A Monument to John Wilkes Booth? Unusual Landmark in Troy, Alabama

The (Former) John Wilkes Booth Monument

Today marks the anniversary of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by actor and conspirator John Wilkes Booth.

For most people of his time, North and South, the anniversary marked a sad day in American history. But for Joseph Pinkney Parker of Troy, Alabama, it was a day to be celebrated.  Parker was a police officer, teacher and Baptist church member, but he was perhaps best known as a hater of Abraham Lincoln.

Called "Pink" Parker by his friends, he would dress in his Sunday best each April 14th to celebrate the day when John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln. Residents in Troy humored or ignored his one man Booth celebration, but in 1906 Parker ignited a national controversy about their town that they could no longer ignore.  He erected a monument to John Wilkes Booth and asked for permission to put it on the courthouse lawn.

City and county leaders in Troy balked at that idea and refused, but Parker erected his monument anyway, in a prominent spot on his own property facing Madison Street in the South Alabama city.

Monument now is Parker's Headstone

The monument caught the attention of the national media and newspapers across the nation did stories on Parker's Monument to Booth.  They often got the facts wrong, claiming it had been erected by the city itself, but "Pink" Parker enjoyed all the controversy and kept his monument right where it was despite calls that he remove it.

It stayed in its spot facing Madison Street in Troy until Parker died in 1921, when his family quietly removed it and had it recarved to serve as his tombstone. It stands today in Troy's Oakwood Cemetery, but with no trace of the original inscription:  "Erected by Pink Parker in honor of John Wilks Booth for killing Old Abe Lincoln."

So far as is known, it was the only monument ever erected to John Wilkes Booth. To learn more, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/boothmonument.

Former John Wilkes Booth Monument in Alabama

I recently became curious about the story of a monument to John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, that was erected in 1906 by a citizen of Troy, Alabama. It was removed in 1921, but I was surprised to find that the stone shaft actually still exists.

Joseph Pinkney "Pink" Parker commissioned the carving of the monument in hopes of placing it in front of the courthouse in Troy. A police officer, teacher, Baptist church member and Confederate veteran, Parker absolutely hated Abraham Lincoln. He had returned home from the war in 1865 to find that his family had been brutally treated by Federal soldiers and Unionists and never forgave nor forgot.

Even before he commissioned his monument to Booth, he would observe the anniversary of Lincoln's death each year by dressing in his finest clothes and holding a one man celebration.

He took his tribute to Booth to a whole new level in 1906 when he paid for the carving of a monument in his honor. Community leaders declined to allow the placement of the monument at the courthouse, so Parker erected it facing the street in his front yard in Troy. It stood there for 16 years, despite a growing national media frenzy over its existence.

To learn more and see what became of the monument, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/boothmonument.