The historic Tudor Hall is a fascinating piece of our nation's history. When you visit, you'll connect to the story of the Maryland Booths who left their mark on America forever. You'll walk where they walked, lived, played, worked and dreamed. When you visit, this part of history comes alive.
The property and first floor of Tudor Hall will be open to visitors for tours and talks in 2025 at 1:00 & 2:00 PM on the dates listed below. This year all general tours will be at 1:00 PM. The special talks will be at 2:00 PM.
April 6 & 27; May 4 & 18; June 1 & 15 & 29; July 15 & 27; August 10 & 24; September 7 & 21; October 5 & 19; November 9
Tudor Hall is
located at:
17 Tudor Lane,
Bel Air, MD 21015
The cost of each
Special Talk and each regular tour is $5.00 cash for those age 13 and older.
For
more information:
443-619-0008 or
SpiritsOfTudorHall@gmail.com
The following are the special talks at 2 PM:
April 6
The Tragedy of Loving Booth. The Sad Lives of Two Women Romantically Attached to John Wilkes Booth
by Jim Garrett
April 27 & October 5
Lincoln’s Final Hours
by Kathryn Canavan
May 4
Artifacts of John Wilkes Booth and Abraham Lincoln From the Night of the Assassination
by Jim Garrett
May 18 & July 27
Asia Booth Clarke, Sister to John Wilkes Booth, A Woman of the Civil War
by Lisa
June 1
Full Immersion History: Finding New Angles in an Old Story
by Michael Kauffman
June 15
Patriarchal Patriot: the Revolutionary Richard Booth, the Father of Junius and Grandfather of John Wilkes
by Kate Jones
June 29
The Mistresses of Tudor Hall and Their Memories of the Booths
by Jill Redding
July 13
Shakespearean Daughter: the Life and Loves of Edwina Booth
by Kate Jones
August 10
Get to know Junius Jr.: Son of the great tragedian Junius Brtutus Booth
by Jim Garrett
August 24
Joseph, the Unknown Booth, the Younger Brother of John Wilkes Booth
by Jim Garrett
September 7
April 14, 1865
by Terry Alford
September 21
“But Daddy I Love Him” - Animals and Pets of the Booth Family
by Kate Jones
October 19
“First Daughter” A New Look at Rosalie Booth
by Kate Jones
November 9
John Wilkes Booth: Two days to Destiny
by Jim Garrett
Below are the speakers for 2025:
Terry Alford is an author, historian, and Professor Emeritus at Northern Virginia Community College. He received a Ph.D. in history from Mississippi State University and did post-doctoral work in family history at the University of California, Davis.
Dr. Alford is a founding board member of the Abraham Lincoln Institute of Washington, D.C., and is an internationally recognized authority on John Wilkes Booth and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Dr. Alford makes frequent appearances on television programs and networks such as “20/20,” ABC News, the History Channel, the Discovery Network, the Smithsonian Channel, CSPAN, BBC, and PBS. Fortune’s Fool, Dr. Alford’s biography of Booth, was published in 2015 by Oxford University Press and has received exceptional reviews. His research endeavors have been supported by four grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has been an historical consultant on a number of films and documentaries, most recently Stephen Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” starring Daniel Day-Lewis. He also serves as a member of the Advisory Council for Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC.
In 2010, Dr. Alford received the Outstanding Faculty of Virginia Award from the State Council on Higher Education. This is the highest teaching honor given to college and university faculty in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Kathryn Canavan is an independent researcher and the author of Lincoln’s Final Hours: Conspiracy, Terror, and the Assassination of America’s Greatest President. She started her journalism career as a crime reporter. She eventually worked as reporter or editor in four states and was a National Health Journalism Fellow at USC’s Annenberg School. To get a story, Canavan has reported at gunpoint, lived with the Moonies, negotiated with a killer and joined Tug McGraw in the Phillies dugout.
She began researching the unintended consequences of the Lincoln assassination in 2009. Lincoln's Final Hours has been featured on CSPAN and PBS Newsworks. She explores the effect that one extraordinary night had on the ordinary Washingtonians who witnessed what happened inside Petersen's Boarding House on the night President Lincoln died there. Their eyewitness accounts provide telling new details about the assassination. Some went on to lead lives that are the stuff of novels, and others came to sad ends.
Jim Garrett gets to do what he loves . . . History. He is a lifelong student of history and for the last 10 years plus has shared his love of history with people from around the world. For his entire life, he has been an ardent student of American History concentrating on the Civil War era and the Lincoln Assassination. Beginning in the early 2000's, he was a volunteer at Ford's Theatre, lectured at conferences, including the Department of the Interior, been on radio and co-authored two books and written numerous articles. Now semi-retired, he spends his time with Unscripted Tours of Washington, which is rated the top tour company in Washington by Viatour, the parent company of Tripadvisor. Unscripted Tours is also listed in the top 20 tours in the nation by Viatour as well.
Kate Jones is a 19th century murder researcher, speaker, and living historian who specializes in the Lincoln assassination, the Lizzie Borden murders, and the case of the "Devil in the White City" multi-murderer, Dr. H. H. Holmes.
She has presented on different aspects of the Lincoln assassination for several organizations including the Surratt Society and Fort Lesley J. McNair. Kate also speaks about the events of 1865 through her work at the Dr. Samuel A. Mudd House Museum and Historic Port Tobacco Village.
Michael Kauffman: Author Jonathan Yardley once wrote in the Washington Post Book World that Michael W. Kauffman "has been studying Lincoln generally and the assassination specifically for 40 years, and he appears to know the subject better than anyone else now alive."
Combing through archives all over the U. S., Canada, and the U. K., Kauffman uncovered a staggering number of previously unknown sources to produce American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies (Random House, 2004), which historian David Herbert Donald called "by all means the best" work on the Lincoln assassination. The Wall Street Journal named it one of the five best books ever published on political violence, and Civil War Interactive placed it high on their list of the Most Important Civil War books ever published.
Kauffman had long been a fixture in Civil War studies, with contributions that appeared in Civil War Times, the Washington Post, American Heritage, Blue and Gray, and dozens of other publications. He has lectured throughout the United States and the U. K., and has appeared in documentaries on A&E, The Learning Channel, the History Channel, National Geographic, Discovery, and Travel Channels.
American Brutus was his first major book, and it appeared in the Best Books lists of nearly every major media outlet in the United States. It was optioned for a 9-part miniseries on HBO.
Jill Redding has been on stage for over 70 years beginning in the early 50’s. She has appeared in 40+ movies as a background performer and has been a member of the Screen Actors Guild for over 30 years. Jill honed her acting skills by appearing in local community theaters. In the last 30+ years she has worked with a troupe of actors playing over 30 characters in improvisation style comedy. Some of her credits include: the feisty outspoken bartender at the longshoreman’s bar in the second season of The Wire; the game changer in the movie Game Change, and as a surly book buyer on Veep.
She discovered Tudor Hall in 1978 and served as Vice President of The Preservation Association for Tudor Hall. She wrote, produced, and directed Murder Mysteries for 4 years to raise funds to keep Tudor Hall open to the public during the 1990’s and is currently Vice President of the Junius B. Booth Society.
Lisa Samia is an award winning Poet & Author who loves American Civil War History. Her latest accomplishments are being selected as the National Parks Arts Foundation's Artist in Residence for Gettysburg National Battlefield Park & National Parks Service Artist in Residence for Manassas National Battlefield Park, both for poetry.
She has presented her poetry at the American Civil War Museum, Richmond and Appomattox, Manassas National Military Park, The Gettysburg Civil War Round Table, The Seminary Ridge Museum, the Gettysburg Heritage Museum, the New England Civil War Museum, and more.
Lisa is also an avid author and speaker on John Wilkes Booth and his sister Asia Booth Clarke. She has appeared multiple times at Tudor Hall in Bel Air, MD (Booth Family Home) and at the Civil War Round Table Congress (via Zoom) to a sold-out audience. Her recent endeavor is researching and writing a biography of the life of Asia Booth Clarke, Sister to John Wilkes Booth, A Woman of the Civil War.
Plan to visit Tudor Hall for each of the exciting educational special talks in addition to taking the regular tours.
