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Ever
since Dr. Samuel Mudd was convicted of conspiracy in the
murder of Abraham Lincoln, the remaining Mudds of Maryland
have attempted to clear his name. The family always
held that Mudd was innocent, that he had never met Booth
before, and that he did not know who Booth was when he
came to Mudd's farmhosue with a broken leg. They
also insist Booth wore a disguise that night. The
facts don't bear this out. It's been proven that
Mudd met Booth several times previously, and that Mudd
was a known Confederate sympathizer. As for the disguise,
Mrs. Mudd later said Booth's beard and mustache kept falling
off that night, and the next morning Booth didn't use a
disguise at all. Although it was 137 years ago, two
Mudd cousins, born long after their grandfather died, have
fought to clear his name, literally until their own dying
days.
Mudd's
grandson, Dr. Richard Mudd of Lansing, Michigan, died this
May at age 101. He
was most famous for petitioning every president since Franklin
Roosevelt to pardon his grandfather. Legally,
the president can only commute the sentence, which Andrew
Johnson did in 1869 to reward Mudd for assisting the prison
staff at Ft. Jefferson, Florida during a yellow fever epidemic. Samuel
Mudd cannot be pardoned, but that never stopped Richard
Mudd or the others from trying.
His
cousin, Louise Mudd Arehart, was born in the same house
where Samuel Mudd treated John Wilkes Booth. She
died last March at age 84. She
was already elderly and still living in the house when
she says her grandfather appeared to her. That
vision inspired her to restore the old house and open it
to tourists. She
said her grandfather appeared to her afterward and he seemed
much happier now that his side of the story was being told.
Arehart
would greet tour buses from the front porch dressed as
her grandmother might have been the night Booth arrived. Then
she or another family member would escort groups through
the house, and in the melodic accents heard only in these
parts of southeastern Maryland, tell the Mudd version of
events. The
most important stop was the bookstore, where she encouraged
everyone to buy her books about the Mudds, or pamphlets
with Maryland crab cake recipes, or miscellaneous items
of Confederabilia. She
let you know she appreciated it if you had exact change.
Not
long ago we were on one of those tours and we listened
to the saga of the poor country doctor who made the mistake
of answering his door in the early hours of April 15, 1865. Most
of us were skeptical, but that didn't diminish the sense
of intrigue or the excitement we felt being at the scene
of these historic events, and in the presence of this lively
lady. She
was something.
We
met a lady whose mother's father knew the man who killed
Abraham Lincoln. That's
just four degrees of separation. Now
Louise Mudd Arehart and the Mudds of her generation are
gone, and the degrees of separation will grow. Right
now it's hard to believe that just four degrees separate
us from Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, Samuel Mudd,
and the most defining event in American history.
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Learning Links
See
the story in pictures in this new book, Lincoln's
Assassins, Their Trial and Execution, by James
L. Swanson and Daniel R. Weinberg, Arena Editions,
Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2001.
The
late Louise Mudd Arehart on tour with Michael Burlingame
(far left) and Edwin C. Bearss (far right) at the Samuel
Mudd Farmhouse.
Photo
by Susan Dennis-used with permission
Visit
the Surratt
House Museum to compare the role played by another
Maryland family, the Surratts, in the assassination
of President Lincoln.
His Name Is Still Mudd--The Case Against
Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd,
by Edward Steers, Jr.,
Thomas Publications, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 1997.
Visit
historic Ford's
Theatre where it all ended for some, and began
for others.
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