160 years ago: Mansfield's Roeliff Brinkerhoff shared his eyewitness account of Lincoln's assassination

160 years ago: Mansfield’s Roeliff Brinkerhoff shared his eyewitness account of Lincoln’s assassination

MANSFIELD — Richland County has an interesting link to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln — and the death of his killer, John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., on Good Friday, April. 14, 1865. The president died the next morning. In the theater audience that night was Mansfield resident, […] The post 160 years ago: Mansfield’s Roeliff Brinkerhoff shared his eyewitness account of Lincoln’s assassina…

160 years ago: Mansfield's Roeliff Brinkerhoff shared his eyewitness account of Lincoln's assassination

MANSFIELD — Richland County has an interesting link to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln — and the death of his killer, John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., on Good Friday, April. 14, 1865. The president died the next morning. In the theater audience that night was Mansfield resident, […] The post 160 years ago: Mansfield’s Roeliff Brinkerhoff shared his eyewitness account of Lincoln’s assassina…

John Wilkes Booth wanted to pay tribute to the family tradition he felt – and kill a tyrant. Abraham Lincoln, the successful actor of all places, chose the target. The assassination was the first fatal attack on a U.S. president.

160 years since the assassination of Abraham Lincoln

What is it about an event that took place so long ago that still, to this day, rouses a sense of loss?

LINCOLN SHOT AT FORD’S THEATER

Shortly after 10 p.m. on April 14, 1865, actor John Wilkes Booth entered the presidential box at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., and fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln. As Lincoln slumped forward in his seat, Booth leapt onto the stage…

160 years ago, assassin John Wilkes Booth shot American President Abraham Lincoln. Since the president died a few hours later, it was the first successful assassination of a head of state in history. However, less is known that the situation did not have to end so tragically. The group of assassins originally planned to “only” kidnap Lincoln. The president, in turn, had a premonition of his death just before the assassination.