Franklin Co., TN Marriage Book, 1:375 – John W. BOOTH to Louisa J. PAYNE, license issued 24 Feby. 1872. I solemnized the rite of matrimony between the within named parties on the 25th day of Feby. 1872. C.C. ROSE, J.P.

“But,” you say, “John Wilkes BOOTH shot Abraham LINCOLN at Ford’s Theatre on the 14th of Apr. 1865 and is buried at the Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, MD. So, how could he be at the marriage alter in Franklin County, Tennessee in 1872?”

This is a question that many researchers would like to have answered. Was there a conspiracy within LINCOLN’S cabinet? Did John Wilkes BOOTH get away and start a new life in this county that was the first to succeed when the war began? How could he have possibly had a public life using his own name and be able to escape the notice of the bushwhackers and the Provost Marshall’s men? Either the authorities were convinced that BOOTH had died in the fire at Richard GARRETT’S tobacco barn or it was one of the biggest cover-ups by the United States government every known.

Louisa and John W. lived on the mountain at Sewanee, TN. BOOTH, an acknowledged ladies’ man, left Louisa and went to Memphis, TN. Their daughter, Laura Ida Elizabeth BOOTH, was born after John had gone. It is thought that he lived in Texas under the assumed name of John St. Helen and died in 1903 in Enid, OK while using the alias David E. GEORGE.

A real “unsolved mystery.”

Mr. Arthur Ben Chitty, historiographer of the University of the South, Sewanee, TN, Joe Hardy of Saginaw, MI and others are actively engaged in unraveling this mystery.