Abraham Lincoln Assassination - Garrett's Barn Relic
Abraham Lincoln Assassination - Garrett's Barn Relic - Inventory Number: POL 362
An incredible relic forged by “someone who was there!”
A Chisel Made from Metal Taken from Garrett's Barn
The Location John Wilkes Booth Was Shot and Captured Shortly After
The Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln
Iron chisel made from metal found in the barn where John Wilkes Booth was captured and killed. A wonderful artifact: a 4.25" iron chisel made by blacksmith Joseph Hoover of the 126th Pennsylvania Volunteers from metal he found in the barn on the Garrett Farm in Port Royal, Virginia where Booth was found hiding. As detailed on an early display card from when this was exhibited at the old Eagle Gun Museum outside Strasburg (later in the famed Holman's of Lancaster County, PA collection) "Made by Blacksmith Joseph Hoover, 126 PV." The chisel is at the top of a framed photograph by Alexander Gardner on his original board titled "Horse Shoeing Shop of the Government Repair Shops, 21st Street, Washington, D.C." from his "Incidents of War" series published by Philp & Solomons, March 1865. The photograph, which presumably includes Hoover, shows bands of toning from old, original wood slats of frame along with damp stains. The chisel is an evocative relic hand-forged as a keepsake by a man who posed with his comrades in the photo, taken just as the war concluded and a month before the assassination that sadly enshrined the Booth name in the American memory. Unique, evocative, quite special.
Artifacts: An iron chisel, measuring 4.25 inches, made from metal taken from Garrett's Barn, the location John Wilkes Booth was shot and captured shortly after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. The metal was removed and made into a chisel by blacksmith Joseph Hoover of the 126th Pennsylvania Volunteers, who was present at Garrett's Farm around the time of Booth's capture and death. Accompanied with an early certificate of authenticity from the old Eagle Gun Museum outside of Strasburg, VA: "Iron Chisel made from Metal in the Barn where John Wilkes Booth was captured. Made by Blacksmith Joseph Hoover, 126th P.V." The chisel is attached to the top of a photograph showing Hoover and a group of employees at the "Horse Shoeing Shop of the Government Repair Shops, 21st Street, Washington, D.C." taken by Alexander Gardner in March 1865. We were unable to locate any relics from Garrett's Bam making the present metal extremely rare and highly desirable.
JOHN WILKES BOOTH
John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865) was a member of the well-known Booth family of Shakespearean actors who was an erratic and popular performer. A supporter of slavery and the South, he participated in the arrest and execution of abolitionist John Brown in 1859. In the fall of 1864, he hatched a plan to kidnap President Abraham Lincoln but the scheme failed. He then concocted the plot to assassinate Lincoln, which he did in Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC on April 14, 1865 before jumping to the stage and allegedly crying out, "Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged!" Booth was located and killed 12 days later on a farm owned by Richard Henry Garrett in Port Royal, Virginia.
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