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Date published: 2/8/2002
ITS OWNERSHIP may soon change It was after dark when the men arrived on horseback in search of food, a place to stay and some medical attention. It was no coincidence that this was the home of Dr. Richard H. Stuart, a physician and wealthy King George County landowner, and that one of the strangers was suffering with a broken leg. The injured man was John Wilkes Booth, who had broken his leg while making good his escape from Ford's Theater in Washington, where he had shot and killed President Abraham Lincoln nine days earlier. This Tuesday marks the 193rd anniversary of the 16th president's birth. The fugitive's flight would be halted by a bullet, just three days later, in a Bowling Green barn. The visit to Cleydael turned out to be a disappointment for Booth, who probably thought his chances good of finding a sympathetic homestead south of the Potomac. Booth told Stuart that a Dr. Samuel Mudd in Maryland had directed him there. But Stuart would have little to do with his suspicious visitors, sending them on their way just 15 minutes later after giving them a bite to eat. Stuart apparently insulted Booth further by sending him off to stay with a black man known only as Lucas, probably a former slave. Days later Lucas presented Stuart with coins totaling $2.50, paltry even at that time, wrapped in a note from Booth that sarcastically thanked Stuart for his limited hospitality. Stuart, word has it, tossed the note into the fireplace. His wife, Julia Calvert Stuart, recovered it, however--an act that preserved the evidence that eventually cleared Stuart of abetting Booth's escape and probably saved the doctor from execution. Cleydael, however, has been a sturdy and hospitable home for just about everyone else over its 143 years. The current owners, Brenda and Richard Pollock, who will soon retire to a smaller home in Southeast Virginia, are no exception. "I love this house with its tall ceilings and its history. This is not your regular old house," said Brenda Pollock, who hails from Ireland.
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