George A. Parkhurst

Who was George A. Parkhurst?

George A. Parkhurst, 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 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. Parkhurst had planned to stop by Booth’s dressing room at Ford's Theatre that night to borrow a costume; an appointment that for different reasons both missed.