The telecast that aired live on February 9, 1956, with
Lucille Ball as a guest panelist, featured a 96-year-old contestant who was the last surviving witness to the assassination of
Abraham Lincoln.
Garry Moore introduced this senior citizen, Samuel Seymour, by saying he hailed from Maryland. When Seymour died two months later on the anniversary of the assassination, newspapers said he was a longtime resident of Arlington, Virginia. Whatever the truth of his residence, his secret was uncovered by
Jayne Meadows. After she uncovered it, Moore explained to her, the other panelists and viewers that when John Wilkes Booth jumped down from the presidential box at Fords Theatre immediately after shooting Lincoln, five-year-old Seymour witnessed only that jump without knowing that any shots had been fired. The audience's laughter in reaction to the play muffled the sound of the gunshots for many people. The child felt sorry for the man who obviously had injured himself jumping from the presidential box to the stage. Booth indeed injured his leg and sought medical treatment before his capture.
