BGuthrie Photos: MD -- Clinton -- Surratt Tavern -- Museum

MD -- Clinton -- Surratt Tavern -- Museum:

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[1] SURRAM_151030_006.JPG	[2] SURRAM_151030_010.JPG	[3] SURRAM_151030_014.JPG
[4] SURRAM_151030_017.JPG	[5] SURRAM_151030_020.JPG	[6] SURRAM_151030_024.JPG
[7] SURRAM_151030_027.JPG	[8] SURRAM_151030_030.JPG	[9] SURRAM_151030_035.JPG
[10] SURRAM_151030_037.JPG	[11] SURRAM_151030_040.JPG	[12] SURRAM_151030_048.JPG
[13] SURRAM_151030_052.JPG	[14] SURRAM_151030_060.JPG	[15] SURRAM_151030_061.JPG
[16] SURRAM_151030_063.JPG	[17] SURRAM_151030_070.JPG	[18] SURRAM_151030_074.JPG
[19] SURRAM_151030_082.JPG	[20] SURRAM_151030_086.JPG	[21] SURRAM_151030_090.JPG
[22] SURRAM_151030_092.JPG	[23] SURRAM_151030_099.JPG	[24] SURRAM_151030_104.JPG
[25] SURRAM_151030_111.JPG	[26] SURRAM_151030_116.JPG	[27] SURRAM_151030_120.JPG
[28] SURRAM_151030_126.JPG	[29] SURRAM_151030_129.JPG	[30] SURRAM_151030_132.JPG
[31] SURRAM_151030_137.JPG	[32] SURRAM_151030_141.JPG	[33] SURRAM_151030_147.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. SURRAM_151030_010.JPG: The Saga of Mary Surratt
2. SURRAM_151030_014.JPG: In 1823, a daughter, Mary Elizabeth, was born to Archibald and Elizabeth Webster Jenkins on nearby family land. Following the death of her father in 1825, Mary and her two brothers were raised by their mother, who managed to acquire additional property and holdings.
3. SURRAM_151030_017.JPG: When Mary was twelve, she was sent across the Potomac River to be educated by The Sisters of Charity at a school affiliated with St. Mary's Catholic Church in Alexandria Virginia. It was while hear that Mary converted to the Catholic faith.
4. SURRAM_151030_020.JPG: In 1840, at age 17, she married John Harrison Surratt, 10 years her senior, and went to live on land in Oxon Hill hundreds that he had inherited from his foster parents. Three children were born to the Surratt... Isaac Douglas Surratt 1841 - 1907 Elizabeth Susannah Surratt 1843 - 1904 John Harrison Surratt Jr. 1844 - 1916
5. SURRAM_151030_024.JPG: By 1852, the Surratt had purchased 287 acres at a crossroad that would soon bear the name "Surrattsville." Here, their new home also served as the community post office as well as a gathering place with a tavern and public dining room serving travelers and acquaintances.
6. SURRAM_151030_027.JPG: When the Civil War God, this Surratt swear known Confederate sympathizers send me and there Tavern became a safe house on the Confederate underground which florist in southern Maryland. Upon his sudden death in 1862, Mr. Surratt left his family in financial trouble. In late 1864, there's a Surratt rented the Surratt still property and move to a house at 541 now 604 H Street in Washington City.
7. SURRAM_151030_030.JPG: Involved in Confederate business, young John Surratt wasn't listed by John Wilkes Booth in a daring scheme to kidnap President Abraham Lincoln. Knowingly or unknowingly, Mrs. Surratt became ensnared in a fatal trap when they kidnap plot turn to assassination.
8. SURRAM_151030_035.JPG: Arrested as a conspirator and taken to the Old Capitol Prison... ... She was later transferred to the Washington Arsenal Penitentiary where she was tried, convicted...
9. SURRAM_151030_037.JPG: ... She was later transferred to the Washington Arsenal Penitentiary where she was tried convicted... ... and executed on July 7, 1865 marking the first time that a woman had been executed by the federal government.
10. SURRAM_151030_040.JPG: The debate over her guilt or innocence began at the time of her arrest and continues to plague historians today.
11. SURRAM_151030_048.JPG: In 1869, her body was removed from the grounds of the penitentiary and returned to her family for burial in Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Washington. The simple stone shown here was erected in 1878 and stood for the next 100 years paragraph. A more modern stone now marks the grave of Mary Surratt.
12. SURRAM_151030_052.JPG: The execution of four Lincoln conspirators, Washington Arsenal Penitentiary July 7, 1865
13. SURRAM_151030_060.JPG: A prayer book, watch, and glasses belonging to Mary Surratt are displayed here with an embroidered handkerchief belonging to her son, John Harrison Surratt Jr. Also shown is the key to Old Capitol prison for Mrs. Surratt was held briefly following her arrest on April 17, 1865, and a tinted carte-de-viste entitled morning, noon, and nice. This was displayed at her Washington home and behind it, authorities found a photo of John Wilkes Booth. This was used as evidence against Mrs. Surratt.
14. SURRAM_151030_074.JPG: The Garrett Farm near Port Royal, Virginia where John Wilkes Booth died on April 26, 1865
15. SURRAM_151030_086.JPG: On the afternoon of April 14, Mrs. Surratt delivered a package to her country tavern. That package contain field glasses identical to be shown here. John Lloyd, the tavern tenant, gave the glasses to Booth and Herold when they stopped at night. They were later found with Booth when he was shot twelve days later.
16. SURRAM_151030_090.JPG: Stiff shackles such as these were used as restraints on those persons arrested as part of the Lincoln assassination conspiracy.
17. SURRAM_151030_092.JPG: Visitors to the military trial of the Lincoln conspirators as required passes such as this one issued to miss Julia digs. We have mounted the past with Manning cut from reproduction wallpaper identical to that which cover the walls of the ill-fated presidential box at Fords Theatre, April 1865.
18. SURRAM_151030_099.JPG: According to family tradition, David E. Herold, later hanged as a conspirator, spent the night of April 13, 1865 with the Huntt family in nearby TB. He left behind this nightshirt which, at the time, had the laundry mark "John H. Surratt" in the neckband. The nightshirt was used for years by visiting ministers, and the frayed neckband was cut off.
19. SURRAM_151030_111.JPG: The Surratt Boardinghouse 541 (now 604) H Street Washington, DC ca 1865 The Surratt Farm Surrattsville ca 1865
20. SURRAM_151030_120.JPG: History Reborn... Following the events of 1865, Surratt House passed out of family hands. It had a succession of private owners until it was donated to the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission in 1865 by the BK Miller family since the land on which it stood had not been donated to the Commission, the original plans called for the house to be torn down and reconstructed at a local park. However, through community efforts, the necessary funds were raised to buy a small portion of the Surratt land so that the building could be restored on its original foundation. After extensive research, fundraising, and restoration, the site opened as a Public Museum on May one, 1976.
21. SURRAM_151030_126.JPG: Surratt House ca 1900
22. SURRAM_151030_129.JPG: In the Assassin's Words: Ti Amo April 13-14 Friday the Ides. Until to day nothing was ever thought of sacrificing to our country's wrongs. For six months we had worked to capture. But our cause being almost lost, something decisive & great must be done. But its failure was owing to others, who did not strike for their country with a heart. I struck boldly and not as the papers say. I walked with a firm step through a thousand of his friends, was stopped, but pushed on. A Col. was at his side. I shouted Sic semper before I fired. In jumping broke my leg. I -- passed all his tickets, rode sixty miles at night with the bone of my leg tearing the flash it every jump. I can never repent it, though we hated to kill; Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment. The country is not what it was. This forced union is not what I have loved. I care not what becomes of me. I have no desire to out-live my country. This night (before the deed), I wrote a long article ~~in which~~ and left it for one of the editors of the National intelligence ER in which I fully set forth are reasons for our proceedings. He or the government The text abruptly stops here and is followed by a hand Ron calendar (not shown). Booth began writing again on the next page. Friday 21 After being hunted like a dog through swamps, woods, and last night being chased by gunboats till we I was forced to return wet, cold and starving. With every man's hand against me. I am here in dispair. And why. For doing what Brutus was honored for. What made Tell a Hero. And yet I for striking down a greater tyrant then they ever knew I'm looked up on as a common cutthroat. My action was pure then neither of their's. One hoped to be great himself. The other had not only his country's but his own wrongs to avenge. I hope for no game. I knew no private wrong. I struck for my country and that alone...
23. SURRAM_151030_132.JPG: As the keeper of an "ordinary," Mr. Surratt was issued a license each year. Shown here is the sheriff's fee book for 1852, showing his first payment on April 9. An 1860 newspaper shows that he was licensed for that year also.
24. SURRAM_151030_137.JPG: Shown here in a carte-de-visite is Elizabeth Susannah Surratt, daughter of Mary Surratt, at about age 20. The books were used by her at Miss Martin's School in Charles County (one she received as an award for scholarship). the coin silver spoons are from her estate.
Wikipedia Description: Mary Surratt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mary Elizabeth Eugenia Jenkins Surratt (May/June 1823 in Waterloo, Maryland, USA – July 7, 1865 in Washington, D.C) was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. She was the first woman executed by the United States federal government, after being tried and found guilty, and was executed by hanging. She was the mother of John Surratt, also alleged to have been involved in the conspiracy.

Early life:

Mary was born to Archibald (who died when Mary was two years old) and Elizabeth Anne Jenkins in southern Maryland. She had two brothers. As a child, Mary was enrolled in a private Roman Catholic girl's boarding school, the Academy for Young Ladies in Alexandria, Virginia.

Mary Jenkins was married to John Harrison Surratt, a fellow Roman Catholic and a farmer of French and Spanish ancestry, in 1839, when she was sixteen and he, twenty-seven; his family had settled in Maryland in the 18th century and the community in which they lived, Surrattsville, was named for Mary's husband's family. The couple had three children, Isaac (born in 1841), Elizabeth Susanna ("Anna", 1843), and John, Jr. (1844).

The Surratts engaged in many livelihoods, both consecutively and simultaneously, over the next two decades. They farmed tobacco on a 287-acre (1.16 km�) tract purchased in 1852 and supplemented their income by operating a general store, a gristmill, a tavern, and a post office. They were nevertheless continually plagued by financial worries, a problem exacerbated by John Surratt's alcoholism. Biographer Elizabeth Steger Trindal, in her Mary Surratt: An American Tragedy, credibly states that John Surratt was physically and emotionally abusive to his wife and (less credibly, based more upon century-old speculation by Mary's acquaintances than upon solid evidence) that he may even have pressed her to prostitute herself to guests in their tavern.

Though the border state of Maryland was officially Union, the Surratts, as many other slave-owning farmers, were Confederate sympathizers following the outbreak of the Civil War. Their tavern regularly hosted fellow sympathizers, including actor and fellow Marylander John Wilkes Booth, and their post office did double duty as a United States and Confederate post office. The full extent of the family's involvement in clandestine Confederate activities may never be known, but it is certain (and was introduced into evidence at Mary Surratt's trial) that weapons and cash for Confederate agents were stored at their tavern.

John Surratt died suddenly, probably of a heart attack, at the family homestead and tavern in August 1862. Though the marriage had not been happy, his death left his widow far from relieved as she was in desperate circumstances financially and even in danger of eviction. The family's slaves had either run away or been repossessed (it is unknown exactly what became of them), the sale of a substantial amount of property which had given hope of resolving the financial difficulties failed because of the buyers' default, and John's many creditors still pressed to collect. Mary leased the family farm and tavern to a former Washington, D.C., policeman named John Lloyd and moved with her three children to the small but well-located townhouse (at 541 H Street, NW, in the District of Columbia) inherited from John Surratt's relatives and transformed its upper floor into a boardinghouse, employing her only remaining asset in one of the few ways considered respectable for an indigent young widow; with the home's location convenient to government buildings, she was able to eke out a very modest living for herself and her family.

Lincoln assassination connection:

Surratt and her family were Southern sympathizers. Her older brother, Zadoc Jenkins, was arrested by Union forces for trying to prevent an occupying Federal soldier from voting in the Maryland elections that gave Lincoln a second term. Until his death in 1862, her husband, John Surratt Sr., had operated a tavern and U.S. Post Office (he served as U.S.Postmaster), which was also the polling place, at a crossroads known as Surrattsville, thirteen miles (19 km) southeast of Washington, D.C. (After the assassination, the town was renamed Robeysville and, later, Clinton, Maryland.) In 1864, Mary Surratt rented the tavern and farm to John Lloyd, a former Washington policeman, and moved with her children to Washington, D.C., where she set up an eight-room boarding house on H Street. This boarding house was the site of meetings between her son and the other Lincoln conspirators, including John Wilkes Booth. Her son later admitted that he was actively involved in an earlier plot to kidnap the president, but claimed he was not involved in the assassination. He testified at his own trial that he had been in Elmira, New York, enroute to Montreal, Canada, when Lincoln was shot. He also denied that his mother had been involved in the plot in any way.

On the day of the assassination, Mary rode out to her tavern with one of her boarders, Louis J. Weichmann, a young War Department clerk, who was a friend of her son, John Surratt, Jr. Although Mary Surratt claimed to have made the journey to collect back rent owed by her tenant, John Lloyd, Lloyd later testified against her, saying she gave him a package containing field glasses and told him to " make ready the shooting irons." This referred to two repeating carbines and seven revolvers that she had bought and stored for the conspirators on her property. After assassinating President Lincoln at Ford's Theater, John Wilkes Booth did in fact first stop at the Surrattsville tavern with his accomplice David Herold. John Lloyd, the innkeeper, gave Booth and Herold whisky, pistols, and one of two Spencer carbines as well as the field glasses. Lloyd claimed Surratt had told him to do this when she arrived earlier that day. Booth and Herold then continued travelling southward, helped by many of the same Southern sympathizers who had aided John Surratt in his activities as a courier for the Confederacy.

Arrest and trial:

While Surratt was being questioned by police in her boarding house, Lewis Powell, the former John Mosby's Ranger who had attempted to assassinate Secretary of State Seward, appeared at her door. Although witnesses later testified Surratt had met Powell several times, she denied ever having seen him before, thus linking her further to the conspiracy.

Held in military custody under sweltering conditions, Mary Surratt had her head enclosed in a padded canvas bag to prevent a suicide attempt. She was also kept manacled. She was constantly guarded by four soldiers. For two weeks after her arrest and before her trial, she was held on board a warship that was being used as a prison for the conspirators. Her cell only had a straw pallet and a bucket as furniture. During their trial, Surratt and the other alleged conspirators were taken to the old arsenal where the Military Tribunal took place.

During the trial, a newspaper described Mary Surratt as a rather attractive, five-foot, six-inch, buxom, forty-year-old widow. She was the oldest conspirator on trial and the only woman. She and Lewis Powell received the most media attention. It was popularly believed that Mary was on trial as a means of forcing her son out of hiding. That did not happen, and she was found guilty by the military court and sentenced on June 30, 1865, to be "hanged by the neck 'til she be dead" for treason, conspiracy, and plotting murder. Military tribunals had less strict rules of evidence than civilian trials and it was highly irregular for a civilian to be tried by one. Moreover, the government suppressed Booth's diary during the trial, which would have been essential to Surratt's defense since it contained evidence that Booth had planned kidnapping, not murder, but changed his mind on the last day (Surratt may not have known of this and so might not have been guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, one of the crimes of which she was found guilty).

Despite these evidentiary problems and the desperate pleas of her daughter, President Andrew Johnson signed her death warrant, saying that she had "kept the nest that hatched the egg" and was second only to Booth in the designing of the plot. There is some dispute whether he ever saw the military judges' recommendation that her sentence be commuted to a life of permanent solitary confinement in a penitentiary.

Because Mary Surratt and several other of the conspirators were Roman Catholics, still a small minority in the United States, there was speculation that the assassination was somehow connected to a papist plot. Anti-Catholic sentiment was common in the country at that time.

Execution:

At noon on July 6, Surratt was informed she would be hanged the next day. She wept profusely. She was joined shortly by a Roman Catholic priest, her daughter Anna, and a few friends. She was allowed to wear looser handcuffs and leg irons during this period, but was kept hooded. She spent the night praying and refused breakfast. Her friends were ordered to leave her at 10:00 on the morning of July 7th, and her heavy manacles were replaced. She spent the final hours of her life with her priest.

On July 7, 1865, around 1:15 P.M., a procession, headed by the nearly fainting Mary Surratt and consisting of the four condemned prisoners (their hands manacled and legs chained with heavy irons and 75-pound iron balls) and many guards, was led through the courtyard, past the condemned's newly dug graves, and up the thirteen steps to the gallows where the four were to be hanged. Mrs. Surratt had to be supported by two soldiers. The actual gallows was on a ten-foot-high platform. The hangman had made Surratt's noose with five turns instead of the required eight because he had thought that the government would never hang a woman.

The condemned were seated in chairs while their chains and shoes were removed and their wrists were tied together behind them, their arms were bound to their sides, and their ankles and thighs were tied together. Instead of rope, white cloth was used. Mrs. Surratt wore a long black dress and black veil. The doomed men and woman were attended by several members of the clergy. Over one thousand men, women, and children came to watch them die. The condemned men and woman were then moved up to the break, the nooses were placed around their necks, and thin white cotton hoods were placed over their heads. General Winfield Scott Hancock read out the death sentences in alphabetical order. He then clapped his hands three times, and four members of Company F of the Fourteenth Veteran Reserves knocked out the supporting post, releasing the platform. The conspirators dropped about five or six feet, which proved insufficient to break their necks. Mrs. Surratt bounced up as the rope went taut and then writhed and gagged for a few seconds, trying to free her hands. She quickly became still except for a twitching of her hands and intermittent flatulence that continued for several minutes.

The body of Mary Surratt and those of the convicted conspirators were allowed to hang for 25 minutes. She was 42 years old. Her last words, spoken to a guard as he put the noose around her neck, were "please don't let me fall." She was executed along with Powell (also known as Payne), Herold (who stayed with Booth until his death in a Virginia tobacco barn), and George Atzerodt (a German immigrant who lived in Port Tobacco, Maryland, he had been assigned but failed to kill Vice President Johnson).

Burial:

All of the bodies were placed on the coffins (which were actually gun boxes) by the gallows, declared dead by doctors, and unceremoniously buried with the hoods still on and a glass vial containing their names to help identify the bodies. Several pieces of the rope that had ended Surratt's life and locks of her hair were sold as souvenirs.

Four years later, Anna Surratt pled with the federal government successfully for the return of her mother's remains. Today, Mary Surratt's body is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C., 1300 Bladensburg Road, NE. Her headstone reads simply, "Mrs. Surratt". The bodies of Anna Surratt and Isaac Surratt were buried on each side of their mother's. John Surratt's body was buried in Baltimore. The body of John Lloyd, whose testimony may have sealed Mary's fate, is buried less than 100 yards (91 m) south of her grave, in the same cemetery (his simple tombstone is marked, "John M. Lloyd").

Surviving family and home:

Mary's son John was ultimately captured after a year and a half as a fugitive hiding in various Roman Catholic religious establishments, including the Vatican. In September, 1865, he traveled from St. Liboire to Montreal, to Quebec, and thence to Liverpool. He served for a brief time in the Papal Zouaves under the name John Watson. Arrested in 1866, he escaped and travelled to the Kingdom of Italy, posing as a Canadian citizen. He booked passage to Alexandria, Egypt, and was arrested there by American officials on November 23, 1866, then extradited to the United States. He was sent home on a U.S. naval warship and put on trial. He was ultimately released after a mistrial and the statutes of limitations had run out on lesser charges. The federal government attempted to retry him but was unsuccessful. He died in 1916.

Mary Surratt's boarding house still stands, in what is now the Chinatown area of Washington, D.C., housing a Chinese restaurant, Wok and Roll. The Surrattsville tavern and house are historical sites run today by the Surratt Society located in Clinton, Maryland.
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