Word has just reached Tamaqua about a gem of a find made in Adams County.

A Gettysburg researcher who happens to be a scholar on the life of John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, has stumbled on what she believes might be a previously undocumented portrait of Booth apparently taken during a visit to Tamaqua.Michele Behan, a Missouri native and graduate of St. Louis University, discovered the portrait in late October 2015 at a Gettysburg antiques shop. After doing additional research, she contacted the Schuylkill County town last month.“When I found this photo, I instantly took a second look,” says Behan.The backstamp indicates the portrait to be the work of Tamaqua Baily Studios.Booth visitBehan says the photo has square corners typical of 1860s portraits and would date from the earliest years of photo pioneer David Baily, 1829-1901.Behan’s suspicions about the photo grew stronger as weeks went by and additional corroboration emerged.She says she found an online story from the book “Iron Steps — Illustrated History of Tamaqua, Pa.” by Donald R. Serfass. The book includes a chapter that tells of Booth’s visits to the town, based on published newspaper reports dating back to the 1800s.It was during one of those visits when Booth reportedly told Tamaqua barber Simon Jefferson about his plans to shoot the president.Jefferson was the first black resident of the community and claimed to be a descendant of Thomas Jefferson through slave Sally Hemmings. Booth and Jefferson were both natives of Maryland, a common bond that helped to forge a friendship.Jefferson said he warned town police and officials about Booth’s plans, stories well-documented by Jefferson in early newspaper interviews.But, it appears, nobody was ready to pay attention to a black man, not even a free black man, in those days.Jefferson said he even took a train to Washington, D.C., to warn Lincoln of impending doom.But his attempts fell on deaf ears. The rest is history.Jefferson went to his grave telling anybody who would listen about his rebuffed attempts to save the president. Those details also appear in his lengthy obituary printed in the Tamaqua Evening Courier on Aug. 28, 1886.Despite his noble mission, Jefferson lies in an unmarked grave in Odd Fellows Cemetery in Tamaqua.ThespianThere are a few plausible theories as to why Booth visited the growing town of Tamaqua, founded in 1799.For one, he was an actor playing the Boston to Washington, D.C., circuit, and Tamaqua was well-known for its minstrel shows.In addition, his travel itinerary “would have put him in Tamaqua on train layover from New York City,” says Jim Haldeman of Philadelphia, history author and Swarthmore educator.Late Tamaqua genealogist Bernie Coleman researched Booth’s life in the 1990s and said Booth might have stopped to see relatives in the South Ward.“There were several Booths living in Tamaqua at that time, including a man named John Booth,” said Coleman in an interview before his passing.To those familiar with Booth’s life, the existence of the photo doesn’t come as a surprise.Behan says Booth was known to be somewhat vain and drawn to photo studios wherever he went.Photography was in its infancy at that time, but Booth apparently was hooked on the technology. And it just so happened Tamaqua was home to Baily Studios, a prominent Civil War-era portrait shop.“He enjoyed visiting photography studios and had many photos taken of himself in his short lifetime. There are 44 documented images in the reference book ‘John Wilkes Booth Himself’ by Richard and Kellie Gutman,” says Behan.“Based on Booth’s propensity to having his photo taken, together with the geographical proximity of the photo studio to the barber shop that John Wilkes Booth is reputed to have visited, it is intriguing to contemplate that this may be a ‘lost’ photo of the man who assassinated President Lincoln while on a visit to Tamaqua, possibly traveling from Montreal in his work for the Confederate Army.”The story of the Tamaqua barber is key, she says.“When I first read about the barber’s encounter with John Wilkes Booth, I was particularly intrigued because that story squarely places Booth in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania.”Behan is raising the issue, as are historians, because Lincoln’s assassination is an important piece of our nation’s history and an event still being studied in great detail.A copy of the photo has been furnished to the Tamaqua Historical Society.If the photo is, in fact, Booth, as many seem to believe, it would be a previously unknown image and a major historical find of national significance. Archivists of our nation’s history undoubtedly will weigh in on the find.“If only photographs could talk,” says Behan.Local historians say the discovery gives credence to Simon Jefferson’s claims about Booth visiting his Tamaqua barber shop.The development also adds a new talking point in walking tours of the 55-block Tamaqua National Historic District.It appears John Wilkes Booth walked up and down the early sidewalks of what is now West Broad Street and left behind a picture to prove it.Local historians say a picture is worth a thousand words, and the newly discovered Booth photo is speaking volumes.Dale Freudenberger, president, Tamaqua Historical Society:“I compared other photos of Booth and studied all the different facial features and compared them and I feel pretty certain this is actually John Wilkes Booth taken by Baily Studios in Tamaqua. The cheek bones, jaw line, ears, eyes, hair color, mustache shape and hair under his lower lip all seem to match other photos of him. It also makes sense because we do know that Booth was in Tamaqua on his way to Washington to murder Lincoln and had his hair cut in Jefferson’s shop.“This also means that there is a 50 percent chance that the Tamaqua Historical Society may have this original negative in our Baily Studio Collection which has not been inventoried. If we do, it would be quite a significant piece of history both nationally and locally.”Bill Harleman, president, Lansford Historical Society:“I believe this is a great discovery for not only Tamaqua but our local area. It is amazing to be able to connect such a major player and event in our nation’s history to the town of Tamaqua. This photo provides the proof he was here.”