A Tamaqua barber possibly knew of the plot to kill President Abraham Lincoln, and did everything in his power to prevent it.

Research suggests that American history would have unfolded much differently if people had heeded warnings of an alert man who blew the whistle.

Simon Jefferson claimed that John Wilkes Booth, Shakespearean actor, stopped in Tamaqua on his way to Washington, D.C.

During conversations, Booth allegedly revealed his plot to kill the president.

Jefferson said that Booth stopped at his barbershop inside the 1850 Anthracite Hotel, 133 W. Broad St. There, Jefferson shaved the man, at which time Booth told Jefferson of his evil intentions.

Experts say Booth was outspoken and bitter in his animosity toward the commander in chief.

“He hated Abraham Lincoln who represented everything Booth was against. Booth blamed Lincoln for all the South’s ills. He wanted revenge,” said Roger Norton, historian and author.

Theater circuit

“The first question would be, what would John Wilkes Booth be doing in Tamaqua?” said historian Jim Haldeman, Philadelphia, author and former Swarthmore educator. “Well, we know he was an actor playing the Boston to Washington, D.C., circuit. That could have put him in Tamaqua on train layover from New York City.”

Extensive research by late genealogist Bernie Coleman, Tamaqua, suggested an additional reason. Booth might have regularly stopped to see relatives.

“There were several Booths living in Tamaqua at that time, including a man named John Booth,” Coleman said.

Before his passing on Jan. 13, 2004, Coleman turned over his findings to the media, hoping the facts would augment public understanding of Civil War-era events and shine light on the close link to Tamaqua.

Among the documents is Jefferson’s obituary, printed in the Tamaqua Evening Courier on Aug. 28, 1886.

It states Jefferson’s claim that “Booth came to Tamaqua on his way from Canada to Virginia.”

According to a story published in the Tamaqua Anthracite Journal immediately after Lincoln’s death, Jefferson spoke of having seen Booth perform in a play in Virginia.

Common bond?

Some say it would not have been surprising for Booth to have confided in Jefferson. Both grew up in Maryland, just below the Mason-Dixon Line, a fact that would have emerged in their conversation, establishing a common bond.

After Booth left the barbershop, an alarmed Jefferson ran to authorities to tell of the plot. But police failed to act on the information.

Jefferson also reported the plot to John F. Bland, president of the Little Schuylkill Company, and George Brown, LSC mine superintendent. But again, nobody would listen.

“They sneered at the idea as an idle rumor intended to disturb the minds of northern patriots,” states the Courier story.

Frustrated, Jefferson traveled by train to Washington to warn the president. There he met his sister-in-law. The two went to the Capitol but were denied access.

Aftermath

Rebuffed, Jefferson returned to Tamaqua.

He continued to speak freely about what he tried to do. He went so far as to name names of those he alerted.

Interestingly, not one of those stepped forward to refute Jefferson’s allegations.

True to prediction, Lincoln was assassinated several weeks later. He was shot on April 14, 1865, while at Ford’s Theatre and died the following morning.

Sadly, details played out exactly the way Jefferson said they would. But it was too late.

Similarly, people also scoffed at Jefferson because he claimed to be a descendant of President Thomas Jefferson.

A black man descended from one of our Founding Fathers? Impossible, they said.

But in 1998, DNA testing suggested a link between Thomas Jefferson’s line and at least one child and possibly more of slave Sally Hemings.

Finally, in October 2015, Gettysburg researcher and Booth scholar Michele Behan of Missouri stumbled on what she believes to be a previously undocumented portrait of Booth.

She found it in a Gettysburg antiques shop. It has a back stamp indicating it to be the work of David Baily (1829-1901) of Tamaqua Baily Studios. Is it perhaps more proof that Booth was known to spend time in the town?

Next week: How did Simon Jefferson know so much? And what finally became of him?