An Eyewitness To President Lincoln's Assassination

Oct 24, 2012

Written by Pat

This is definitely one of the most interesting videos on the internet, particularly for any of you history enthusiasts out there. In an age when every tiny moment of everyone's life seems forever immortalized on YouTube, it reminds us of a time when even major news stories could take days or weeks to be announced.

For those in our younger demographics, there were once game shows that didn't involve living on an island, staying in a house with strangers, or competing against a super computer. Some old game shows were simple question and answer games like this one, I've Got A Secret. Plus, this was before cigarette advertising was banned so you'll even see a giant Winston display on the desk, and the prizes included tobacco products. In a time when million dollar prizes seem mundane, it's humorous to see that the total prize was $80 and a carton of smokes.

Now to the video: meet 96 year old Samuel J. Seymour. He was the last living witness to president Abraham Lincoln's assassination. He went to Fords Theatre with family friends and remembers being scared by a man jumping out of the balcony and hurting his leg. That man was the assassin himself, John Wilkes Booth who broke his ankle from the fall. If you want to read more about Mr. Seymour's story, you can check out this newspaper article called I Saw Lincoln Shot from The Milwaukee Sentinel's February 7, 1954 issue.

President Lincoln is everywhere of late. There is a highly recommended best selling book called Killing Lincoln about the true events of the fateful April day in Fords Theatre and what happened after. He also has been brought into the world of pop culture vampires, as a another fictional best seller Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is being released this week on DVD and Blu-Ray. If these aren't your speed I can only urge you to check out the new Steven Spielberg movie Lincoln which stars Daniel Day Lewis as Lincoln, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Todd Lincoln, Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens, and Sally Fields as Mary Todd Lincoln. It hits theatres November 16 and after seeing the trailer, my only question is this: do we just hand them over all of the Oscars now or wait until the spring?