Testimony of Horace B. Bennett

“STATE OF MINNESOTA,

STERNS COUNTY,
City of ST. CLOUD,

“Horace B. Bennett, being sworn, deposes and says, that he is aged sixty-four years; that he is a resident of St. Cloud, Minnesota, and has resided in this county since 1856; that he is acquainted with Reverend F.A. Conwell, who was chaplain of the First Minnesota Regiment in the war of the rebellion; that on the 14th day of April, 1865, he was in St. Joseph, Minnesota, in company with Mr. Frances A. Conwell; that they reached St. Joseph about sundown of said April 14th; that there was no railroad or telegraph communication with St. Joseph at that time, nor nearer than Anoka, about 40 miles distant. That affiant, on reaching the hotel kept by Mr. Linneman went to the barn, while Reverend F.A. Conwell entered the hotel; and shortly afterward, affiant had returned to the hotel, Mr. Conwell had told him that Mr. Linneman had reported to him the assassination of President Lincoln; that Mr. Linneman was present and substantiated the statement;

“That on Saturday morning, April 15th, affiant and Reverend Conwell came to St. Cloud and reported that they had been told at St. Joseph about the assassination of President Lincoln; that no one at St. Cloud had heard of the event at this time: that the first news of the event which reached St. Cloud, was on Sunday morning, April 16th, when the news was brought by Leander Gorton, who had just come up from Anoka, Minnesota; that they spoke to several persons of St. Cloud concerning the matter, when they reached there, on Sunday morning, but affiant does not now remember who those different persons were, and further affiant says not.

HORACE P. BENNETT.

“Sworn before me, and subscribed in my presence, this 18th day of October. A.D., 1883.

ANDREW C. ROBINSON,
Notary Public.

In regard to Mr. Linneman, Father Chiniquy says:

“Mr. Linneman having refused to swear on his written declaration which I have in my possession, I take only from it what refers to the principal fact, viz.: that three or four hours before Lincoln was assassinated at Washington, the 14th of April, 1865, the fact was told as already accomplished in the priestly village of St. Joseph, Minnesota.

“He (Linneman) remembers the time that Messrs. Conwell and Bennett came to his place (St. Joseph, Minnesota) on Friday evening, before the President was killed, and he asked them if they had heard he was dead, and they replied they had not. He heard this rumor in his store from people who came in and out. But he cannot remember from whom.

October 20th, 1883. J.H. LINNEMAN.”

We have now before us positive evidence that these Jesuit Fathers, priests of Rome, engaged in preparing young men for the priesthood away out in the village of St. Joseph, in far off Minnesota, were in correspondence with their brethren in Washington City, and had been informed that the plan to assassinate the President had been matured, the agents for its accomplishment had been found, the time for its execution had been set, and so sure were they of its accomplishment, that they could announce it as already done, three or four hours before it had been consummated. The anticipation of its accomplishment so elated them that they could not refrain from passing it around, in this Romish crowd, as a piece of glorious news.

It is plain from this testimony that Good Friday had been set, as the time for its accomplishment; and that ways and means had been planned, and that there was to be no such word as fail.

At the time that this news had been transmitted to these Fathers, it was not known that President Lincoln would attend Ford’s theatre; and so, it is plain that had not this opportunity been afforded to Booth and his co-conspirators, they would still have attempted it in some other way; that their purpose had been fixed; and so desperate was their determination that they would not have been foiled in their attempt by any difficulties that they might had had to encounter.

The word had been passed to this Jesuit college in St. Joseph, Minnesota. and no doubt to all other Jesuit institutions in the United States, in Canada and in the Confederacy, that, on that Good Friday, Lincoln was to be slain.

That this was to be done to overthrow our government is to be seen in the fact that Secretary Seward was also to be taken off that day.

This news could only have been communicated to these Jesuits by their Jesuit friends in Washington, who, under the protection and hospitality of our government, were thus, in the hour of its sore trial, and extreme peril, planning and plotting for its destruction: and ready, for this purpose, to resort to their favorite policy of assassination. I feel, however that I must give my readers Father Chiniquy’s own construction of this evidence. He says.

“I present here to the world a fact of the greatest gravity, and that fact is so well authenticated that it cannot allow even the possibility of a doubt.

“Three or four hours before Lincoln was murdered in Washington, the 14th of April, 1865, that murder was not only known by some one, but it was circulated and talked of in the streets, and in the houses of the priestly and Romish town of St. Joseph, Minnesota. The fact is undeniable; the testimonies are unchallengable, and there were no railroad or telegraph communication nearer that 40 or 80 miles from the nearest station to St. Joseph. Naturally every one asked: ‘How could such news spread? Where is the source of such a rumor?’

“Mr. Linneman, who is a Roman Catholic, tells us that, though he heard this from many in his store, and in the streets, he does not remember the name of a single one who told him that. And when we hear this from him, we understand why he did not dare to swear upon it, and shrunk from the idea of perjuring himself.

“For everyone feels that his memory cannot be so poor as that, when he remembers so well the names of the two strangers, Messrs. Conwell and Bennett, to whom he had announced the assassination of Lincoln, just seventeen years before. But if the memory of Mr. Linneman is so deficient on that subject, we can help him and tell him with mathematical accuracy.

“You got the news from your priests of St. Joseph! The conspiracy which cost the life of the martyred President was prepared by the priests of Washington in the house of Mary Surratt, No. 541 H Street.

“Those priests of Washington were in daily communication with their priests of St. Joseph; they were their intimate friends.

“There were no secrets amongst them, as there are no secrets among priests. They are the members of the same body, the branches of the same tree. The details of the murder, as the day selected for its commission were as well known among the priests of St. Joseph, as they were among those of Washington. The death of Lincoln was such a glorious event for those priests! The infamous apostate, Lincoln, who, baptized in the Holy Church, had rebelled against her, broken his oath of allegiance to the Pope, taken the very day of his baptism, and saved the life of an apostate! That infamous Lincoln, who had dared to fight against the Confederacy of the South after the Vicar of Christ had solemnly declared that their cause was just, legitimate and holy! That bloody tyrant, that godless and infamous man was to receive, at last, the just chastisement of his crimes, the 14th of April. What glorious news! How could the priests conceal such a joyful event from their bosom friend, Mr. Linneman?

“He was their confidential man; he was their purveyor; he was their right hand man among the faithful of St. Joseph.

“They thought that they would be guilty of a great want of confidence in their bosom friend if they did not tell him all about the glorious event that great day. But, of course, they requested him not to mention their names, if he would spread the joyful news among the devoted Roman Catholics, who, almost exclusively, formed the people of St. Joseph. Mr. Linneman has honorably and faithfully kept his promise never to reveal their names, and today we have in our hand the authentic testimonies, signed by him, that though somebody on the 14th of April told him that President Lincoln was assassinated, he does not know who told him that!

“But there is not a man of sound judgment who will have any doubt about the fact.

“The 14th of April, 1865, the priests knew and circulated the death of Lincoln four hours before its occurrence in their Roman Catholic town of St. Joseph, Minnesota. But they could not circulate it without knowing it, and they could not know it without belonging to the band of conspirators who assassinated Abraham Lincoln.”

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