Pearl Ring given by John Wilkes Booth
In the summer of 1864, while starring in a theatrical engagement at the Boston Museum, John Wilkes Booth became smitten with a 17-year-old beauty named Isabel Sumner. Few details of the brief relationship remain, but we do know that Booth gave Ms. Sumner some photos including one which has the inscription "yours with affection J. Wilkes Booth" written on the back, along with at least 6 letters, and a pearl ring. Miss Sumner may have even traveled to New York to see Booth in August of that year, but it's believed that was the last time they were in contact. After the assassination the following year and the subsequent death of Booth, many individuals that knew Booth destroyed anything that could connect them to the assassin. Ms. Sumner, however, held onto these personal objects her entire life, perhaps unwilling to part with her memories of the summer of 1864.
The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library