Samuel James Seymour on I've Got a Secret (Lincoln)

(Fact|date=February 7, 1954 American weekly Magazine Section-New York Journal-American)

Samuel James Seymour (c. 1860–April 14, 1956) was the last surviving person who had been present in Ford's Theater the night of the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. He was from Maryland and lived in Arlington, Virginia in his later years.

At age five, Seymour's godmother, Mrs. George S. Goldsboro, had taken him to see Our American Cousin. He claimed the two sat in the balcony on the side opposite Lincoln's box. Seymour reported that " I complained tearfully that I couldn't get out of the coach because his shirt was torn-anything to delay the dread moment-but Sarah (nurse Sarah Cook) dug into her bag and found a big safety pin .", I shook so hard from fright (earlier seen men with guns and seemed they were all pointed at him) (in Washington), it caused Sarah to accidentally stab him with the pin. he hollered "I've been shot! I've been shot!".[citation needed] once in the theater Seymour settled down, saw the President across the balcony as he was waving and smiling at people, Seymour said " I began to get over the scared feeling I'd had ever since we arrived in Washington, but that was something I never should have done. all of a sudden a shot rang out-a shot that always will be remembered-and someone in the Presidents box screamed. I saw Lincoln slumped forward in his seat". Seymour did not actually see the assassination but did witness Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth jump off the balcony and break his leg. In fact, he revealed that because he did not know Lincoln was shot or that Booth had shot him, his real concern was for Booth breaking his leg.(Fact|date=February 7, 1954 American weekly Magazine Section-New York Journal-American)

Two months before his death at age 96, he appeared on the CBS TV quiz show I've Got a Secret as a mystery subject, in an episode in which Lucille Ball made an unusual appearance as a guest panelist. Coincidentally, Seymour died ninety-one years to the day of Lincoln's assassination.