List of Ford's Theatre Attendees

[Linda Anderson]

Another scenario is that Clara Harris thought she saw Booth check out the box (and perhaps she did, who knows?) and reported it later. The authorities either believed her or they didn't but in either case they may have advised her not to talk about it.

The reason I thought of that is because Seward's nurse, Pvt. George Robinson, gave an interview while he was in the hospital to the Evening Star, published on Apr. 18, 1865, in which he described seeing a man resembling the would be assassin come to the front dining room window of Seward's house on the mornings of April 13 and April 14 while Robinson was eating breakfast. The man knocked on the window and asked about Seward who at that time was bedridden as a result of a carriage accident on April 5. Robinson answered the man each time, assuming he was a family friend. Robinson had only been attending Seward since April 12.

https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83045462/...39,0.267,0

Seward's oldest son, Gus, paid a visit to Robinson in the hospital soon after the article was published. Gus wrote a letter to Col. Wells dated April 21, 1865, which included Robinson's statement about the man at the window.

I wonder what the Seward family's reaction was when they read the article in the Evening Star. I assume that Gus advised Robinson to stop giving interviews until after the trial. I have never seen Robinson refer to the man at the window again, including in his trial testimonies and in interviews he later gave.