Editing Edwin Booth (section)

==Later life==
[[File:Edwin Booth with daughter Edwina.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|Booth with his daughter Edwina, {{circa|1864}}]]

Booth was married to [[Mary Devlin Booth]] from 1860 until her death in 1863. They had one daughter, [[Edwina Booth Grossman|Edwina]], born on December 9, 1861, in [[London]]. He later remarried, to his acting partner [[Mary McVicker Booth]] in 1869. Their only child, a son named Edgar, died shortly after birth. Booth became a widower again in 1881.{{Citation needed |date=May 2023}} 

In 1869, Edwin acquired his brother John's body after repeatedly writing to President [[Andrew Johnson]] pleading for it. Johnson finally released the remains, and Edwin had them buried, unmarked, in the family plot at [[Green Mount Cemetery]] in [[Baltimore]].{{Citation needed |date=May 2023}}

[[File:2013-7 s.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.8|Portrait of Booth by [[John Singer Sargent]], 1890]]

On April 23, 1879, Mark Gray, a traveling salesman from [[Keokuk, Iowa]], fired two shots from a pistol at Booth. Booth was playing the title role in [[Richard II (play)|''Richard II'']] at [[McVicker's Theater|McVicker's Theatre]] in [[Chicago, Illinois]], during the final act of the [[William Shakespeare]] tragedy. Gray gave as his motive a wrong done to a friend by Booth. Gray's shots, which were fired from a distance of thirty-four feet, missed Booth, burying themselves in the stage floor. The would-be assassin was jailed at Central Station in Chicago. Booth was not acquainted with Gray, who worked for a [[St. Louis, Missouri]] [[dry goods]] firm. A letter to a woman in [[Ohio]] was found on Gray's person. The correspondence affirmed Gray's intent to murder Booth.<ref name="booth">''A Startling Scene At M'Vickers Theatre'', [[New York Times]], April 24, 1879, pg. 1.</ref> The attempted assassination occurred on Shakespeare's supposed birthday<ref>''My Thoughts Be Bloody'', Nora Titone, [[Free Press (publisher)|Free Press]], 2010, pg. 377.</ref> and came at a time when Booth was receiving numerous death threats by mail.<ref name="booth" />

In 1888, Booth founded [[The Players (New York City)|The Players]], a private club for performing, literary, and visual artists and their supporters, purchasing and furnishing a home on [[Gramercy Park]] as its clubhouse.{{Citation needed |date=May 2023}}

His final performance was, fittingly, in his signature role of Hamlet, in 1891 at the [[Brooklyn Academy of Music]].

===Robert Lincoln rescue===
Edwin Booth saved Abraham Lincoln's son,<ref>{{cite book |last=Goff |first=John S. |url=https://archive.org/details/roberttoddlincol0000goff/page/70/mode/2up?q=%22edwin+booth%22 |title=Robert Todd Lincoln: A Man in His Own Right |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |year=1968 |isbn=978-0-5982-0739-5 |location=Norman |pages=70–71}}</ref> [[Robert Todd Lincoln]], from serious injury or even death. The incident occurred on a train platform in [[Jersey City]], [[New Jersey]]. The exact date of the incident is uncertain, but it is believed to have taken place in late 1864 or early 1865. Robert Lincoln recalled the incident in a 1909 letter to Richard Watson Gilder, editor of ''The Century Magazine''.

<blockquote>The incident occurred while a group of passengers were late at night purchasing their sleeping car places from the conductor who stood on the station platform at the entrance of the car. The platform was about the height of the car floor, and there was of course a narrow space between the platform and the car body. There was some crowding, and I happened to be pressed by it against the car body while waiting my turn. In this situation the train began to move, and by the motion I was twisted off my feet, and had dropped somewhat, with feet downward, into the open space, and was personally helpless, when my coat collar was vigorously seized and I was quickly pulled up and out to a secure footing on the platform. Upon turning to thank my rescuer I saw it was Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me, and I expressed my gratitude to him, and in doing so, called him by name.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MazzAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA282 |page=282 |title=Letters of Note: Volume 1: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience |publisher=Chronicle Books |year=2014|isbn=978-1452140865 }}</ref></blockquote>

Booth did not know the identity of the man whose life he had saved until some months later, when he received a letter from a friend, Colonel [[Adam Badeau]], who was an officer on the staff of General [[Ulysses S. Grant]]. Badeau had heard the story from Robert Lincoln, who had since joined the Union Army and was also serving on Grant's staff. In the letter, Badeau gave his compliments to Booth for the heroic deed. The fact that he had saved the life of Abraham Lincoln's son was said to have been of some comfort to Edwin Booth following his brother's assassination of the president.{{Citation needed |date=May 2023}}

===Booth's Theatre===
[[File:Edwin Booth Richard III Playbill 1872.jpg|thumb|right|upright=.6|[[Booth's Theatre]] Playbill of his ''[[Richard III (play)|Richard III]]'' ''circa'' 1872]]
In 1867, a fire damaged the Winter Garden Theatre, resulting in the building's subsequent demolition. Afterwards, Booth built his own theatre, an elaborate structure called [[Booth's Theatre]] in [[Manhattan]], which opened on February 3, 1869, with a production of ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'' starring Booth as [[Romeo Montague|Romeo]], and Mary McVicker as [[Juliet Capulet|Juliet]]. Elaborate productions followed, but the theatre never became a profitable or even stable financial venture. The [[panic of 1873]] caused the final [[bankruptcy]] of Booth's Theatre in 1874. After the bankruptcy, Booth went on another worldwide tour, eventually regaining his fortune.{{Citation needed |date=May 2023}}

===Boothden===
[[File:Edwin Booth's "Boothden", Middletown Rhode Island.jpg|thumb|left|upright=.6|Boothden]]
In 1879 Booth purchased land in [[Middletown, Rhode Island]] on the [[Sakonnet River]]; he hired [[Calvert Vaux]], whose son [[Downing Vaux]] was (briefly) engaged to Booth's daughter Edwina, to design a grand summer cottage estate there.<ref name="NHS" /> "Boothden" was completed in 1884, a wooden house set on a stone foundation, designed in the [[Queen Anne style architecture in the United States|Queen Anne]] Revival style with [[Stick style]] motifs and large plate glass windows.<ref name="Tschirch" /><ref name="Nilsson" /> Boothden featured a dance hall, stables, boathouse, and a windmill folly with a henhouse at its base.<ref name="Tschirch">{{cite web |last1=Tschirch |first1=John R. |title=The Stunning Boothden Restoration |url=https://www.period-homes.com/projects/boothden-restoration |website=Period Homes Digital |access-date=November 13, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210517002844/https://www.period-homes.com/projects/boothden-restoration |archive-date=May 17, 2021 |date=November 9, 2016}}</ref><ref name="Nilsson">{{cite web |last1=Nilsson |first1=Casey |title=Inside Boothden, an Exquisite Waterside Retreat with a Dramatic Backstory |url=https://www.rimonthly.com/inside-boothden-an-exquisite-waterside-retreat-with-a-dramatic-backstory/ |magazine=[[Rhode Island Monthly]] |access-date=November 13, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210813171151/https://www.rimonthly.com/inside-boothden-an-exquisite-waterside-retreat-with-a-dramatic-backstory/ |archive-date=August 13, 2021 |date=August 13, 2021}}</ref> Booth enjoyed ten years<ref name="Tschirch" /> at Boothden, willing it to Edwina on his death in 1893.<ref name="NHS">{{cite web |title=History Bytes: Edwin Booth of Middletown |url=https://newporthistory.org/history-bytes-edwin-booth-of-middletown/ |website=[[Newport Historical Society]] |access-date=November 13, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210117225350/https://newporthistory.org/history-bytes-edwin-booth-of-middletown/ |archive-date=January 17, 2021 |date=June 25, 2013}}</ref> After Edwina sold Boothden in 1903, the house passed through a series of owners, and saw a full restoration in 2017.<ref name="Tschirch" />