On Good Friday, 1865, a man entered his room in Washington’s National Hotel. He’d be leaving on a one-way trip in a few hours.
He filled one pocket with things you’d expect: a ring of keys, a compass, a daybook he used for a dairy, even a whistle in case he got lost in the woods. In the other, he placed a knife and a single-shot Derringer pistol.
Before he could depart, he had to stop at Ford’s Theatre.
Tucked inside the daybook were photos of four women. The identity of one was lost for decades. When her name finally became known, it raised questions. This is the story of John Wilkes Booth’s “Mysterious Beauty.”
Any schoolchild can tell you, “An actor shot Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865.” While true, there’s more to it than that.
Booth was more than “an actor.” He was a big star. It was a celebrity-on-celebrity crime.
Booth’s plan was astonishingly simple. Shoot Lincoln from behind, leap to the stage, hop on a horse waiting in the alley behind the theater, and ride for the South. Which explains why he packed light.
Booth was tracked down and shot in rural Virginia 12 days later. The contents of his pockets were rushed to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Their existence was made public two years later when Stanton released a statement mentioning the diary and photos “of several females.” Then they were boxed up and hidden from view.
The first newspaper account came in 1884, casually mentioning “photographs of young women, presumably actresses.”
In 1891, another journalist got a closer look at Booth’s belongings. He tried to identify each woman by name in his report.
The most prominent was Lucy Hale, who was 24 years old in 1865 and a favorite among Washington’s wartime bachelors. The title of a 1970 American Heritage article perfectly describes her social life: “They All Loved Lucy.”
Although she was what some might call “stout,” she was also vivacious, chatty, and, as New Hampshire Sen. John Hale’s daughter, connected to the upper rungs of Washington’s political society. Lincoln’s personal secretary and future Secretary of State John Hay, future Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and even Robert Todd Lincoln, the president’s eldest son, all courted her.
Also among her suitors: the dashing Booth. In fact, Lucy had secured his ticket to Lincoln’s second inauguration ceremony weeks earlier.
There’s an enduring claim, based on scanty historical evidence, that Lucy and Booth were secretly engaged to marry. Booth used anyone who could help him advance his schemes. He likely made Lucy believe they were engaged; otherwise, why did he carry pictures of three other women on a trip he knew might end in his death?
The second photo was Effie Germon, an actress who, on the night of Lincoln’s assassination, starred in “Aladdin or The Wonderful Lamp” at Washington’s other major theater, where Lincoln’s youngest son, Tad, was watching. (In that 1891 article, the reporter cruelly reported, “Miss Germon, if still living, is now an old woman and they say she is fat.”)
Actress Alice Gray appeared in the third image.
However, it was the fourth photo that left investigators stumped. Although the woman was stunningly lovely, they never learned her name. At some point, someone wrote in pencil beneath her image, “The Mysterious Beauty.” (By the 1930s, those words had been erased, though traces are still visible.)
So, who was she?
Sometime in the early 20th century, she was finally identified. Her name was Fanny Brown, another actress who, while not as famous as Booth, was well-known in her day.
Indeed, The New York Clipper newspaper printed the following in its celebrity section on November 28, 1863: “Rumor says that J. Wilkes Booth will shortly lead to the hymenial (marriage) altar the beautiful and fascinating Fanny Brown. Where’s Dolly?”
While word of a possible Booth wedding was serious enough to make it into print, the second line, mentioning a different woman, also reveals that Booth was a ladies’ man. He was catnip to women, who practically lined up to surrender their hearts to him.
Exactly what did each woman mean to him? We’ll never know. Booth took the answers to the grave with him.
All four photos are displayed in the Ford’s Theatre Museum. They silently stare at us from the 19th century, keeping historians guessing about the role each played in the life of America’s greatest villain.
