Lucy was a beauty. One of the most beautiful girls in Washington DC. She had many suitors. She had dated the president’s son, the sons of many senators and a lineup of important people. She was somewhat of a heartbreaker, and difficult to please.
When Lucy was 12 she was getting letters from a Harvard freshman, Will Chandler. Lucy was quite fond of Will, but it never got past writing letters. Will would become Secretary of the Navy, and a US senator from New Hampshire. When she was 16, she met Oliver, 2 years older, and a Harvard student, but that fizzled. Oliver would become Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Then there was John.
On Valentine’s Day Lucy received a letter and this is briefly what it said; ” l am taking this opportunity to contact you. You resemble in a most remarkable degree, someone who I once loved, who is now deceased. You have afforded a memory of her, as you both are quite beautiful, and represent a faithful index of gentleness and amicability.
With best wishes for your happiness, I am to you . . . A Stranger
Lucy did discover that the gentleman’s identity was John. They did meet and even become engaged but they had a rocky relationship. John was jealous when she danced with the president’s son, Robert Lincoln. He became very protective of her. John was a handsome actor, and known as a ladies man, but Lucy was confident she could tame him.
One of their problems was that Lucy’s father didn’t like John. Lucy’s father was a senator and an abolitionist, and John was a Southern sympathizer. Lucy’s family and John both lived in the same hotel so they saw each other quite often. One evening they met for supper at 6:30, but at 8:00 John said, “He had something he needed do,” and excuse himself.
No one knows, if Lucy knew what John’s plans were. For you see Lucy was Lucy Lambert Hale, and her fiance was none other than the actor, John Wilkes Booth. After a thorough investigation, three men and a woman were hung on specially made gallows. John was killed in a barn. John had pictures of four women in his pocketbook, three actresses and Lucy.
Lucy’s father talked President Johnson out of investigating his daughter. Lucy’s father had applied for an ambassadorship to England, as a way of getting Lucy away from John. They eventually moved to England.
John, and a group of men, had planned on kidnapping the president, the vice president and the Secretary of State, and nearly succeeded. They’re motive. was to disrupt the US government, and somehow help the South.
There was a happy ending for Lucy. Lucy did marry the college boy that corresponded with her when she was 12 years old. She married Will Chandler a US senator, and they had one son. She would always remember John… The lady’s man that no one could tame… even she.
—John Neuhouser
