SHARE "Andrew Jackson" by Thomas Sully in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. For generations, presidential scholars assumed this threatening letter that President Andrew Jackson got in 1835 was a hoax. While the letter bore the signature of acclaimed actor Junius Brutus Booth, father of John Wilkes Booth, researchers suspected it was a forgery. But now with help from the Andrew Jackson Papers Project at the University of Tennessee, scholars have verified that Booth did indeed write the letter. Junius Brutus Booth, English actor and the father of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln. With help from the Andrew Jackson Papers Project at the University of Tennessee, scholars have verified that Booth wrote an letter in which he called Jackson "You damn'd Scoundrel" and threaten to burn the president "at the stake in the City of Washington." John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln. Scholars have verified that Booth's father, Junius Brutus Booth, was the author of a letter threatening President Andrew Jackson.

By Katie Freeman

Freemank@Knoxnews.Com

Dismissed for 175 years as a fake, a letter threatening the assassination of President Andrew Jackson has been found to be authentic. And, says the director of the Andrew Jackson Papers Project at the University of Tennessee, the writer was none other than Junius Brutus Booth, father of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth.

Dan Feller and his staff solved the mystery of the July 4, 1835, letter to Jackson. The story of their investigation will be featured this summer on PBS' "History Detectives."

The letter, which addressed Old Hickory as "You damn'd old Scoundrel," demanded that Jackson pardon two prisoners named De Ruiz and De Soto who had been sentenced to death for piracy in a high-profile trial of the day.

"The trial of them and the other pirates had been a national news story. It was heavily covered," Feller said.

Pardon the pirates, the letter writer demanded, or "I will cut your throat whilst you are sleeping."

London-born Junius Brutus Booth was a famous Shakespearean actor and a manic public figure. He had three sons in the theater, including John Wilkes Booth, who later would murder President Lincoln in April 1865 at Ford's Theatre in Washington.

"(Junius) Booth was well-known for acting up, acting out, as well as acting," Feller said.

Most historians believed that someone else wrote the letter and forged Booth's name. Jackson's own clerks filed the letter as "anonymous."

America's seventh president had become accustomed to threats, according to Robert V. Remini, author of the biography "Andrew Jackson" and history professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

"It wasn't a crime to threaten the life of the president back in Jackson's time," Remini said.

Loved by the masses, Jackson also was considered by some to be unfit for the presidency. A man named Robert Lawrence tried to assassinate Jackson earlier in 1835.

"He approached Jackson on the steps of the Capitol, but the gun misfired," said Marsha Mullin, vice president of museum services and chief curator at the Hermitage, Jackson's Nashville home.

The Tennessean then chased Lawrence with his cane.

"His forceful personality was such that it attracted the crazies of the world," Remini said of the same incident.

A small circle of theater historians considered the Booth letter to be a joke between friends, but Feller says the July 4 letter is the only correspondence between Jackson and Booth.

"And we'd know," laughed Feller, whose staff has spent years tracking, photocopying and archiving all of Jackson's documents.

Debate over the Booth letter's validity reignited when a visitor at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill., recently read a copy of it. That same person later asked about Booth's assassination threat while touring the Hermitage. The Hermitage staff called Feller here in Knoxville.

Feller hoped to quash rumors that the real Booth was the author. He was in for a surprise when he researched the return address on the envelope, Brower's Hotel in Philadelphia.

"We discovered that he was in Philadelphia and that he always stayed at the Brower's Hotel when he was there," Feller said.

In a letter to his theater director, Booth apologized for not showing up for a performance - the same day the Jackson letter was written.

"He later apologized (to the director) for writing letters that he shouldn't have, including letters to 'authorities of the country,' Feller said.

A handwriting analyst confirmed that the handwriting matched that of other surviving Booth papers.

His motive for penning the threat was probably intrigue over the piracy trial, Feller concluded.

"He's interested in the same way you and I were interested in the O.J. Simpson trial," Feller said.

Katie Freeman may be reached at 865-342-6305.