Preserving Our History

Fire of Liberty

Bloomberg columnist Joe Mysak has a good column out today which notes that the childhood home of John Wilkes Booth is up for sale and no-one's willing to pay the $805,000 that its current owners want for the restored home of the killer of Lincoln. As a lover of history I share Mysak's opinion that instead of letting this historic home being sold to the highest bidder or some property builders the state of Maryland should shell out the $805,000 and turn the home into a historic site for future generations to explore. With various historic books concentrating of Booth, Lincoln and the assassination appearing in the past five years, putting the home in the care of the state in an investment in preserving our past and gives readers, students, and future historians a piece of history to visit and touch thus giving them a connection to our past. Here's a look at Mysak's interesting column:

``County Seeks State Help to Preserve Tudor Hall,'' said a headline in the Baltimore Examiner after the failed auction. Back in March, the Baltimore Sun previewed the auction with an article headlined ``Family Home of J.W. Booth Too Pricey for Preservationists.''

I read these stories and thought: How is this possible? Are we so drowning in structures of great historical significance that we can let a building like this get away? How long can it be before a developer sizes up Tudor Hall and its eight-plus acres and decides the best thing is to tear it down and replace it all?

Practiced His Lines

The house was built by Booth's father, Junius, in 1847 about 25 miles northeast of Baltimore. In ``American Brutus'' (Random House, 2004), Michael W. Kauffman tells the tale:

``From a book of designs he chose a charming two-story, eight-room cottage in a neo-Gothic style. Built on a cruciform plan, it had a massive central chimney, a full-width front portico, steeply-pitched gables, and diamond-paned windows,'' Kauffman writes. ``They would name the place Tudor Hall, after Henry Tudor, the earl of Richmond and slayer of King Richard III.''

This was the atmosphere Booth grew up in, Kauffman relates, one in which fearless republicans (small ``r'') assassinated real or perceived tyrants. There is a little balcony outside one of the bedrooms on the second floor, where Wilkes, as his family called him, practiced his lines.

The house was built by the man who would become chief carpenter at Ford's Theatre in 1865, where Lincoln was shot.

Can you imagine not preserving such a thing for posterity? Can you imagine a better use for public finance than to step in and save this piece of American history? There's a lesson to be learned here: Our heritage is always in peril.

I have to agree with Mysak on his column and hope that the state of Maryland follows through in investing in on our history. Once a piece of history is gone it can never be recovered.

###Take a look at this piece by Andrew Ferguson's on the threats to our history in our nation and its education system and the importance of keeping the flame going.###