Fred Petersen, the 15-year-old boy who blotted up blood from the hallway of his father’s boardinghouse on assassination weekend and sold it to relic seekers, made his career in sales.

Petersen and his partner Albert Childs established Petersen & Childs, a rug emporium in Market Space, Washington, D.C.’s commercial corridor along Pennsylvania Avenue.

They were listed in the 1887 Boyd’s Directory of Washington, D.C. and Georgetown, selling carpets, rugs, oil cloth, mattings and home furnishings.