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"What’s in a
name?"
Romeo and Juliet
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| Junius Booth, Sr. |
John Wilkes Booth was born on May 10, 1838 in a large log cabin set in a
clearing among the lilac-strewn primeval forests of northern Maryland, not far below the
Pennsylvania border. He was the ninth child of pretty, raven-haired Mary Ann Holmes and
Junius Brutus Booth, a barrel-chested stage actor who had made a name for himself as a
fine interpreter of Shakespeare. It was said he ruled his family with a presence "as
constant as the Northern star," a line taken from Julius Caesar. As a child,
Wilkes (as he preferred to be called) would tag along with his family on occasional
carriage trips to the nearest villages of Bel Air and Hickory. In town, he would listen
wide-eyed to the stories of old men who had taken part in the American Revolution; he
found their courage in the face of British bayonets fascinating. |
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His parents promoted this sort of inspiration, his father being related to
England’s agitator-statesman John Wilkes (for whom Wilkes was named) and his mother a
hopeless romantic. In fact, the latter had told him that, on the night he was born, she
had asked God to give her a hint of what her son’s future held in store for him. In
answer, she saw the flames in the open hearth form the image of letters that, as she
studied them, spelled the word "country." This, she believed, meant that he was
to endure the fires of persecution, but emerge as patriot in the final act.
In her memoirs of her brother, Asia Booth recalls this episode in verse:
"...I implore to know on this ghostly night
Whether t’will labor for wrong, or right,
For -- or against Thee?
The flame up-leapt
Like a wave of blood, an avenging arm crept
Into shape; and COUNTRY shone out in the flame..."
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| Mary Ann Holmes |
Indeed, his life began on a discordant note, despite this romantic
nurturing. He learned as a boy the necessity of having to defend his familial name against
scandal. Although his father had earned the respect of his profession -- as he was a
recognized headliner in his native Britain who successfully carried his craft to the
States -- their Maryland neighbors (as did many in the early 1800s) regarded actors as
nomads and voyeurs. One simply did not hang with stage people lest he or she suffered the
same social indentations. |
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Fueling the fire, the American public had learned that Junius
had deserted a wife in England and fled to the new country with this Mary Ann Holmes, a
flower peddler he had met outside London’s Covent Street Theatre. More so, Junius and
Mary Ann, even after conceiving 10 children in total, had never exchanged marriage vows!
Eventually the couple married -- probably more out of social pressure than desire -- but
outrage lives on. Many of their neighbors in town continued to forbid their children
association with the Booth brood. For Wilkes and his striplings, life was often lonely.
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