Last Surviving Witness To Lincoln Assassination Lived Long Enough To Share Story On TV

On the night of April 14, 1865, the 16th President of The United States, Abraham Lincoln, was assassinated by an actor, John Wilkes Booth, while he was enjoying a play at Ford’s Theatre in the heart of Washington, D.C.

Amid the chaos and turmoil of that night was a witness to this harrowing event, a young boy, Samuel J. Seymour, who was just one of the roughly 1,700 audience members gathered to watch the play Our American Cousin. Unknown to him at the time, he would go down in history as the last living eyewitness to the tragic assassination.

Samuel J. Seymour shares his account of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln

During an interview with journalist Frances Spatz Leighton, Seymour shared a remarkable account of the ill-fated night. He had journeyed to Washington D.C. with his father for a business trip — a journey that he would always remember. Accompanied by his nurse, Sarah Cook, and Mrs. Goldsboro, the wife of his father’s employer, Seymour found himself in the audience, eagerly anticipating the performance of Our American Cousin.

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He recalled how the tranquility of the theater was shattered when John Wilkes Booth fired the fatal shot at the president. “I saw Lincoln slumped forward in his seat,” Seymour reminisced. “That night I was shot 50 times, at least, in my dreams — and I sometimes relive the horror of Lincoln’s assassination, dozing in my rocker as an old codger like me is bound to do.”

Samuel J. Seymour says he was terrified when President Abraham Lincoln was shot

Just a couple of months before his passing on April 12, 1956,  Seymour made a captivating appearance as a guest on the popular game show, I’ve Got a Secret. In a hushed and suspenseful moment, Seymour leaned in to share his remarkable secret: “I saw John Wilkes Booth shoot Abraham Lincoln.”

While he did not engage in extensive dialogue during the show, Seymour did manage to convey the sheer horror of what he had witnessed in a simple sentence. “Not very pleasant, I don’t think,” he shared. “I was scared to death.”