Booth family

The Booth family was an English American theatrical family of the 19th century. Its most known members were brothers Edwin Booth, one of the leading actors of his day, and John Wilkes Booth, also a fellow actor most remembered for assassinating Abraham Lincoln.

The patriarch, Junius Brutus Booth, was a London-born lawyer's son who eventually became an actor after he attended a production of Othello at the Covent Garden theatre. The prospects of fame, fortune, and freedom were very appealing to young Booth, and he displayed remarkable talent from an early age, deciding on a career in the theatre by the age of 17. He performed roles in several small theaters throughout England and joined a tour of the Low Countries in 1814, returning the following year to make his London debut.

Booth abandoned his wife and their young son in 1821 and ran off to the United States with Mary Ann Holmes, a London flower girl. They settled on some 150 acres in Harford County near Baltimore and started a family; they had 10 children, six of whom survived to adulthood.^[1][2]

Junius Sr. and Edwin toured in California during the Gold Rush.^{[citation needed]} Edwin bought an interest in the Winter Garden Theatre at 667 Broadway in New York City with his brother-in-law John Sleeper Clarke. The brothers John Wilkes, Edwin, and Junius Brutus Jr. performed there in the play Julius Caesar at a benefit in 1864, the only time they were seen together on a stage, playing Mark Antony, Brutus, and Cassius, respectively.^[3]