Rare tickets to Ford’s Theatre on the night Lincoln was assassinated auction for $262,500

BOSTON – A couple of front-row balcony tickets to Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865 — the night President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by way of John Wilkes Booth — bought at auction for $262,500, in accordance to a Boston-based auction space.

The tickets are stamped with the date, “Ford’s Theatre, APR 14, 1865, This Night Only.” They endure the left-side imprint “Ford’s Theatre, Friday, Dress Circle!” and are stuffed out in pencil with segment (“D”) and seat numbers “41″ and “42”, in accordance to RR Auction.

The handwritten seating assignments and the round April 14th-dated stamp fit the ones discovered on different recognized original tickets, together with a used price tag stub in the number of Harvard University’s Houghton Library, auction officers mentioned.

The Harvard stub, which is composed of simply the left part of the price tag, is the handiest different used April 14th Ford’s Theatre price tag recognized to nonetheless exist, with identical seat assignments stuffed out in pencil and a stamp positioned identically to the ones on the tickets auctioned off Saturday.

Just after 10:00 p.m., all over the 3rd act of the play “Our American Cousin,” Booth entered the presidential field at the theater in Washington, D.C., and fatally shot Lincoln.

As Lincoln slumped ahead in his seat, Booth jumped onto the degree and fled out a again door. The president was tested by way of a physician in the target market and carried throughout the side road to the Petersen House, the place he died early the subsequent morning. Booth kept away from seize for 12 days however was in the end tracked down at a Virginia farm and shot.

Also bought at Saturday’s auction was a Lincoln-signed first version of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, which fetched just about $594,000.