. At the close of the season, July, 1818, he made a tour of Scotland and the provinces, and in the en.suing autumn delighted the Covent Garden audiences with his interpretation of Shylock, and later depicted the roles of Brutus, Richard and Horatius at the Coburg theatre. In 1820 he added to his repertory, Lear, which was admittedly one of the finest of his characterizations. In 1820 he played Cassius and Lear at Drury Lane. Jan. 18, 1821, he married Mary Ann Holmes, at the residence of the Honorable Mrs. Chambers, in London, started on a wedding trip to the West Indies, and appeared unannounced in the United States, landing at Norfolk, Va., June 20, 1821. After a successful season at the Park theatre in New York, and in the larger cities of the south. Mr. Booth, in 1822, purchased a small estate near Baltimore, where, in the pauses of his occupation, he obtained the solitude for which he longed, and here he brought his father, who remained until his death. In 1825 he made an unsuccessful professional tour to London, his wardrobe and properties being destroyed by the burning of the Royal theatre. He returned to the United States and, after a short engagement at the Park theatre. New York, where he played "Selim" and "Pescara," he, in 1828, opened the Camp street theatre in New Orleans, where he enacted French roles with amazing success; his acting of Orestes in Andromaque giving peculiar delight to the French-speaking audiences. In 1831 he leased the Adelphi theatre in Baltimore, where he appeared in several new characters: Falkland in "The Rivals,"" Luke in "Riches," Penruddock, Selim. Ricliard II., and Roderick Dhu. A severe domestic affliction, the death of two of his children, overthrew his reason at this time, and he was subject to recurrent fits of insanity during the rest of his life. In his lucid intervals his genius shone unimpaired. though he had allowed the vice of intemperance to fasten itself upon him. In 1836. after playing Shylock to packed houses in New York, he went to England with his family, where he appeared in London, but the death of his son,