Existing comment:
The Meeting Place:
The house on H Street served as a convenient meeting place for John Wilkes Booth and his fellow conspirators, two of whom -- Lewis Powell and George Atzerodt -- were occasional boarders. Mrs. Surratt's son John, youngest of her three children, was also part of Booth's original plot to kidnap Lincoln. As a Confederate courier, John Surratt knew every inch of the roads between Washington and Richmond. He also had important contacts in the Confederate government. John left Washington before the assassination.
541 H Street:
When her husband died in August 1862, 42-year-old Mary Surratt was left saddled with debts. Two years later, the widow decided to lease her family's tavern in Surrattsville, a Maryland crossroads 13 miles southeast of Washington, and move to the nation's capital. Mary occupied a ten-room, three-story residence on H Street, which she ran as a boarding home. |