Lot 2150
  • 2150

(ABRAHAM LINCOLN ASSASSINATION). AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT SIGNED, BY JEANNIE GOURLAY STRUTHERS, CIRCA 1880S

Estimate
15,000 - 20,000 USD
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Description

  • Autograph manuscript signed ("Jeannie Gourlay Struthers"), by Jeannie Struthers, an actress who performed on stage at Ford’s Theatre the night of Lincoln's assassination
One page (6 1/4 x 9 7/8 in.; 159 x 251 mm), [n.p, n.d., but 1880s]; minor toning primarily to edges, remnants of old paper along one edge of the verso, presumably from were previously mounted or bound.  

Provenance

The Forbes Collection of American Historical Documents (Christie's New York, 22 May 2007, lot 74)

Catalogue Note

A stirring first-hand account of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln: "I have alway[s] thought John Wilkes Booth selected a certain part of the Play of our American Cousin, in which I took part, to assassinate Abraham Lincoln...When I came on the stage, I saw standing in the Lobby John Wilkes Booth[.] he looked so strange I hardly knew him. we went on with the scene[.] I looked again, and he was gone..."

On the night of 14 April 1865, Struthers appeared on stage at Ford’s Theatre in the role of Mary Meredith in Our American Cousin. After finishing her scene with Harry Hawk, she and the orchestra leader were talking backstage when John Wilkes Booth's fatal pistol shot rang out through the theatre. Withers dodged Booth’s knife thrust, but his ornate band leader’s coat was cut on the collar. Spangler, whom Gourlay here accuses of helping Booth arrange to wedge the door of the Presidential box, was sentenced to a term at hard labor as an accomplice.