The (almost) Curse of Booth

Today I decided to get up early and try to hunt down where John Wilkes Booth is buried.  After battling the traffic and a very testy Garmin, I finally arrived in Baltimore at Greemount Cemetery and was greeted with a sign that said they were closed due to damage from the storm last Friday. 

Destruction!

My heart sank but luckily a nice lady came out to the gate after apparently sensing my dismay from the office window.  With just a little bit of begging, she went back in to see if she could get permission to let me in.  I'm really glad that I did not have to resort to crying.  Trust me, I probably would have after dealing with I-95 traffic around DC!  The sweet lady(sorry, I never got her name.  Really bad about that) came back out and said they would let me in as long as I only went to the Booth grave.

As I trudged through the cemetery I was shocked to see just how much damage the storm had caused.  Limbs(not the human kind) were all over the place and some trees were virtually split in half from the force of the wind and most likely some lightning. 

The Booth family plot is pretty small and contains the remains of various members of the Booth family, including John Wilkes, his father, mother and some siblings.  John Wilkes Booth is in an unmarked section of the plot due to family request.  Although the exact location remains unknown, I did find it interesting that some people placed Lincoln pennies on one marker in the corner of the plot.  I'm not exactly sure what it means though.  My best guess is that it could be a protest to Booth, but then again it could be a symbol to praise Booth for what he did.  Strangely enough there are still some people out there that think Booth is a hero for assassinating President Lincoln.  When I visited the site where Booth was killed I found that people also left pennies there.  Hmmmmm.....

Since I am on a Lincoln assassination kick, I might try and go find the graves of other conspirators tomorrow that are buried around DC.  Thank you very much to the kind and courteous staff at Greenmount Cemetery for allowing me in today.  They taught me a very valuable lesson to call ahead before making hitting the road. 


Another tragedy almost struck as I was getting ready to leave the cemetery.  As I was walking to my car I suddenly realized that I had left Paul at the Booth grave.  I ran back and discovered that the poor guy had fallen off and was lying face down on the plot.  I'm so glad I caught my mistake in time because it would have been pretty embarrassing to have to knock on the gate and tell them I left my doll, uh historical action figure.