
10/14/2025
In 1863, at a crowded train platform in Jersey City, a young man leaned too far over the edge.
A sudden jolt, the crowd surged, and he slipped into the narrow gap between the platform and a moving train.
A bystander grabbed his collar and yanked him to safety just in time.
The rescuer’s name: Edwin Booth, a famous Shakespearean actor.
The man he saved: Robert Todd Lincoln, son of President Abraham Lincoln.
Neither could have known the tragic irony of what history had planned.
Just two years later, Edwin’s brother, John Wilkes Booth, would assassinate Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre, forever binding their families in one of history’s strangest, most heartbreaking coincidences.
Robert later wrote about the rescue himself, saying he recognized Edwin’s face instantly, the man who had unknowingly saved a president’s son from the very bloodline that would end his father’s life.
Fate, it seems, sometimes writes scripts that even history can’t believe. 🕯️