TV appearance of Lincoln assassination witness

I've Got a Secret ^ | 1956 | Samuel Seymour

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

See video at link. Wonderful

[Semper911]

Interesting, thanks.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

He was born in 1860 and was five years old when he witnessed the assassination. If you watch the clip, he says that all he remembers is someone falling from the balcony and hurting his leg. He was more concerned about the man who hurt his leg, not understanding that the President had been shot.

[boop]

I love that too. Smoked a pipe all his life and lived to 96. Remember kids, smoking kills!

[Taylor42]

From Wikipedia: Samuel James Seymour (March 28, 1860–April 12, 1956) was the last surviving person who had been present in Ford's Theater the night of the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. He was from Maryland and lived in Arlington, Virginia in his later years.

At age five, Seymour's godmother, Mrs. George S. Goldsboro, took him to see Our American Cousin. He claimed the two sat in the balcony on the side opposite Lincoln's box. Seymour reported that "I complained tearfully that I couldn't get out of the coach because my shirt was torn-anything to delay the dread moment-but Sarah (nurse Sarah Cook) dug into her bag and found a big safety pin. I shook so hard from fright, it caused Sarah to accidentally stab me with the pin. I hollered 'I've been shot! I've been shot!'."[citation needed]

Once in the theater Seymour settled down. He saw the President across the balcony as he was waving and smiling at people. Seymour said "I began to get over the scared feeling I'd had ever since we arrived in Washington, but that was something I never should have done. All of a sudden a shot rang out-a shot that always will be remembered-and someone in the President's box screamed. I saw Lincoln slumped forward in his seat." Seymour did not actually see the assassination but did witness Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth jump off the balcony and break his leg. In fact, he revealed that because he did not know Lincoln was shot or that Booth had shot him, his real concern was for Booth breaking his leg as he mentioned February 9, 1956 on the TV show "I've Got a Secret".

Two months before his death at age 96, he appeared on the CBS TV quiz show I've Got a Secret as a mystery subject, in an episode in which Lucille Ball made an unusual appearance as a guest panelist. Seymour died ninety-one years to the day of Lincoln's assassination, at the home of Mrs. Irene (Horn) Hendley, his daughter in Arlington, Va. He had been in failing health since February when he fell in a New York City hotel while preparing to appear on "I've Got A Secret". He came on the show with his left eye swollen. Garry Moore had suggested he not appear, but Seymour insisted.

[SunkenCiv]

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[sneakers]

I was born the same year as you, and I remember that tv show “What’s My Line”. Wasn’t the host Gary Moore?

[sneakers]

OOPS! That show was “I’ve Got a Secret”!

LOL!

[ApplegateRanch]

Nor did they have Lincoln back in the 1700's.

Nah; back then, Lincoln & Mercury weren't even a glimmer in Ford's eye.

[Lancey Howard]

Wow.. 1956.
That would make Mr. Seymour 151 today.
Wow..

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Did anybody ask him “outside of that, how was the play?”

[Cincinna]

Thanks Civ
This is a keeper!

[thecodont]

Thanks for posting this! What a reminder that our country is incredibly young.

I visited Ford’s Theater and saw a couple of plays there, on different occasions. Lincoln’s balcony was cordoned off and had a banner affixed to it. There was a small museum of Lincoln memorabilia on the premises. Ford’s Theater lay vacant for many years and was only restored to its original use in the late 1960s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford%27s_Theatre

[Textide]

Whoa! Thanks for the ping to this one. Amazing life span.

He was in his his teens when Little Big Horn happened and nearly 20 when the light bulb was invented. He was in his 40’s when the Wright Brothers flew. Of grandfatherly age (mid 50’s) during WWI. The year after his death, the Soviets launched Sputnik into orbit.

Remarkable to consider that a man’s life could span all of those events.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

He died April 12, 1956, two months and three days after his appearance on IGAS and two days short of the 91st anniversary of the assassination. According to Wikipedia, he died as a result of injures sustained in the hotel fall.

[curmudgeonII]

I can dimly remember my 96 year old Grandmother, in 1936, telling me that she had gone to Buffalo, NY to listen to a talk by Lincoln who was on his way to be inaugerated.

As I recall [I was 5 at the time] she said that Lincoln had a very high-pitched nasal voice with very much of a Hoosier accent.

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

I have vivid memories from the age of 5, a few between 4 and 5, and flashes of a memory or two before 4. My grandmother used to say “You don't remember that, you just heard someone talking about it.” I could never convince her otherwise.

An example of the latter is seeing a bright green, tiled wall while cradled in someones arms. It isn't a vivid, detailed memory, just a flash. I was in the hospital twice as a child. Once for tonsils at 18 months (doubtful) and once for eating a bottle of baby aspirin when I was about 3.

It is easy for me to accept this woman's memory is accurate. But my grandmother would say she only heard someone talking about it.:)

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

WHOOPS!

It is easy for me to accept this woman's memory is accurate
should be
It is easy for me to accept this gentleman's memory as accurate.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Priceless!

[afraidfortherepublic]

Thank you for posting the additional info about Mr. Seymour. I’m glad that he persisted and that his video clip survives.

[TheOldLady]

Click the Kitteh

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