George A. Parkhurst

George Augustus Parkhurst (March 18, 1841 – July 2, 1890) was an American stage actor who was one of the last surviving members of the company of actors present on the night of April 14, 1865, when John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln during their performance of Our American Cousin. Late in his life Parkhurst created the role of Hobbs in the 1888 American debut of Little Lord Fauntleroy.

When Booth shot President Lincoln, Parkhurst was onstage playing the part of a bailiff as a member of a stock company managed by the British actress Laura Keene.

Career

George A. Parkhurst was born in New York State, son of Benjamin Parkhurst and Kezia Nason (source: George Parkhurst Increasings by Peter George Parkhurst, p. 232: ) and may have been raised in Bergen, New Jersey, with his brother Benjamin. Parkhurst received some training for the stage from the actor Edwin Forrest. Eventually though, as a husband and father, he chose for the time to stay with his job as a postal clerk at the nation’s capitol. and received critical acclaim Parkhurst was interred at Prospect Hill Cemetery, Washington, D.C.

Lincoln's Death Bed Some six months before his death Parkhurst made the claim in the press that on the afternoon of April 14, John Wilkes Booth visited an actor friend staying at Petersen House in Washington D.C. During his stay Booth's friend noticed that the actor seemed agitated and suggested that he lie down on his bed for a short rest, supposedly the same bed Abraham Lincoln died in just a few hours later. This revelation, that Parkhurst heard from an unnamed cast member of Our American Cousin, has never been verified.