He Killed Lincoln's Killer, Then Lived In A Hole

Concordia, Kansas

Boston Corbett was a wacko. He was also a soldier, and was assigned to the Federal Army unit that was ordered to track down (but not kill) John Wilkes Booth, who had just assassinated President Lincoln. Booth was soon cornered in a barn. Corbett shot (and killed) him through a crack in the barn wall. Corbett alternately claimed that Booth had made threatening moves, or that he was acting on personal orders from God.

Boston Corbett had a history of unorthodox actions. He wore his hair long in imitation of Jesus, changed his name from Thomas to "Boston" because he once lived in Boston, and castrated himself with a pair of scissors to avoid temptation from prostitutes.

He moved to this spot on the Kansas prairie in 1878 and lived in a hole that he had dug into the ground. Apologists call this a "dugout" -- as does his memorial here -- but it was just a hole in the ground. Corbett was still a good shot, and was known for his ability to kill birds on the fly and for threatening the locals with his gun when he felt that they were disobeying God's will.

Corbett was later thrown into an insane asylum in Topeka, escaped, and disappeared. Some say that he died in the great fire of Neodesha, Wisconsin, in 1894, but no one knows for sure.

Boston Corbett's monument was built by Boy Scout Troop 31 of Concordia in 1958, which was roughly the centennial of Corbett's rendezvous with the scissors. The monument once had two six-shooters mortared into it, but they have been stolen. Sixty yards away, a small wood sign marks the spot where Corbett's hole used to be.