Montreal and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

When John Wilkes Booth was shot twelve days after killing Abraham Lincoln in April 1865, a money order for $184,000 drawn from on Montreal Branch of the Ontario Bank was found in his coat pocket. Six months before the assassination in October 1864, Wilkes Booth made a heretofore-unexplained visit to Montreal. He checked into a room in Montreal’s plush St. Lawrence Hall Hotel, 13 Great Saint James Street on October 18, 1864. The Confederate Secret Service operating in the officially neutral British Province of Canada had set up its headquarters in the St. Lawrence Hall Hotel. The day after Wilkes arrived, Confederate soldiers launched the infamous raid on St. Albans, Vermont. The raiders, like the Wilkes Booth conspirators, were financed by the Ontario Bank of Montreal. Montreal and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln is a fascinating investigation that sheds new light on a little known but crucial aspect of a critical event in 19th century history.