The Night of the Iron Tyrants

Trick or Treat?

All of the below is based on the fictional account from The Wild, Wild, West.
Unfamiliar with that so I cannot comment but I do have the below excerpt from 
America on the Rerun by Bethany Andreasen.

America on the Rerun, ch. 12: The Wild, Wild West (pt. 6)

"......The end result was "The Night of the Iron Tyrants," which is
based upon historical fact, with embellishment, such as the
Knights of the Golden Circle, a subversive group which West
believes orchestrated the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. So
West and Gordon go in search of the eighteen pages missing from
assassin John Wilkes Booth's diary.
According to Ellis, the Knights enlist the aid of evil Dr.
Loveless in an attempt to come up with advanced airships...."

ARKANSAS AIRSHIP ENCOUNTER 1897

One of the strangest close encounters of the "airship era" took place 101 years ago, on May 6, 1897, near Blue Ouachita Mountain, just northwest of Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Constable John J. Sumpter Jr. and Deputy Sheriff John McLemore of Garland County left Hot Springs on horseback to investigate reports of cattle rustling. They rode north on what is now Highway 7 to Jessieville.

Here is their story in their own words:
"While riding northwest from this city (Hot Springs) on the night of May 6, 1897, we noticed a brilliant light high in the heavens. Suddenly it disappeared and we said nothing about it, as we were looking for parties and did not want to make any noise." "After riding four or five miles around through the hills, we again saw the light, which appeared to be much nearer the earth. We stopped our horses and watched it coming down, until all at once it disappeared behind another hill. We rode on about half a mile further, when our horses refused to go farther." "Almost a hundred yards distant we saw two persons moving around with lights. Drawing our Winchesters--for we were now thoroughly aroused as to the importance of the situation--we demanded, 'Who is that, and what are you doing?'"

"A man with a long dark beard came forth with a lantern in his hand, and on being informed who we were, proceeded to tell us that he and two others--a young man and a woman--were traveling through the country in an airship." "We could plainly distinguish the outlines of the vessel, which was cigar-shaped and almost sixty feet long, and looking just like the cuts that have appeared in the papers recently."

"It was dark and raining and the young man was filling a big sack with water about thirty yards away, and the woman was particular to keep back in the dark. She was holding an umbrella over her head. The man with the whiskers invited us to take a ride, saying that he could take us where it was not raining." "We told him we preferred to get wet." "Asking the man why the brilliant light was turned on and off so much, he replied that the light was so powerful that it consumed a great deal of his motive power. He said he would like to stop off in Hot Springs for a few days and take the hot baths, but his time was limited and he could not. He said they were going to wind up at Nashville, Tennessee, after thoroughly seeing the country.

Being in a hurry, we left, and upon our return, about forty minutes later, nothing was to be seen. We did not hear or see the airship when it departed."

Original Source: Helena, Arkansas Weekly World for May 13, 1897

Reprinted in OPERATION TROJAN HORSE by John A. Keel, Manor Books, New York, N.Y. 1970, page 72.)

According to Martin Walker, author of THE PRESIDENT WE DESERVE, James Eldridge Cassidy, President Clinton's maternal grandfather, was born in this area of Arkansas in 1898, a year after the Sumpter/ McLemore encounter. It would be interesting to find out if either Sumpter or McLemore is related to the Cassidy or Eldridge families. James E. Cassidy, a grocery store owner, died in 1957.)

The Great Airship reports

Great Airship

excerpt from http://keelynet.com/keely/airship2.txt

Chicago Record.......Friday, April 2, 1897
See Great Airship
Kansas Missouri, Missouri people excited.....mystical black object
casting before it red light startled whole city for the last two weeks!

At last descended...ten-thousand people swear they have no
hallucinations! Scoffers and disbelievers claim the people have
been seeing the planet Venus or the Evening Star, even though
according to the almanac this planet should have set below the
horizon at least an hour before!
Object appeared very swiftly, then appeared to stop and hover over
the city for ten minutes at a time, then after flashing its green-
blue and white lights, shot upwards into space....light gradually
twinkling away and looking like a bright star.

Time : 8:15 PM

----------------------------------------------------------

Everest, Kansas has sighted a strange airship.

Competent reporters state that this must be the airship that was
built in Oakland, California and which broke away at launching
time...this giant airship hovered one half hour at a time and
descended at regular intervals very close to the Earth.

A giant searchlight flooded the whole city with light from this
aerial monster which with the velocity of an eagle darted up and away.

Power source must have been attached to the light for it dimmed as
the ship went up and away. One observer states that there seemed
to be a basket or car beneath a great dark object thought to be a
gas bag overhead...car was shaped like a canoe and had four wings,
two on each side, fore and aft...light was greenish or blue
against the light of a locomotive in the rail yard that was
yellowish. Colored lights seemed to be all around the car."

----------------------------------------------------------

Chicago Record, April 3, 1897

Flying Machine Now in Michigan!

People of Galesburg saw a brilliant white light approach from
SW...object appeared large and black with a crackling, sharp
sound. It hovered close to the Earth. Reporters state that they
heard HUMAN VOICES from aloft...from the airship!
When the ship went off, it seemed to be tipped with flame. (Local
comment was that the airship had caught fire!)

Time : 10:00 PM

----------------------------------------------------------

Chicago Record, April 6, 1897

Airship Now Into Illinois

Seen first at 8:00 PM in NW....large red light. Suggestions of
balloon are refuted because airship flew at tremendous speed
INTO A HIGH WIND!

----------------------------------------------------------

Chicago Record, April 7, 1897

Airship seen many times last few weeks. Large numbers of people
first hand witnesses. One time, a motorman of a trolley actually
stopped his vehicle so he and passengers could look at the
wonderful sight...just ahead of his trolley, the ship seemed about
six-hundred feet up and about one-hundred feet long.

The motorman, Mr. Newville, says it was ellipsoid with large
projections fore and aft. There was a bright headlight in front
and a red light in the rear."

----------------------------------------------------------

From Hastings, Nebraska, came the report that the "airship" had
been seen in Grand Island, Oxford, York and Kearney. Scoffers
claimed these people had seen Venus, yet all the reporters were
people of substance and not given to reporting spurious stories.

----------------------------------------------------------

Chicago Record, April 9, 1897

Airship Seen in Iowa

Between West Liberty and Cedar Rapids appeared a bright
light...giant airship...steel body. When leaving it appeared to
be a large star weaving about and stars do not weave around the
heavens!

----------------------------------------------------------

Chicago Record, April 10, 1987

Airship Sighted over Chicago and Evanston!

People are tripping over themselves these days trying to get the
best look at this green and white-lighted giant airship that has
had the people all over the mid-west in a dither.
Some people think the end of the world is near...Scientific minds
have explained the whole thing away by now. The mystery will
surely be cleared up in the next few days. Mr. Carr, an aeronaut,
has built an experimental balloon and is financed by a New York
theatrical wig manufacturing company...Mr. Carr states his machine
works marvelously, but CANNOT GO AGAINST THE WIND...power is
storage battery with propeller!

Professor Hough of Northwestern University and head astronomer of
the observatory stated when asked to train his telescope on the
object : 'I am busy with sights on Jupiter and it would be too
troublesome to change to look at this new thing.' The next day,
Hough said: 'The thousands of people that are reporting this so-
called strange airship are in reality looking at Alpha Orionis in
the Constellation Orion!"

----------------------------------------------------------

Chicago Record, April 12, 1897

Giant Airship Continues Over Chicago and Environs!

People all over the city are in an uproar, and while everyone is
viewing this grand sight on the south side, two amateur
photographers who are news dealers in Rogers Park, looked out and
saw the airship.
Their photo shows the north Western Railway station and above it
the reported airship! The photographers are Walter McCann and
G.A. Overocker. This airship was seen to come in over the lake
and traverse the whole city for several days."

----------------------------------------------------------

The same report with an Omaha date line of April 11th says :

"A gentleman brags he has mystery airship problem solved. He
is an inventor and desires that he be allowed thirty-five
acres to demonstrate his airship for the Trans-Mississippi
Exposition. The gentleman didn't sign his name, but the
reporter hopes the dilemma will be settled by his promises."

----------------------------------------------------------

The same report again, with a Fort Dodge, Iowa date line of April
11th says:

"Old German residents say that this very same type of airship
came over Germany THIRTY YEARS before and the people were
scared to death...said the devil's army was approaching and
these were his vehicles."

----------------------------------------------------------

The same report again, with a Milwaukee, Wisconsin date line of

April 11th says:

"The residents of Milwaukee cannot be talked out of what they
are seeing...thousands report the authenticity of a giant,
beautiful airship with colored lights...the police records
are full of the story for they have been called to answer
what it is!"

----------------------------------------------------------

Chicago Record, April 13, 1897

Airship Called a Hoax!

Several notable citizens are known to have caused airship
scene...remains of paper and wood device in wreckage in their
yard.' (No name given of the 'notables')

----------------------------------------------------------

The above mentioned device was supposed to have been in the

wreckage, but another column in the same paper said:
"Airship seen in Rock Island, Illinois and Elkhart, Illinois!"
How could it have been seen if it had been wrecked?

----------------------------------------------------------

Chicago Tribune, April 12, 1897

"One chap knows all about the airship. He says: 'These thousands
of people didn't see a steel hull because this is the airship my
friend built in California and is on its way here to Chicago.
Although, I must say, he sure has made good time for he isn't due
until NEXT WEEK and the hull is PAPER, not steel. My friend, O.
Chanute is on board too and I will introduce all of you to him
when he arrives!"

The man who spoke the above was Secretary of the Chicago
Aironautical Society, Max L. Harmar.

----------------------------------------------------------

The same strange sightings were made at Sisterville, Virginia.

----------------------------------------------------------

In 1897 and other years, there were also amazing observances in

Texas.

An excerpt from the book "Genesis" published by Dell and written
by W. A. Harbinson, copyright 1982 gives more information on the
sightings from the late 1800's:

"The first major AirShip flap was in 1896 - about November of that
year - and continued until May 1897. This was five years
BEFORE the Wright brothers experiments, but there were, by
this time, various airship designs on the drawing boards or
in the Patent Office.
On August 11, 1896, patent number 565805 was given to Charles
Abbot Smith of San Francisco for an airship he intended
having ready by the following year. Another patent, number
580941, was issued to Henry Heintz of Elkton, South Dakota,
on April 20, 1897. However, while many sightings were
shaped roughly like the patent designs, there is no record of
either airship having been built."
"At that time the general belief was that aerial navigation
would be solved through an airship rather than a heavier-
than-air flying machine - so most of the eariler designs
looked like dirigibles with a passenger car on the bottom.

"What stands out in the 1896 and 1897 sightings is that they
frequently landed, to talk to the witnesses, usually asking
for WATER FOR THEIR MACHINES.

"The most intriguing of the numerous contact stories involved
a man who called himself Wilson. The first incident occurred
in Beaumont, Texas on April 19, 1897, when J. B. Ligon, the
local agent for Magnolia Brewery, and his son Charles noticed
lights in the Johnson pasture a few hundred yards away and
went to investigate.

"They came upon two men standing beside a large, dark object
which neither of the witnesses could see clearly. One of
these men asked Ligon for a bucket of water, Ligon let these
men have it, and then the man gave his name as Mr. Wilson.

"He then told Ligon that he and his friends were travelling in
a flying machine, that they had taken a trip 'out of the
gulf', and they were returning to the 'quiet Iowa town' where
the airship AND FOUR OTHERS LIKE IT had been constructed.
"When asked, Wilson explained that ELECTRICITY POWERED THE
PROPELLERS AND WINGS OF THE AIRSHIP, then he and his friends
got into the airship and Ligon watched it ascending.
"The next day, April 20, Sheriff H. W. Baylor of Uvalde, also
in Texas, went to investigate a strange light and voices in
back of his house. He encountered an airship and three men
-and one of the men gave his name as Wilson, from Goshen, New
York.

"Wilson then inquired about one C. C. Akers, former sheriff of
Zavalia County, saying that he had met him in Fort Worth in
1877 and now wanted to see him again. Sheriff Baylor,
surprised, replied that Captain Akers was now at Eagle Pass,
and Wilson, reportedly disappointed, asked to be remembered
to him the next time Sheriff Baylor visited him.
"Baylor reported that the men from the airship wanted water
and that Wilson requested that their visit BE KEPT SECRET
FROM THE TOWNSPEOPLE. Then he and the other men climbed back
into the airship and, quote, "its great wings and fans were
set in motion and it sped away northward in the direction of
San Angelo.' The county clerk also saw the airship as it left
the area.
"Two days later, in Josserand, Texas, a whirring sound
awakened farmer Frank Nichols, who looked out of his window
and saw 'brilliant lights streaming from a ponderous vessel
of strange proportions' in his cornfield. Nichols went
outside to investigate, but before he reached the object, two
men walked up to him and asked if they could have water from
the well.
"Nichols agreed to this - as farmers in those days usually did
- and the men then invited him to visit the airship where he
noticed that there were six or eight crew members. One of
these men told him that the ship's motive power was 'HIGHLY
CONDENSED ELECTRICITY' and that it was ONE OF FIVE THAT HAD
BEEN CONSTRUCTED in 'a small town in Iowa' with the backing
of a large stock company IN NEW YORK (close to Philadelphia
where Keely had his laboratory!!....Vangard).
"The next day, on April 23, witnesses described by the HOUSTON
POST as 'two responsible men' reported that an airship had
descended where they lived in Kountze, Texas, and that two of
the occupants had given their names as Wilson and Jackson.
"Four days after this incident, on April 27, the GALVESTON
DAILY NEWS printed a letter from C. C. Akers, who claimed
that he had indeed known a man in Fort Worth named Wilson,
that Wilson was from New York, that he was in his middle
twenties, and that he was 'OF A MECHANICAL TURN OF MIND AND
WAS THEN WORKING ON AERIAL NAVIGATION AND SOMETHING THAT
WOULD ASTONISH THE WORLD.
"Finally, early in the evening of April 30, in Deadwood,
Texas, a farmer named H. C. Lagrone heard his horses bucking
as if in stampede. Going outside, he saw a bright white
light circling around the fields nearby and illuminating the
entire area before descending and landing in one of the
fields.
"Walking to the landing spot, Lagrone found a crew of five
men, three of whom talked to him while the others collected
water in rubber bags. The man informed Lagrone that their
ship was ONE OF FIVE that had been flying around the country
recently, that theirs was in fact the SAME ONE that had
landed in Beaumont a few days before, that all the ships had
been constructed in an interior town in Illinois -which
borders Iowa -and that they were reluctant to say anything
else because they had NOT YET TAKEN OUT ANY PATENTS. By May
of that same year, the sightings ended...."

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Knights_of_the_Golden_Circle
http://knights-of-the-golden-circle.blogspot.com

In God We Trust

Worth noting is the use of the number of eight pointed stars by the artist.

http://www.leverguns.com/desktop/Stars_and_Bars-1862.jpg

Slavery And Disinformation

Slavery And Disinformation

Posted By: Patriotlad
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi/noframes/read/4293

To bring up the Knights of the Golden Circle is to bring up what is a very thorny problem in American history:

If, as has been suggested, the Knights Templar have from time to time, allowed similar sounding organizations to germinate, and then flourish, and then slowly pass away -- in order to divert attention from themselves or the true location of their children and their resources, then this could be one of those puzzles.

The principal historical resources available today postulate that the Knights of the Golden Circle were a semi-secret organization, based originally in Cincinnati, Ohio, and founded by one Dr. George Bickley. Their first units of organization were called "castles" and their purpose -- if we can but believe it -- was to advance the interests of the slave-holding classes and to keep the character of "the Southern man" on the straight and narrow.

Radicals and certain left-wing scholars have concluded that the Scottish Rite Freemasons were the true authors of the Golden Circle worldview, and that this "social disease" was a kind of mass hysteria that was generated by fear of the potency of the Negro male, or was a reaction to the influx of Irish immigrants, and so on. One author was much more bold, and wrote a paper which was later posted on the Internet, accusing one Killian Van Rennselaer of being the British agent who sponsored the actual formation of the Golden Circle. He was not clear as to whether this man was the same man who, as a New York member of Congress in 1810, provided one of three "no" votes against the Titles of Nobility Amendment (the lone vote against it in the Senate also coming from New York), or whether it was his son or nephew.

The Golden Circle was envisioned as encompassing the lands from Florida to southern Mexico, and the council of the Golden Circle was charged with assembling the necessary leadership "cadres" to enable a new southern empire to arise, once secession split the chivalrous southern States off and away from the federal union.
This was certainly the view of those radical abolitionists who wrote about the Golden Circle in 1862. They noted that the Knights had sympathizers in every State of the union.

A similar organization which apparently developed in Missouri was called "the Order of American Knights," and this may be the group that Jesse James was active in, or initiated into: the Golden Circle has been accused by left-liberals of being the "precursor" for the Ku Klux Klan, and these "thinkers" also tied the actions of Masons like John A. Quitman, Governor of Mississippi, and the accused leader of the Cuban Filibusters of 1850, to the Golden Circle. I have not encountered such information coming from non- leftist sources, however. Quitman may have followed the Templar philosophy, tho' in which case his murder was a pro-British action benefitting pro-slavery lawyers in New York City.

It is certain that there exists, today, a John A. Quitman Masonic Lodge.

Without being too specific, it seems that the Golden Circle was at its peak in or around 1856, when the left-liberals accuse it and John Quitman of assembling "a secret army" to conquer Cuba and then to move on to Mexico, where the Catholic Church was to be exterminated in detail, and a new slave-based aristocracy was to be installed. Here they agree with the abolitionists of the early 1860s.

After the War of Rebellion got going in earnest, it appears that the leaders of the Order and of the Golden Circle agreed on a merger, which was conducted in 1862 and which was closely associated from then on with Copperhead Democrats.

The Copperheads were led by Clement Vallandigham, a member of Congress from Ohio, and were bitterly opposed to the war policies of Abraham Lincoln. It is for certain that the Order of American Knights absorbed some of the "castles" of the Golden Circle and that the new group was strong enough, by December of 1863, to meet in convention in New York City. Held early in 1864, this group or Order was pledged -- openly -- to defying the draft law of the union, the war orders of Lincoln, and to assisting men who either refused to enter the army or who actually deserted. That aspect of the Order's activities remains in question.

One historian claims that the Order of American Knights, when they met in convention in 1864, had some $500,000 in gold in their treasury and at least 250,000 adult male members in the northern tier of States alone. At the convention Vallandigham was elected to be the president of a new and re-styled group, which decided to call itself "the Sons of Liberty." Other historical sources insist that this motley crew plotted to separate the northwestern States from the union by creating an armed insurrection against Lincoln, from which a new Northwestern Confederacy would arise. It would call back all of their State regiments from the war -- which means all of Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota's troops would have been withdrawn.

Here the story gets cloudy. By hook or by crook, Abraham Lincoln seems to have finally focused on this Order and on Vallandigham, and he took steps to have its principal leaders arrested or intimidated (including Vallandigham), and the so-called plot or Northwest Conspiracy evaporated like winter snow in the spring of 1864. Nor was the Order of American Knights heard from again.

Here is where the problems begin: if John A. Quitman was the leader of the Golden Circle, as a Scottish Rite Freemason, what was his motivation for helping to organize an expedition to free Cuba from Spanish rule? The pro-slavery lawyers of New York and Philadelphia -- who clustered around the Bar of Philadelphia and James Buchanan, as Secretary of State -- were busily defending every American engaged in the smuggling of slaves at that time.

As the case of "La Amistad" shows, the Spanish agents who were operating out of Cuba were always the main culprits in helping to bring slaves into the United States, and their business interests were adamantly defended by the royal government of Spain. The queen of Spain was so irked by the refusal of the federal courts in the United States to return the Amistad, and its cargo of slaves to its Spanish owners, that she pursued it vigorously until the end of the Civil War, or late 1865.

When the Cuban Filibusters failed to incite an insurrection in Cuba, and were arrested by the Spanish authorities, the people of New Orleans were so irate about this reversal that they burned the Spanish consulate and trampled its flag in the mud. When John A. Quitman was indicted for being the leader of "these Filibusters," the man hired by the federal court system to prosecute him was none other than Judah P. Benjamin, the British West Indies born Jew who had risen to prominence in New Orleans.

A lawyer who had written a comprehensive review of Louisiana's laws, and who had been elected to their State legislature, Benjamin was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1848 (or when Buchanan and his pro-slavery cabal were busily promoting their new edition of the Constitution, one without any mention whatsoever of the original Thirteenth).

Four trials were commenced against Quitman and four hung juries were the result: at some point in the proceedings, Quitman did publicly accuse Benjamin of having accepted $25,000 in Spanish gold to continue the "persecution." If that had been proven, and if the case had been taken into a court where the original Thirteenth Amendment might have been recognized, then a duly- convicted Benjamin would have been automatically stripped of his citizenship. He would be unable to practice law, sign a bond, witness a deed, serve on a jury in most states, or get elected.

But Quitman went free, the Slidell brothers got Benjamin elected to the Senate in 1852, and Buchanan was sent to England. When he returned, Quitman was now a Representative of Mississippi in the federal capital and a leading contender for the Presidency, with a commendable war record and enormous popularity.

By the end of 1857, Quitman was dead of a slow-acting poison, one ingested at a dinner honoring the new President, James Buchanan, and the power brokers of Slidell and Benjamin were firmly in control of the Democratic Party. It was Buchanan who cajoled and bullied Roger Taney into making the decisions we now refer to as "the Dred Scott case." It was Buchanan who did nothing while the country slid down the slippery slope into secession and war.

Furthermore, two anomalies appear with regard to Quitman and the Golden Circle: three times during his life, the legislature of Mississippi voted to issue books of their laws -- with the Constitution and the original Thirteenth Amendment intact and in its proper position. He was both Acting Governor and Governor, and a man of property there, so he would have owned these books.

Second, in the waning weeks and days of the Buchanan regime, with several States having left and others leaving, the House tried repeatedly to draft and pass a compromise as originally set forth by John J. Crittenden of Kentucky. One version consisted of five separate articles of amendment preserving slavery in the States where it existed and banning it in new territories. Another one created, by law, a prohibition against any man of African origin ever holding citizenship or obtaining the privilege of voting.

Just two or three days before the inauguration of Lincoln, a very short version of those proposals -- known as "the Corwin Amendment, for Thomas Corwin of Ohio -- was passed by the House in a 2/3rds vote of the members present. It acted to preserve the terms of labor and service in any State where slavery was then in existence, forever, and it was moved with the blessings of James Buchanan. It begins with the words "Article Thirteen:"

It is the only amendment ever written by Congress with a number included in its text! Thomas Corwin was from the Cincinnati area and was surely familiar with George Bickley and the Knights of the Golden Circle (unless he was elected by ghost voters). What is more puzzling, is that Abraham Lincoln later appointed Corwin to be his ambassador to Mexico! The whole purpose of the Circle was, apparently, to subjugate and conquer all of Mexico.

The Corwin Amendment was mentioned, indirectly, by Lincoln in his inaugural address of March 4, 1861, and then never again so far as I know. It was ratified by Maryland and Ohio and then it was forgotten (except for an irregular ratification by convention in the State of Illinois). It remains "in play" today, an active article of amendment never since withdrawn by a 2/3rds vote of Congress and it could be ratified by the action of 3/4ths of the thirty-four States in the union as of 1861.

So there are three separate amendments which have been called "thirteen:" the real one passed in 1810 and ratified in 1819, the faux or Corwin article, passed on March 2, 1861 (and not yet ratified), and the Anti-Slavery article of 1865, which is the lawful Article XIV and was so recognized by both Kansas as a State (1868), and in the Territories of Colorado (1868) and Wyoming (1876). It was also labelled Article XIII by Lincoln.

Given that the Knights Templar have been at odds with the bloody British and their banking monopolies, it is hard to see how they could have been involved in perpetuating slavery in the new world and specifically by overthrowing the Spanish government of Cuba.

Had the Cuban Filibusters succeeded in stirring up a revolt in Cuba, the laws of the United States would have come into effect when the island was admitted as a Territory, and the slave trade there would have ceased -- even if slavery itself had continued!

This would have seriously impacted the financial well-being of the brokers and ship-owners who occupied the finest houses in Portsmouth, Providence, and New York City. It would not have been a benefit to the British cotton factors or their factories, and all at a time when free men and free labor in Texas were showing the whole world that cotton could be had more cheaply under freedom and on free soil than not! It would have been a serious impediment to persons writing mortgages on land and on the slaves held in southern plantation States, or even out west in northern Missouri. A free Cuba would have made southerners like Quitman even more popular than they already were!

My conclusion is that there is some serious disinformation at work, here, and that if Jesse James was an enemy of the railroad tycoons of that time, he was an enemy of British financial power.
It may be that the Knights created some aspects of the Order of American Knights, only to see it suborned and converted to the purposes of the New World Order, a la' Queen Victoria, the scion of Opium and the destroyer of China. Or the left-liberals may be correct and the British agents installed in New York at the time of Alexander Hamilton may have created both the Knights of the Golden Circle and the successor organization, the Ku Klux Klan.

It is for certain that the lawful actions of the Territory of Nebraska established yet one more set of bona fides for the original Thirteenth Amendment, which is apparently a major thorn in the paw of the British Lion, and its plans for creating a new slave class in the new global economy, on their new Global Plantation.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Knights_of_the_Golden_Circle
http://knights-of-the-golden-circle.blogspot.com

The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

EXCERPT: "In the fall of 1860, John Wilkes Booth reportedly became a Knights of the Golden Circle initiate in Baltimore. Booth attended Lincoln's second inauguration on March 4, 1865, as the invited guest of his secret fiancée Lucy Hale, the daughter of John P. Hale, soon to be United States Ambassador to Spain. Booth remarked afterwards, "What an excellent chance I had, if I wished, to kill the President on Inauguration day!"

The full text can be read at:
http://www.ovimagazine.com/art/5667

GEN. ALBERT PIKE IDENTIFIES BOOTH

Here we see General Albert Pike identifying a living John Wilkes Booth in Texas in 1884. Its seems some folks just will not stay "dead". - CCC

Chapter XV. Gen. Albert Pike Identified Booth beginning page 222

Excerpt from: The escape and suicide of John Wilkes Booth:
or, The first true account of Lincoln's assassination,
containing a complete confession by Booth
by Finis Langdon Bates, 1907
http://www.archive.org/details/escapesuicideofj00bate

CHAPTER XV.

GEN. ALBERT PIKE IDENTIFIES BOOTH.

While trying to trace Booth after he left Fresno,
California, I read a story from Col. Edward Levan,
of Monterey, Mexico. He says that a man whom he
believed to be Booth roomed with him during the
winter of 1868, in Lexington, Kentucky. The two
became quite friendly, and Col. Levan openly de-
clared to the man, who was going by the name of
J. J. Marr, that he believed him to be John Wilkes
Booth. Mr. Marr did not deny the allegation, but
shortly thereafter left Lexington, where he was
"playing the character of a lawyer."

Col. Levan says that he afterward learned that
Mr. Marr had settled at Village Mills, Texas, and
from there went to Glenrose Mills, Texas, at which
place I first met John St. Helen, and where he de-
clared himself to be John Wilkes Booth.

Col. M. W. Connolly, a distinguished newspaper
man, at present and for many years past connected 
The Veteran Mason, Statesman, Lawyer and Poet, as He
Appeared at the Time of His Recognition of John Wilkes
Booth at Port Worth, Texas, in 1885.
with the leading papers as editor-in-chief, a gentle-
man of the highest type, a brilliant writer and a man
of honor and integrity, says :

"I am strongly inclined to believe that David B.
George, who died at Enid, Oklahoma Territory, was
John Wilkes Booth, the man who killed Lincoln.

"In 1883, while in the little town of Village Mills,
Texas, I met George, although I never knew his
name, and cannot say whether he went under that
name or not. He impressed me. I had seen Edwin
Booth once in Galveston, and had some knowledge
of the appearance of the Booth family. Later I went
to Fort Worth as editor of the Gazette, under the
late Walter Malone. I had forgotten all about my
casual acquaintance of Village Mills.

"One night I was in the Pickwick Hotel barroom
talking to Gen. Albert Pike, who had come down
from Washington on legal business. I had called on
him to inquire about a claim against the government
in which he was interested the claim of the heirs
of my wife's grandfather, Major Michie, of La-
Grange, Tennessee, whose cotton and cotton gins
were burned by the Federal troops when Grant was
at LaGrange. Capt. Day, of Day & Maas, proprie-
tors, was behind the bar. It was in 1884 or 1885,
and we were unconventional then.

"Tom Powell, mayor of Fort Worth, joined us, and
Temple Houston, youngest son of the ex-Governor
of Tennessee, the man who whipped Santa Anna at
San Jaeinto, and the first president of the Texas
republic (Gen Sam Houston), was there. I was
about to leave, was waiting for a pause in order to
excuse myself ; Gen. Pike was explaining how he had
been credited with the authorship of 'The Old
Canoe,' which he said was written by some woman;
just then my Village Mills friend came in accom-
panied by some one, I think Long Scurlock, who
used to edit the Chronicle at Cleburne, Texas. Capt.
Day turned to make a change. I was watching Gen.
Pike closely (trying to get away), when suddenly
he threw up his hands, his face white as his hair and
beard, and exclaimed :

'"My God! John Wilkes Booth!' He was much
excited, trembled like an aspen, and at my sugges-
tion went to his room. He seemed weakened by the
shock, the occasion of which I could not realize at
the moment. I saw him climb the stairs to his room
and turned to look for my Village Mills acquaint-
ance, but could not find him.

"While talking to Temple Houston the next morn-
ing I pointed out my Village Mills friend when I
was called to Gen. Pike, who was standing on the
opposite side of the street, and Temple Houston
promised me that he would look the man up and get
a story. I have heard that the alleged Booth, the
man whom I had met, moved to the Territory later,
but I took no newspaper interest in the matter.

"I never saw J. Wilkes Booth, but I have seen his
pictures, and while I am in no way certain, I am
strongly of the belief that the man who died at Enid
was John Wilkes Booth. I am quite sure that the
venerable author of 'Every Year* believed it was
the infatuated actor, and I am sure that he was
amazed to find that his bewailment, 'There are fewer
to regret us,' did not include the man who took a
leading part in our great national tragedy."

It is of interest in this connection to state that
Fort Worth, Texas, is only about forty-fives miles
to the northeast of Grandberry, Texas, my old home
and St. Helen's. It was from this place, in 1878,
that he drifted to Leadville, Colorado, and from
thence to Fresno, California, and was next seen in
1884 or 1885 at Fort Worth, Texas, near his old
home, by Gen. Albert Pike, in company with M.
W. Connolly, and by Gen. Pike recognized as John
Wilkes Booth.

The man supposed to be Booth was seen by others
before he settled at Glenrose Mills, for Dr. H. W.
Gay says :

"I knew John Wilkes Booth in 1857, and while I
was at Fort Donaldson, a prisoner of war, the news
was flashed over the world that President Lincoln
had been slain by John Wilkes Booth. I was horri-
fied to think of such a thing, for Booth, though a
boy when I knew him, in appearance was the most
accomplished gentleman with whom I had ever come
in contact. All who knew him well were captivated
by him. He was the most hospitable, genial fellow
to be met, and when drinking or much in company,
he was always quoting Shakespeare, or some other
poet. How many times have I seen him strike a
tragic attitude and exclaim:

O'The aspiring youth who fires the Ephesians dome
Outlives in fame the pious fools who reared it.'

"I read of his capture and death and never
doubted it until the year 1869. I was then living in
what is now Tate county, Mississippi. One evening
about dusk a man came to my house claiming that
he was one of the Ku-Klux Clan run out of Arkansas
by Clayton's militia (the Clayton referred to being
Powell Clayton, until recently Ambassador to Mexico).

"I soon recognized this man as an erratic fellow.
During his stay at my house he told me that John
Wilkes Booth was not killed, but made his escape
and spent a short while in Mexico with Maximilian 's
army, but got into trouble, and his life was saved
by reason of the fact that he was a Catholic. The
man also stated that during Booth's short stay in
Mexico he had lived in disguise as an itinerant Cath-
olic priest. He also told me the story of how Booth
had escaped after the assassination was done, and it
corresponded exactly with Mr. Bates' story as told
by John St. Helen, even to the crossing of the Mis-
sissippi river at Catfish Point and going thence up
the Arkansas river to Indian Territory. And that
Booth afterward met Junius Brutus Booth and his
mother in San Francisco."

This meeting was possibly arranged while John
Wilkes Booth was in the Indian Territory, and may
explain in some measure his employment to drive a
team from Nebraska City, Nebraska, to Salt Lake,
Utah, for Mr. L. Treadkel, in 1866 or 1867, and his
unceremonious desertion of duty before reaching
Salt Lake City.

So we have Booth, or St. Helen, meeting his oldest
brother, Junius Brutus Booth, at San Francisco in
1866 or 1867. Again we locate him in Lexington,
Kentucky, in company with Col. Levan, in 1868 or
1869, and seen by Dr. Gay in Tate county, Mississip-
pi, in 1869. In 1872 I met and knew him intimately at
Glenrose Mills, Texas. In 1883 Mr. Connolly saw
him at Village Mills, Texas, and again in 1884 or
1885 at Fort Worth, Texas, where he was recog-
nized by Gen. Albert Pike.

At Fort Worth we lost sight of Booth for a num-
ber of years, but it seems from the best obtainable
information that he drifted into the vicinity of Guthrie,
Oklahoma Territory, but was located at He.i-
nessy, Oklahoma Territory, in the year 1896, play-
ing the role of a gentleman of leisure, under the name
of George D. Ryan, where he remained until some
time in the year 1899, when he located at El Reno,
Oklahoma Territory, sixty-five miles south of Hen-
nessy, stopping at the Anstein hotel, where he was
domiciled in 1898 when I took up the matter with
the government authorities at Washington. %

On moving to El Reno, in 1899, Booth made de-
posits of money, opening an account with the State
bank of that place, under the name of David E.
George. Assuming the character of a journeyman
house painter he took a contract and painted a small
cottage for Mr. Anstien, the proprietor of the An-
stein hotel, and advertised himself as David E.
George, house painter, in the Daily Democrat, a
newspaper published at El Reno, but took no jobs of
painting after that first one for Mr. Anstien, and did
no other work in this nor any other business at El Reno.

At the El Reno State bank, where Booth made his
deposits as David E. George, the tintype picture of
St. Helen (Booth), taken twelve years after the as-
sassination of President Lincoln, was at once identi-
fied by the officials of the bank as being a true like-
ness of the man David E. George, who made the de-
posits at their bank and with whom they were per-
sonally acquainted. At the request of Mr. Bellamy,
one of the bank officials, I went with him to another
bank, the name of which I do not now remember,
and was introduced to the president of this bank,
whose name I believe was- Dr. Davis, who at once
identified the tintype picture of St. Helen as a true
and correct likeness of David E. George.

After remaining at the Anstien Hotel for quite a
long while David E. George (Booth) bought a cot-
tage at El Eeno, paying thirty-five hundred dollars
for it, where he installed a family by the name of
Simmons, who were to board him for the rent of the
place. He told the Anstiens that he was tired of
hotel life and requested them to look for a wife for
him, saying in a joking way that he would pay hand-
somely for one well suiting his fancy, who would be
willing to take charge of his cottage home.

Mrs. Simmons also took to board with her the
Methodist minister and his wife, the Rev. and Mrs.
Harper. Mr. Harper is a man of means and follows
the ministry as a matter of choice and not as a means
of livelihood, and his wife is a lady of great refine-
ment and culture, occupying in church and social
circles a high position. Being thrown much together
in the ordinary course of everyday life at the cottage
Mrs. Harper as well as the members of the Simmons
family grew to be on intimate terms with George
(Booth), who fell ill with his chronic asthmatic af-
fliction, from which he suffered a great deal, and
was removed from his cottage home to the Kerfoot
Hotel. Mrs. Harper, Mrs. Simmons and other kind-
hearted ladies of the city visited George (Booth),
who by right of birth and breeding moved in the so-
cial circle to which he was born, regardless of his
advertisement in the Democrat as a house painter,
performing for him such ministries as were neces-
sary.

Mrs. Harper makes the following statement:
"Mr. George (Booth) had been a resident of the
Territory for several years. He had always been
well supplied with money, the origin or source of
which no one knew, for from some mysterious source
he received a regular remittance. He was a familiar
figure in Guthrie, El Reno and Enid. My acquaint-
ance with Mr. George led me to believe him to be a
very different person from what he represented him-
self to be as David E. George, the painter. He was
eccentric, and though he claimed to be a painter of
houses, yet he did no work. He was possessed of
the highest degree of intelligence, had always the
bearing of a gentleman of cultivation and refine-
ment, and in conversation was fluent and captivat-
ing, while he discussed subjects of the greatest mo-
ment with learning, familiarity and ease. There
were very few people with whom he cared to asso-
ciate. Generally he was gloomy, though at times he
would brighten up, sing snatches of stage songs and
repeat Shakespeare's plays in an admirable manner.
He was so well versed in these plays and other writ-
ings that he would often answer questions with a
quotation.

"At one time the young people of El Reno had a
play of some kind. One of the actors became ill and
Mr. George (Booth) filled the place to the great ad-
miration and entertainment of those who saw him.
When surprise was expressed at his ability as an
actor he replied that he had acted some when he was
a young man.

"Regarding his people, he told different stories.
One time he said his father was a doctor, and he
and a brother were the only children; that his
mother had married again and two half brothers
were living in the Indian Territory, their name being
Smith, and that he had property in the Indian Ter-
ritory. Again he seemed very lonely at times, and
said that he had not a relative in the world. He was
subject to fits of melancholia, was extremely sensi-
tive, quick tempered and rather excitable. He said
he had never married. There seemed to be some-
thing constantly on his mind about which he thought,
and which made him miserable. He seemed to love
to have one understand that he was in trouble and
appreciated sympathy.

"He remained with the Simmons family three
months and treated everyone with the greatest kind-
ness and consideration. Never do I remember his
mentioning the history of his past life or that he
was other than David E. George until the time he
thought he was going to die that was about the
middle of April, 1902.

"He had gone up town, but returned shortly and,
entering the room where Mrs. Simmons, Mrs. Bears
and myself were seated, he made some remarks re-
garding the weather, which was unusually fine for
the time of year. He then went to his room and in
about fifteen minutes called for us, and said :

" 'I feel as if I am going to be very sick.' He
was lying on his bed and asked me to get him a
mirror. For some time he gazed at himself in the
mirror.

"Mrs. Bears said she could see the pupils of his
eyes dilate and believed that he had taken mor-
phine. Being uneasy, she went out o. che room and
got him a cup of coffee and insisted until he drank
it, but when she suggested sending for a physician
he roused himself and in a peculiar and dramatic
manner and voice said, while holding the mirror in
front of his face :

" 'Stay, woman, stay. This messenger of death
is my guest, and I desire to see the curtain of death
fall upon the last tragic act of mine, ' which passion-
ate utterance brought tears to our eyes. And when
I turned to wipe the tears from my eyes he called
me to his side and said :

' 'I have something to tell you. I am going to
die in a few minutes, and I don't believe you would
do anything to injure me. Did it ever occur to you
that I am anything but an ordinary painter? I
killed the best man that ever lived.' I asked him
who it was and he answered:

" 'Abraham Lincoln.'

"I could not believe it. I thought him out of his
head and asked: 'Who was Abraham Lincoln?'

" 'Is it possible you are so --deleted-- as not to
know?' he asked. He then took a pencil and paper
and wrote down in a peculiar but legible hand the
name, 'Abraham Lincoln,' and said:

" 'Don't doubt it, it is true. I am John Wilkes
Booth.'

" 'Am I dying now?' he asked. 'I feel cold, as if
death's icy hand was closing my life as the forfeit
for my crime.'

"He then told me that he was well off. He seemed
to be perfectly rational while talking to me. He
knew me and knew where he was, and I believe he
really thought in fact that he was dying, and asked
me to keep his secret until he was dead, adding that
if any one should find out now that he was J. "Wilkes
Booth they would take him out and hang him, and the
people who loved him so well now would despise him.
He told me that people high in official life hated
Lincoln and were implicated in his assassination. He
said that the suspense of possibly being detected
preyed on his mind all the time and was something
awful, and that his life was miserable. He said that
Mrs. Surratt was innocent and he was responsible
for her death as well as that of several others. He
said that he was devoted to acting, but had to give
it up because of his crime, and the fact that he must
remain away from the stage, when he loved the life
and profession of acting so well, made him restless
and ill tempered. He said he had plenty of money,
but was compelled to play the character of a work-
ing man to keep his mind occupied.

"In the mean time Dr. Arnold arrived and as ft
result of his efforts Mr. George was restored. After
this he was very anxious for weeks regarding what
he had told me and questioned me concerning it.
I answered him that he had told me nothing of im-
portance, but he seemed to know better. One day
he saw me looking at a picture of Lincoln and asked
me why I was looking at it. I told him that I had
always admired Lincoln.

" 'Is that the only reason you have for looking at
it?' he asked, regarding me with a fierce look. A
peculiar expression came over his face, his eyes
flashed and he turned pale and walked off.

"One peculiar feature of Mr. George, or Booth's,
face was that one eyebrow was somewhat higher
than the other. I have noticed him limp slightly,
but he said it was rheumatism. That Mr. George had
a past we all knew, but what his secret was remains
unknown except in so far as he may have communi-
cated the truth to me."

Booth's, or George's, life at El Reno was much
the same as I have found it at other places a simi-
larity and accumulative evidence unmistakably es-
tablishing his identity of person and character
wherever he located. It seems to have been his pol-
icy to change his name and character as often as he
changed his place of residence. It will be remem-
bered that when he left Hennessy for El Reno that
he changed his name from George D. Ryan to David
E. George, and his occupation and dress from that
of a gentleman of leisure to that of a journeyman
painter of houses, which character he acted to such
perfection that, although he painted but one house,
and did that in such an uneven and unworkmanlike
manner as to show that he knew little or nothing
about painting, yet people thought he knew all about
it, and just why he did no more painting the general
public did not understand. Upon inquiry, however,
George, or Booth, was always ready with a satis-
factory explanation. When the editor of the El Reno
Democrat, in which paper he put an advertisement
as a tradesman of house painting, at a cost of four
dollars a month, thinking it a useless expense, so
universally was it known that George, or Booth, did
no such work, suggested this to him, George, or
Booth, indignantly demanded to know if the editor
was uneasy about the price of the card, if so he
would pay for it in advance. The editor apologized
and the card continued from month to month for
two years, up to the date of the death of George.

Booth's purpose in this is obvious. He wanted to
keep himself constantly before the public as a paint-
er, not that he wanted work, but to keep alive his
identity as a painter while he played the deceptive
character. The 'little cottage painted for Mr. An-
stien was the stage setting to the character, the card
in the paper was his program and he played to a suc-
cessful finish this drama of the journeyman painter.

Booth's idea in purchasing the cottage and estab-
lishing a home for himself was probably because he
thought he would enjoy it after a long and homeless
life, alone whether on the plains, in the mountains
or the best hotels for it was his custom to put up
at only the best hotels wherever he went. Thus,
when he reached El Reno he went to the Anstien
Hotel, the best one then in the city, and as good as
any there now. But three months of home life was
quite sufficient for him and he moved into the Ker-
foot Hotel, 1he newest and most up-to-date hotel in
El Reno, which was completed after he left the An-
stien for his cottage. Just how it was possible for
Booth to stay at this hotel, the stopping place of
most ol the traveling public, and escape detection
in his changed character from " Gentleman Ryan"
to "Journeyman House Painter George," by people
from Hennessy, only about sixty-five miles away,
who must have frequented this hotel, is hard to un.
derstand. Nevertheless it is true. It would be pos-
sible, perhaps easy, to deceive as to occupation, but
to successfully disguise his person, and change his
name, is remarkable and certainly required all the
genius of the actor, John "Wilkes Booth, who played
the change of name, person and character practically
in the same community. At El Reno, Guthrie and
Enid he was known as George, while at Hennessy,
within the same section, he was known as George D.
Ryan, and that he was not recognized and exposed
staggers comprehension and creates disbelief, nev-
ertheless Booth did this successfully, as he aid many
other surprising things.

Leaving El Reno, Booth, or George, arrived at
Enid on the 3d day of December, 1902, and registered
at the Grand Avenue Hotel, under the name of David
E. George. In the meantime Mr. Harper and his
wife had removed from El Reno to Enid, from which
place she made the following statement:

"On the evening of January 13th, I was startled
and surprised by reading in the Enid Daily News
of the suicide of David E. George, of El Reno, with
whom I first became acquainted in March, 1900, iu
El Reno, at the home of Mr. Simmons.

"Mr. Harper went down on Wednesday morning,
the 14th instant, and recognized him, and told the
embalmers of a confession that David E. George had
made to myself, and that they had better investi-
gate.

"I went to the morgue with Mr. Harper on the
15th and identified the corpse of David E. George
as the man who had confessed to me at El Reno that
he was John Wilkes Booth, and, as brevity has been
enjoined on me, will reaffirm my former statement
made in detail of David E. George's confession to me
at El Reno, about the middle of April, 1900, as fully
as if same were set forth herein.

(Signed.) "MRS. E. C. HARPER."

" Territory of Oklahoma,
" County of Garland.

"Mrs. E. C. Harper, first being duly sworn, upon
her oath says that the facts were written above by
herself; that she knows the facts she has written,
and that the same are true.

(Signed) "MRS. B. C. HARPER,
' ' Sworn to and subscribed before me this the 24th
day of January, 1903.

(Signed) "A. A. STRATFORD,
"Notary Public.
(L. S.) "My commission expires November 18th, 1906."

Jesse James Was One of His Names

Posted by: Philip K. Kromer

The following information is from a book which is out-of-print and has become very difficult to obtain. Whether or not the information presented below is true, I will leave to the reader to decide. However, if it is true, the information is so important that it needs to be available to researchers. Because of the extreme rarity of the information, I feel I am justified in posting it here for the benefit of those who otherwise would not be able to access it except with great difficulty. I have left quite a bit of the account out, but the really important parts have all been included. If you need the complete account, you will have to obtain the book somehow. There are a few copies of the book available in public libraries, scattered across the U. S. Also, the Library of Congress owns a copy.

The following is information quoted directly from the book titled "Jesse James Was One of His Names" ( Arcadia, CA: Santa Anita Press, 1975 ), by Del Schrader ( with Jesse James III ). Chapter 8 - The Odyssey of John Wilkes Booth ( pages 133 - 142 ):

( page 134 ):

"The Knights of the Golden Circle, the top Confederate underground organization headed by another 'dead man,' Col. Jesse Woodson James, had another version.
Prior to the Civil War, J. Wilkes Booth ... had attended a military school, but had been bounced because he was too impetuous. When the war broke, Booth volunteered for the Confederate Army, but an officer was impressed with his intelligence and ability to interchangeably 'talk like a Yankee and a Southerner.' It was decided Booth could do more than shoot a gun.
After a short training course, Booth was soon moving back and forth through Union and Confederate lines with valuable military information for the South. At times, he used the name John Botha, the last name of a Russian-Jewish ancestor who settled in England. Posing as a drummer ( salesman ), he sold materiel of war to both sides.
While he was a competent enough spy, Booth had some traits which bothered his superiors. He asked too many questions about Confederate plans, and he enjoyed gathering gossip about Rebel generals. At times, the Confederates had Booth under surveillance, believing he could be a double agent. Despite their suspicions, Booth continued to deliver damaging information on Union moves, and he did it in record time."

( pages 134 - 135 ):

"In spite of his service, Booth was never able to advance above The Knights of the White Camellias, the third-ranked Confederate secret organization. He brought ill-conceived schemes to kill President Lincoln, Gen. U. S. Grant and other high-ranking Union officers, to his superiors. Put down as a 'loner,' Booth boasted of personal friends who would help him commit the acts. Confederates doubted his leadership, and some of his friends were checked out and denied membership in any of the Southern secret organizations....
The final year of the Civil War when things were going badly for the South, Booth did less spying and more plotting on his own. He reported to his Confederate superiors, 'A representative of the European Rothschilds called on President Lincoln and offered him money at 27 1/2 per cent interest, but was thrown out of his office.'
A few years later, while gathered in the Confederate Underground Capital in Nashville, Tenn., The Knights of the Golden Circle heard a report from one of Booth's superiors in which he alleged the Rothschilds incident might have been the turning point in the spy's frustration. 'Gentlemen,' he said, 'I personally think that John Wilkes Booth went to work for the Rothschilds and assassinated Mr. Lincoln in their behalf.'
Most Southerners were shocked by the senseless assassination of President Lincoln. The war was over for all practical purposes, and their cause was lost. The Knights of the Golden Circle moved quickly to get Wilkes Booth to safety - he knew too much. Near a village in Maryland, the haggard assassin, his leg broken, was hidden in a wagon-load of chicken coops, the first leg of his journey to the Free State of Van Zandt, Texas."

( pages 135 - 136 ):

"William S. ( Wild Bill ) Lincoln, a distant cousin of the President, reported in a sworn statement: 'Our branch of the Lincoln family was never satisfied with what really happened to Booth, and I spent fourteen years of my life runnung down the true story. Strangely enough, I learned it from Jesse W. James, head of the Confederate underground. I was present at Booth's real death.'
'... Colonel James ... told me ... that the Confederate underground had no love for Booth - he had shot the President after it was too late. However, the organization protected him and put the lazy bastard on a $3,600 a year pension as long as he behaved himself and caused them no trouble; but Booth couldn't stand fetters.' Because of strict Confederate underground surveillance, Booth pulled up stakes and moved to Glen Rose, Texas, where he operated a distillery. He managed to get into difficulty with Federal authorities over a special U. S. permit and tax and sent his lawyer to the Federal District Court in Paris, Texas. Deserting his distillery, Booth moved to Granbury, Hood County, Texas, where he built the city's first stone business building at the southwest corner of Courthouse Square, now used as a restaurant.
He also returned to the stage, a direct violation of his agreement with the underground. Texas Rangers and lawmen, mostly former Confederate soldiers, filed reports with The Knights of the Golden Circle telling about the strange behavior of John Wilkes Booth, alias James St. George. The actor-assassin was drinking heavily, bragging about being the man who shot Lincoln, and boasting about his knowledge of Confederate underground secrets."

( pages 136 - 137 ):

"The Golden Circle held a meeting and sentiment was strong for executing Booth, but Jesse W. James, who by this time was building an empire in the West, suggested, 'I kind of agree with you about shutting his big mouth for good, but let's let him make a tour of theaters in the West. We'll send along two agents to ride herd on him.'
Meanwhile, ... Booth had hired a lawyer to write a book about his secret life and how and why he shot President Lincoln.... Then one night in 1902 or early 1903, Wild Bill was sitting in Colonel Jim McDaniels' ( Jesse James ) hotel room in Guthrie, Oklahoma, when a book was tossed his way. McDaniels ... said, 'Believe it or not, Wild Bill, that book was written by one of your men in the White Camellias, old John Wilkes Booth, alias Edwin Booth, alias James St. George ... The Knights of the Golden Circle bought up most of his press run, but there's a lot of dynamite in the book. We're still preparing for the Second Civil War and Booth is busy revealing a lot of our secrets. He knows more than any of us ever thought.'"

( pages 137 - 138 ):

"In a sworn statement at Zephyrhills, Florida, on October 1, 1950, William S. ( Wild Bill ) Lincoln said, 'While trying for years on my own to run down the John Wilkes Booth mystery, I landed right in the middle of the Jesse Woodson James mystery without half trying.'

In the spring of 1903 ... McDaniel said ... 'The end is coming for that scoundrel, John Wilkes Booth.... I've spared that rascal's life many times. The Golden Circle just had a meeting down in Texas, and we voted to execute Booth.... We know he's registered at the Grand Avenue Hotel in Enid [ Oklahoma ] tonight under the name of James St. George.'"

( page 139 ):

"A half block from the Grand Avenue Hotel that night a young Indian boy was selling lemons from a small basket.The Colonel stopped and said to Wild Bill, 'Have this kid make you about a quart of lemonade, pronto, while I duck into this drug store.'
Four Golden Circle agents sat in the lobby while the other three joined the two agents already surrounding the hotel - just in case Booth made a run for it. 'Mr. St. George expects us,' the Colonel told the desk clerk and he started up the steps, followed closely by Wild Bill with a jar of lemon juice. The door was unlocked and the two men could see the shape of a man lying on the bed."

( page 140 ):

"'... Being a hot night, Mr. Booth, we brought you something cool to drink. Now, Wild Bill, you talk to Mr. Booth while I fix up his drink.' Jesse went over to the wash stand with the jar of lemonade. Hastily, he pulled two bottles from his pocket and poured pure arsenic into the jar. Then he stirred the mixture with a table fork. He poured the loaded lemonade into a glass. Approaching the bed, Jesse said, 'Now, Mr. Booth, I think you've had enough alcohol for tonight. This lemonade will really fix you up. I personally guarantee it.' ... Booth gasped, went into almost a stage fall, but hit the floor with a thud. Jesse James bent over and felt his heart. 'Deader than a mackerel,' he said. 'Wild Bill, stay here. I'm sending up the four agents in the lobby to go through Booth's luggage. I'll be back in a few minutes.'

( page 141 ):

" ... The six men were amazed at the records Booth had kept through the years. After they had finished sorting it, Jesse said, 'You know, men, I'm just glad Booth didn't put all this in that crazy book his lawyer wrote - he could have put a noose around all of our necks!'
Colonel James then directed his men to plant just enough evidence around the room so that the U. S. Marshals could identify the dead man as John Wilkes Booth. Then they took the trunk and departed.... Late that afternoon from Guthrie, Jesse had an agent send a telegram to the U. S. Marshal's office telling them John Wilkes Booth was dead and where his body could be found."

( pages 141 - 142 ):

" ... Three days later, Jesse, accompanied by Wild Bill and two agents, went back to Enid.... The clerk said, 'Whole bunch of lawmen were here yesterday morning up there in Mr. St. George's room, but his body is still there in the bed. It's starting to turn black-like and is tough as leather.' 'Don't worry, son,' Jesse said, 'we're relatives and we've come to claim his body.'
... Carting the body of Booth back to Guthrie, Jesse looked up a doctor friend and asked him for a diagnosis.'It would appear that this man swallowed so much poison, probably arsenic, that he is permanently preserved. He's like a damn Egyptian mummy!'
Through a friendly town marshal, Jesse learned that the federal men had checked out John Wilkes Booth's body and papers in Enid and reported some transient posing as Booth had committed suicide. The report listed the dead man's name as James St. George.
Wild Bill wrote years later, 'Was the Booth case still too hot to touch in 1903? I'm sure Dr. Samuel Mudd along with others would have been vindicated, and it would have exposed the earler ill-conceived, hysterical investigation, but the U. S. Marshals just turned their backs on the case. Maybe the U. S. government by 1903 had uncovered the real facts in the Booth case and was too ashamed to admit the big blunders made by the government in 1865.'
Under Jesse James' direction, the leathery, mummified body of John Wilkes Booth was put in a special coffin and several of his men took it on an exhibition tour all over the United States. Jesse James III reports the Booth body was owned by a Glencoe, Minnesota, jeweler named Jay Gould, a relative of the financier, who had it stored. 'This was in 1955 and I believe Gould has passed away. What happened to the body? Who knows? Perhaps John Wilkes Booth, hated by both the North and the South, is destined to lie forever unburied and unwanted.'"

Notes to the above by Philip K. Kromer:

For a very detailed account of the Abraham Lincoln-Rothschild-Booth connection, read the book titled "Lincoln Money Martyred," by R. E. Search. Another book along these lines is titled "Rothschild Money Trust," by George Armstrong ( = Andrew Fabius ). Booth hired a lawyer to help him write his life's story. The name of the lawyer is Finis Langdon Bates, and the title of the book he wrote is "Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth." To the best of my knowledge, this book was first published in 1907. Actually, it was published in 1907 by 3 or 4 different publishers, under slightly different titles. Del Schrader's account has Jesse James referring to the book as though it had already been published by 1902-1903. Whether or not this book had actually been published prior to the well-known and authenticated editions of 1907, I so far have not been able to determine.
As to the Knights of the Golden Circle, here is more information from Del Schrader's book, but I will not be giving the page numbers, and the information will not be in any particular order: "The Knights of the Golden Circle, perhaps smarting from backing a loser in Mexico, closed down and sealed the records in 1916. But The Organization run by Jesse James still flourished in 1923 and in fact in years later....Old Jesse did a tremendous amount of meddling in international affairs and perhaps God alone knows the amount of mischief caused by the outlaw and the Golden Circle underground.... One of the deadliest, wealthiest, most secretive and efficient spy and underground organizations in the history of the world was The Knights of the Golden Circle, which operated over the globe for sixty-five years ( 1851 - 1916 ). Ranking below the Golden Circle in this order were The Knights of the Golden Stirrup, The Knights of the White Camellias, The Knights of the Inner Circle, The Knights of the Outer Circle, and The International Anti-Horse Thief Association ( TEXYS ). The original Ku Klux Klan was the military arm of The Knights of the Golden Circle. There were several dozen "front" organizations, but only a few received any publicity. Some of the craftiest, finest brains in the South directed activities of The Knights of the Golden Circle. The group was heavy on ritual, which was borrowed from the Masonic Lodge and later The Knights of Pythias. A couple were members of the Rosicrucians. The 13-man Inner Sanctum which ran the Golden Circle in the years immediately following the Civil War elected Colonel Elbert DeWitt Travis, alias William Clarke Quantrill and Charley Hart, as its chief. He served until his death in the middle 1890s. Secretary of the Inner Sanctum was "Uncle George" Payne, while Jesse James was elected treasurer and comptroller in 1867 when former Emperor Maximilian donated $12.5 million to the group. The other ten members were General Nathan B. Forrest, John Patterson ( Jefferson Davis ), Bud Dalton, Professor B. E. Bedeczek, Lewis Dalton, George Baxter, Captain John James, Coleman Younger, General J. O. Shelby, and Jack ( Brac ) Miller. As members of the Inner Sanctum died or became too old to serve, they were replaced up to 1916.... Old Jesse James was the head of the Golden Circle when its executive body decided there wasn't going to be a Second Civil War and sealed the records in 1916.... Old Colonel James admitted in 1949, "Well, the Copperheads, Sons of Liberty and Order of American Knights were all tied in with The Knights of the Golden Circle and they rendered a certain help to the Confederate cause. Trouble is, there weren't enough of them. And a lot of them were just misguided, negative nuts who would have rebelled against the Confederacy and aided the North if they had been living in the South. I never figured this type of person too reliable and I sure as hell wouldn't have wanted to have ridden into battle with any of 'em." ... With Lee's surrender, The Knights of the Golden Circle membership increased rapidly, along with the subordinate organizations. The Golden Circle moved into an old building on Fatherland in Nashville. The old building stood where "The Grand Ole Opry" got its start.... Before the call came from Quantrill to report to Oak Grove, Louisiana, to map the rescue of Shelby's men, Quantrill had sworn him [ Jesse W. James ] into The Knights of the Golden Circle, saying, "The day will come, Jesse, when you'll head the Golden Circle. The South shall rise again, and you will lead the way!" ... Concerning the KKK, Jesse admitted, "It was the secret military police of the Old South, but the Golden Circle really rode herd on their activities. We began folding up the KKK a few years after the Golden Circle sealed its records for fifty years in 1916. We oldtimers had absolutely nothing to do with the modern KKK, which is a different breed of cat. Not many people in either the North or South knew that right after the end of the Civil War we recruited twenty-thousand Negro KKK members. They were the most intelligent and reliable blacks we could find. Our theory was that Negroes would take orders easier from other Negroes. They weren't burning crosses or flogging, they were giving counsel and even financial help to the freed, but bewildered slaves. They kept busy knocking stupid ideas out of Negro heads put there by unscrupulous Carpetbaggers." ... Only a handful of Golden Circle records remain today. In the first place, not much was written down. It was committed to memory. Jesse James III, who was raised at his grandfather's [ Jesse W. James ] knee from the age of 10, probably is the greatest living authority on the Golden Circle and he is close-mouthed. "Many secrets, which I learned from Grandpa, will die with me. Why muddy waters? Many fine Southern families today have ancestors who did violent and expedient things while serving the Golden Circle. I'll let sleeping dogs lie. ... At today's prices, the buried Confederate treasure would probably be worth at least $100 billion dollars. ... In later years, the Golden Circle was run by thirteen of the best and wealthiest men in the South. The Master sat on the Throne of the East and gave out his wisdom and directions to twelve so-called Disciples, who in turn each had twelve disciples. The only way one could get into the Inner Sanctum or Inner Circle was when one of the Master's Twelve died off or retired. There's a lot more involved in the Golden Circle, but that's all I'll reveal. As far as I'm concerned, the rest belongs to the ages!"