 Booth 's parents , the noted British Shakespearean actor Junius Brutus Booth and his mistress Mary Ann Holmes , moved to the United States from England in June 1821 . They purchased a 150 @-@ acre ( 61 ha ) farm near Bel Air in Harford County , Maryland , where John Wilkes Booth was born in a four @-@ room log house on May 10 , 1838 , the ninth of ten children . He was named after the English radical politician John Wilkes , a distant relative . Junius ' wife , Adelaide <unk> Booth , was granted a divorce in 1851 on grounds of adultery , and Holmes legally wed Julius on May 10 , 1851 , the youth 's 13th birthday . 
