Tortugas Friends
Sirs:
As I sit reading your Fort Jefferson article in the Feb. 4 issue, an early scene comes into view.
A wounded Northern soldier, Charles Pander Willard was detailed to tend the lighthouse on Loggerhead Island of the Dry Tortugas reef.
At the same time Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd was imprisoned at Fort Jefferson under suspicion of complicity with Booth in the assassination of President Lincoln.
Dr. Mudd had hobbies, so did the lighthouse keeper. The prisoner was allowed to whittle; the lone keeper of the light fiddled, painted, collected rare corals and...