James W. Pumphrey

James W. Pumphrey (September 12, 1832 – March 16, 1906) was a livery stable owner in Washington, D.C., who played a minor role in the events surrounding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and its aftermath.

[1] On April 14, 1865, after learning that Lincoln would attend that evening's performance of the play Our American Cousin, Booth went directly from Ford's Theatre to Pumphrey's livery stable to make arrangements for procuring a horse.

Instead, Booth approached Edmund Spangler, an acquaintance and stage hand at Ford's Theatre, with the request to hold the reins of the skittish mare that he hired, while he briefly attended to some business within the theater.

In the turmoil that followed Lincoln's assassination, scores of suspected accomplices were arrested and thrown into prison by the United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.

Pumphrey's last part in the events surrounding the assassination was to wait mounted on his horse for hours outside the Old Arsenal Penitentiary.

It is from page 9 of the issue dated 16 March 1906: James W. Pumphrey, long a prominent and active businessman of Washington, died this morning at 8:50 o'clock at his residence 477 C Street after a short illness.

He was connected with the livery business for many years and an important incident in his career for which he was in no way responsible, was the circumstance that from his stables on C Street, N.W., John Wilkes Booth rented a horse prior to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and on which he afterward escaped into Maryland where he met his death.

The spurs which John Wilkes Booth wore on this expedition were borrowed from Mr. Pumphrey, although the latter had no knowledge of the purpose for which the assassin intended to employ them.

For some time after this tragic event, Mr. Pumphrey was under surveillance and was not relieved until after the trial and conviction of the parties who were accused of association with John Wilkes Booth in the assassination.

While Mr. Pumphrey was identified in a striking manner with the great closing tragedy of the Civil War, he always held, and his views were believed, that the idea of assassination arose in the mind of Booth alone, and that all of the others who were accused of participation in that sad event were influenced by that peculiar and erratic character.