Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 May 1890 — IS WILKES BOOTH DEAD? [ARTICLE]

IS WILKES BOOTH DEAD?

All Improbable S:ory that the Assassin Yet Lives. The Chicago Times of Monday publishes a story from Birmingham, in which Louise Forester, at ope time a confidant ofJ. Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, is credited with saying that Booth is not dead. She declares that in 1807, two years after Booth’s supposed death, .she received a letter, without date or sign future, but unmistakably in Booth’s hand writing. This letter she says is still in existence. As to tho probabilities of the man shot by Boston Corbet being Wilkes Booth she points out that the body was closely guarded and secretly buried with0' ,t an opportunity having been given for identification by any of those intimately acquainted with him. She believes that the man killed was ono of the conspirators, and that Booth made good his escape, but that in the excited and clamorous condition of the public mind it was thought best by the authorities, if they knew of the deception, to allow it to pass unchallenged in order to allay the fever orexcitemeht, which tho assassination had aroused.