It’s a cliché: Every picture tells a story. One photo in this edition of “52 Weeks” tells a story … and then some.
In February 2020, as fears grew about a possible pandemic amid the ongoing political divisiveness ripping at our country, I drove to Baltimore with a family friend to visit Green Mount Cemetery. The reason was three-fold:
I love history.
I find old cemeteries fascinating places to photograph.
Having been to one of Baltimore’s historic cemeteries with another photography friend, I wanted to see Green Mount Cemetery, which was dedicated in 1839 and has a number of historical figures buried in its grounds, among them John Wilkes Booth and two other conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Booth, a 26-year-old actor and Confederate sympathizer, shot Lincoln in the back of the head on April 14, 1865, during a performance of “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre. The assassin broke his leg after leaping from the balcony to the stage and was killed 12 days later following a massive manhunt in Port Royal, Va. (Side note: The fascinating book Manhunter is now a new Apple TV miniseries.)
Two years after Booth’s body was first buried with his fellow conspirators in the Old Penetentiary in Washington, D.C., it was returned to his family and interred in their plot at Green Mount. The grave is unmarked, but it is easy to tell which one is his.
The tradition is to leave a Lincoln penny face up on the grave to “lock the assassin into the ground,” and you can see numerous ones on the stone in the photo I took. But, as if to illustrate the divisiveness I mentioned – one that would only become more heightened following the killing of George Floyd and the protests that erupted in the summer of 2020 – someone had placed a portrait of Booth surrounded by Confederate flags at the site.
It was chilling.
Here are the other photos from the week. Each has a short caption that includes the place and month/year it was taken.
As always, I hope you’ll pick your favorite(s) and let me know your thoughts. I’m happy to provide additional context on any of the photos in the comments section — just ask!
If you are interested in purchasing a print or the non-exclusive rights to one of the digital images, please contact me via email.
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Love the photos, is that the Washington Monument stairway? Climbed the monument stairs in the 8th grade.
Also, have you ever taken picture of God's Little Acre Moravian cemetery in Winston Salem? very interesting
Thanks for this post, Glenn. I love history too. And the background on the assassin's grave is chilling indeed.