Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (Currier and Ives via Library of Congress

A young boy who was in Ford’s Theatre the night President Abraham Lincoln was shot lived long enough to appear on a television game show in 1956. Samuel J. Seymour, a Maryland native, was 95 years old when he was the featured guest on the CBS program I’ve Got a Secret.

On April 14, 1865, Seymour was a five-year-old boy whose godmother took him to that evening’s production of Our American Cousin. During the third act that evening, the actor John Wilkes Booth—not in the production—made his way into Lincoln’s box and shot the president before jumping to the stage below for his escape.

Seymour, however, did not actually see Booth fire the gun, though he certainly heard it. In fact, as I’ve Got a Secret host Garry Moore recounted, the young Seymour was more concerned for Booth, who broke his leg upon crashing to the stage.

By 1956, Seymour was frail and in declining health. His appearance on the February 9 edition of the show was nearly cancelled when he fell down in his New York hotel before going on the show. But his doctors gave him the option of continuing with the gig, and he went for it. It was Jayne Meadows, a stage actress and regular panelist on I’ve Got a Secret, who eventually deduced Seymour’s backstory.

Seymour died a few months later, shortly after his 96th birthday. He is buried at Loudon Park National Cemetery in Baltimore.