Posted on 01/15/2009 8:56:06 PM PST by nickcarraway
For a while, I lived on Court Street in Brooklyn, NY, and sometimes shopped in the Middle Eastern markets on Atlantic Avenue, which crossed Court Street several blocks from my apartment. I loved fig jam, and it was the only place I knew to get it.
What I didn’t know was that, not too long before I moved there, a man named Bob Diamond had found the oldest subway tunnel in the world. I probably trod on its entrance, a manhole at the intersection of Court St. and Atlantic Avenue.
There’s great stuff down there. The tunnel linked the Long Island Railroad to the East River; from there, it was easy to get onto the island of Manhattan. Built in 1844—and used until 1859—the tunnel was not built by burrowing, as later tunnels were, but by digging a trench, lining the sides with granite, and constructing a vaulted roof from brick. The roof, according to the history channel, was then covered over with dirt and paving and used, again, as the street it had been before subway construction. Even with today’s traffic, there is no danger of a collapse; it is said to be able to hold about 15 times the weight that pounds it every day, even now.
The whole tunnel is not yet excavated, however, and therein lies a very provocative possibility. According to the man who rediscovered the tunnel, Bob Diamond, the unexcavated part probably contains not only the original platform, where passengers got on and off the train, but an old locomotive. And near that locomotive might be hidden the missing pages from the diary of John Wilkes Booth, who killed President Lincoln, according to Diamond.
Booth’s diary, found on him when he was shot, was maintained in government archives until the conspiracy trial some months later. When the diary was entered into evidence, it was missing 18 pages; the originals of these have never been found, although there are some who believe that perhaps they were found in 1977. If those pages are ever verified, they described the involvement of some of Lincoln’s friends, Confederate leaders, War Department Secretary Stanton, and northern businessmen. It is, of course, virtually a certainty that there was a conspiracy, whether or not Stanton, et al, were involved.
I don’t mind tunnels, but I wouldn’t seek them out as the sole purpose of a trip. Still, the chance to stand in the presence of such evil—if they are there—as the missing Booth diary pages represents might be worth a trip. More worth it if that section is ever opened and the diary pages actually found there, of course.
But still, it has connections enough with the run-up to the Civil War to be intriguing. Walt Whitman, who volunteered as a nurse during the war, had written for a Brooklyn newspaper beforehand. Of the tunnel, after its closure, he wrote:
The old tunnel, that used to lie there under ground, a passage of Acheron-like solemnity and darkness, now all closed and filled up, and soon to be utterly forgotten, with all its reminiscences; however, there will, for a few years yet be many dear ones, to not a few Brooklynites, New Yorkers, and promiscuous crowds besides. For it was here you started to go down the island, in summer. For years, it was confidently counted on that this spot, and the railroad of which it was the terminus, were going to prove the permanent seat of business and wealth that belong to such enterprises...
The tunnel closed just a couple of years before the Civil War began. Whitman quit his job; he was an abolitionist, and the paper’s owners were not. He had begun his writing career in earnest; locals had begun using the tunnel to make booze and hide various sorts of contraband, among which were not, one might assume, slaves fleeing to Canada.
If the missing Booth diary pages were in the tunnel near the locomotive, it would be interesting to see what they say. Do the original pages include references to Edwin Stanton, Lincoln’s Secretary of War? Originally opposed to Lincoln, Stanton “vigorously pursued the apprehension and prosecution of the conspirators involved in Lincoln’s assassination. These proceedings were not handled by the civil courts, but by a military tribunal, and therefore under Stanton’s tutelage. Stanton has subsequently been accused of witness tampering, most notably of Louis J. Weichmann, and of other activities that skewed the outcome of the trials.” (Wikipedia)
Suggestive. Also suggestive is the fact that Stanton virtually tortured the seven male conspirators during the trial, keeping them in padded masks, secured around their throats and painfully tight over their eyes. One might well wonder what he feared they might say or see. Strange behavior for someone born a Quaker. But then, being Secretary of War is strange behavior for someone born a Quaker. (We would see similar discordance in the life of Richard M. Nixon a century later.) Stanton was a bit mad, it seems. He served under Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, who fired him. He barricaded himself in his office and refused to leave, citing the Tenure of Office act.
It would be very interesting to see those 18 pages. It would be very interesting to see the tunnel through which the conspirators, most of whom probably had ridden on that railroad, traveled. The tunnel through which Walt Whitman, our first poet laureate, doubtless traveled.
And fortunately, one can. Bob Diamond is conducting a tour of this underground railroad tunnel on January 25. Call 718-941-3160 for reservations and information. (Diamond conducts a tour about once a month; you can't get down there any other way, as Diamond has the "franchise" with the city to do this, which is only fair, since he did the research and excavated the tunnel with his own shovel and a few friends, to begin with.)
Ping
I think the excavation needs to be part of any stimulus package...
“If those pages are ever verified, they described the involvement of some of Lincoln’s friends, Confederate leaders, War Department Secretary Stanton, and northern businessmen.”
Fer reals?
Quick! Call Ben Gates!
One is reliably informed that beneath the front paws of the Sphinx, and at a depth of fifty to one hundred feet, there lie the remains of a post office at which letters could be posted to the aliens who drew the Cuzco maps of Peru. Perhaps the missing pages of Booth’s diary are down there...?
The tunnel was featured on History Channel’s “Cities of the Underground” last night.
JWB also had ties to the Chicago mob and Cuban exiles who hated Lincoln for his failure to invade Cuba and kill Fidel’s great-parents.
ping!! cool
The tunnels cool but the supposed reason the missing 18 pages would be there is nowhere to be found. And that a guy is doing a tour (and has supposedly the blessing of the city) seems to indicate that there is nothing to the story of the missing pages or we would have heard about it by now.
didn’t i just rent a dvd eerily similar?
Why was the subway line closed? It wasn’t open for very long.
I don’t understand the connection, either. It seems to be assumptions that some of the conspirators lived in NY and might have used the subway, thus hiding things there since it was closed. (Shrugs)
Yup. The plotters planned to kill the President, Vice President, and Sec’y of State, which (at that time, not any more) would have put Stanton in the White House. The Sec’y of State was attacked as he lay sleeping and almost died. Another conspirator arrived at the Vice President’s residence, but was fought off by (if memory serves) the VP’s son.
Booth was successful in his murder. He rode out of D.C. across a bridge that was guarded.
The bridges out of Washington were all closed after dark, and (because the country was still on a war footing) military sentries were posted. When the watch changed on that bridge, the commander rode up and told the sentries that a man might try to leave, and that if he gave such-and-such a password, that he should be allowed to cross. Some hours later, Booth rode up, was challenged, gave the password, and left town.
Those pages “found in 1977” came from a box in the attic of the house where Stanton had lived during the war. After those were found, analyzed, and announced, I’ve never heard much about them.
Need I say it? Stanton was a Democrat. :’)
In later years, Stanton tried to get appointed to the Supreme Court.
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Thanks nickcarraway. |
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I would also like to add that after the two men's deaths, the two men's sons remained close for decades.
This would not have been the case if Lincoln's surviving son Robert Todd Lincoln believed Stanton had anything to do with his father's death. Indeed, the opposite is true. Robert was deeply grateful to Stanton for his friendship and service to his father.
Finally, no reputable historian has ever believed the Secretary of War was part of a Lincoln assassination plot.
Oh, and Stanton was appointed & confirmed to the USSC. He died before he could take his seat.
I don't understand why no one has suggested that he and David Herold could have used those missing pages to wipe their butts while they were on the lamb.
A slight correction: Sec. of State Seward was recuperating from a bad carriage accident. If not for his wearing a jaw splint, he might have been killed. He was stabbed several times in the face with a Bowie knife wielded by Louis Powell (aka Paine). It was Seward's son Frederick who was beaten severely on the head by Powell with the pistol that had misfired. He wasn't expected to survive, but he did. As for the V.P., George Atzerodt was supposed to assassinate him, but he chickened out. He was later taken into custody when he showed up at Mary Surratt's boarding house at the same time investigators were there. He claimed he was doing some work for Mrs. Surratt, but she denied even knowing him.
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