5-Year-Old's Brush with History: James Dawson

port sailings as well as those of other governments around the world. Though a complex process to manage, cruise lines think it is achievable. U.S. ships have been sailing from ports outside of the U.S.

The cruise lines advertise that they have implemented the most up-to-date health and safety measures, including appointing health advisory panels and health offi cers. They offer enhanced health processes, continuous disinfection and fogging of rooms and public spaces, and impose high health standards for passengers, staff and crew. They have upgraded air fi lters. They constantly monitor destinations and make changes when the pandemic necessitates with safe on-shore experiences. They have reduced physical contact. Assume that full vaccinations, health screening and testing will still be required of passengers.

In this new pandemic travel world, travel insurance, like travel specialists, is highly recommended. When we are concerned about virus breakouts, trip cancellations, trip interruptions, trip credits and refunds, we want to research and purchase trip insurance with cancellation for any reason (CFAR) insurance.

However, due to the demand, the cost of that peace of mind increased by more than 500% in 2020, according to Travel and Leisure magazine, March 2021, though 90% of all trips booked included the purchase of CFAR. Though expensive, CFAR plans give you the most fl exibility in this environment. Clarify your trip insurance questions before you sign on the dotted line.

So, are you ready to see family and friends again? Are you ready to celebrate wellness and freedom? Where do you plan to go? Within the state? Within the U.S.? Abroad? How will you get there? Car, RV, bus, train, plane, ferry boat, cruise? What’s on your bucket list? Are you ready for the sights, tastes and scents of new places? Are you ready for a vaxcation?

Bonna L. Nelson is a Bay-area writer, columnist, photographer and world traveler. She resides in Easton with her husband, John.

A Five-Year-Old’s Brush with History

by James Dawson

When little five-year-old Sammy Seymour went to the Big City, he never dreamed that he would witness one of the most dramatic and tragic events in U.S. history. Even when he was an old man, he would never forget his first trip away from home when he was a little shaver and witnessed a true American tragedy. This article is based in part on his recollections when he was an elderly man.

Sammy was the son of George and Susan Seymour. His father worked as an overseer on the “Ashby” estate just north of Easton. “Ashby” was owned by George R. Goldsborough and was located in Goldsborough Neck on the Goldsborough branch of the Miles River in Talbot County, Maryland.

When Mr. Goldsborough and Sammy’s father, his overseer, had to go to Washington D.C. to see about the legal status of his 150 slaves, they were accompanied by Mr. Goldsborough’s wife, Eleanor. Eleanor had asked to take Sammy and his nurse, Sarah Cook, along with them for a nice holiday. Eleanor doted on Sammy and was his godmother.

They made the 150-mile trip by a coach pulled by a team of horses. Sammy remembered how stubbornly the horses resisted being loaded onto a steamboat to cross the Chesapeake Bay.

Good Friday, April 14, 1865 was a beautiful early-spring day. The temperature was in the mid-60s, and the scent of dogwoods and lilacs hung in the air, but by night, the weather had turned foggy and misty.

Samuel J. Seymour

It was nearly suppertime when they reached Washington, D.C., and pulled up to the biggest house that Sammy had ever seen in his life. It was so big it looked a thousand farm houses had all been pushed together, but his father told him it was a hotel. Sammy was scared to death because the streets were lined with men carrying guns and he thought that every gun was pointed at him! He stubbornly complained that he could not get out of the coach because his shirt was torn ~ anything to keep him away from these scary men with the guns. His ever-resourceful nurse found a safety pin in her bag, but as she began to repair the tear, Sammy was shaking so hard from fear that when Sarah accidentally stabbed him with the pin he hollered out that he’d been shot!

Finally, Sammy was taken upstairs to their room. After he was scrubbed and dressed in clean clothes, Mrs. Goldsborough told

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him she had a wonderful surprise. They were going to see a play ~ a real play, and Abraham Lincoln would be there! Sammy didn’t know what a play was, but thought it must be a game like tag, which he liked.

They waited outside the theater for tickets and then went upstairs and sat in hard rattan-backed chairs. From their seats in the balcony, Mrs. Goldsborough pointed to a colorful box draped with flags and told Sammy that was where President Lincoln would sit.

The theater was crowded with more than a thousand people, and

everyone seemed to be in a festive mood, eager to see the silly play, happy that the terrible war was finally over. Almost everyone, that is, except for one disgruntled actor.

The performance started about 8 p.m., but it was about 8:15 when President and Mrs. Lincoln arrived and the orchestra played Hail to the Chief. Mrs. Goldsborough lifted Sammy high up so that he could see the President. Sammy thought he was a tall, stern-looking man, but maybe he just looked that way because of his whiskers, because he was smiling and waving to the crowd.

Seymour remembered that when everyone sat down and the actors began moving and talking, the scared feeling he’d had ever since they arrived in Washington, D.C., was finally starting to lift. But, as it turned out, that was a mistake.

Then something happened that Sammy would always remember. Suddenly, a gun shot rang out, and he saw President Lincoln slumped forward in his seat and somebody screamed. Then Sammy thought there’d been another accident when a man seemed to fall out of the box onto the stage. Sammy begged them to hurry and go help the poor man who fell down, but then John Wilkes Booth, who had just assassinated