Born Mary Elizabeth Jenkins on a tobacco farm in southern Maryland, she married John Harrison Surratt in August 1840 when she was either 17 or 20. John was the adopted son of a well-to-do farmer from Washington, D.C., and had a somewhat troubled past, having fathered at least one child out of wedlock.
The union quickly produced three children but by 1845, the marriage was fast deteriorating. John drank heavily, often failed to pay his debts, and exhibited an increasingly volatile and violent temper.
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| Mary Surratt in 1850 |
When in 1851 the farmhouse John has inherited was destroyed in a fire, Mary and her children moved into the home of a cousin and when, 2 years later, her husband opened a tavern and inn, she refused to returned to him, electing instead to live on the old farm. But John sold it to pay debts and she was forced to move back in with him.
A few years of prosperity ensued. John built a hotel as an addition to his tavern and soon the area around the tavern was officially named Surrattsville. He expanded his holdings by selling off land, paying down debt, and starting new businesses, but the debts continued to mount, and John's drinking worsened.
When on April 12, 1861, the civil war began, Maryland remained part of the United States ("the Union") but the Surratts, like many of their neighbors, were Confederate sympathizers. Their tavern regularly hosted fellow sympathizers and was being used as a safe house by Confederate spies. Isaac, their eldest son traveled to Texas where he enrolled in the Confederate States Army while their youngest child, John Jr., left college to become a courier for the Confederate Secret Service, moving messages, cash, and contraband back and forth across enemy lines. The Confederate activities in and around Surrattsville soon drew the attention of the Union government and although evidence of a large Confederate courier network operating in the area was uncovered and some arrests made, the courier network remained intact.
The following summer, John suffered a stroke and died. The Surratt family affairs were in serious financial difficulties and two years later, tired of running the farm, tavern, and other businesses by herself, Mary leased the tavern in Surrattsville to confederate sympathizer John Lloyd and move to a townhouse her husband had purchased in Washington, D.C., early in their marriage. Soon after, she started advertising for lodgers in the newspaper.
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| Surratt's boarding house circa 1890 |
Whether the move was for economical reasons, or to further Mary and her son's espionage activities, no one knows for sure. Regardless, conspiracy was soon afoot at the boardinghouse. A friend of John Jr's, Louis Weichmann, moved in on November 1, 1864, and on December 23, 1864, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced John Jr. to John Wilkes Booth who promptly recruited him into his conspiracy to kidnap Abraham Lincoln. Co-conspirators George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell boarded at the townhouse for short periods. David Herold also called at the home several times.
In March 1865, weapons, ammunition, and supplies were hidden at the Surratt tavern in Surrattsville and in April, under the guise of collecting a debt from a former neighbor, Mary visited and told John Lloyd to have the "shooting irons" ready for pick up
On the evening of April 14, 1865, Booth shot President Lincoln at the Ford Theatre, and Powell, his gun having misfired, attacked Secretary of State William Seward in his home. Having signed up for a kidnapping, not a killing, Atzerodt had tried to back out but been told that he was in too deep and tasked with killing Vice President Andrew Johnson. Ultimately, while awaiting the appointed time at the hotel Johnson was staying at, Atzerodt got drunk and walked away.
Within hours, members of the District of Columbia police visited the Surratt boarding house, seeking John Wilkes Booth and John Jr..Why the police came to the house is not entirely clear. Within 45 minutes of the attack on Lincoln, John Surratt, Jr.'s name had become associated with the attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward, and both The D.C. police and the Provost Marshall's office both had files on John Surratt, Jr., and knew he was a close friend of Booth's. Mary lied, and told the detectives that her son had been in Canada for two weeks.
Federal soldiers visited the Surratt boardinghouse again late on the evening of April 17. John Jr. was not there (He was in Elmira, New York, at the time of the assassination, delivering messages on behalf of a Confederate general, and after learning of Lincoln's death, he fled to Montreal in Canada) but after a search of the house the agents found in Mary's room a picture of Booth, pictures of Confederate leaders, a pistol, and a mold for making bullets. As Mary Surratt was being arrested for conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln, a disguised Lewis Powell appeared at her door. Although Surratt denied knowing him, Powell was arrested and later identified as the man who had attempted to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward.
The trial of all eight alleged conspirators began on May 9 in front of a military court. Charged with abetting, aiding, concealing, counseling, and harboring her co-defendants, Mary was given special considerations due to her illness (she was menstruating) and gender and sat apart from the other prisoners. And, unlike her co-defendants, she was not manacled and was even permitted a bonnet, fan, and veil in order to hide her face from spectators.
The prosecution's strategy was to tie SurrattWeichmann. Lloyd could tie Mary to the weapons that had been hidden at the tavern proving she had played an active role in the conspiracy in the days just before Lincoln's death, while Weichmann's testimony established a close relationship between Mary Surratt and the other conspirators.
Thirty-one witnesses testified for the defense whose strategy was to impeach the testimony of the key prosecution witnesses and show that Mary Surratt was a good Christian woman loyal to the Union, that her trips to Surrattsville were of an innocent nature, and that she had not been aware of Booth's plans. The fact that Powell sought refuge in the boardinghouse after Lincoln's murder had left a bad impression on the court as to Mary's innocence and her refusal or failure to recognize him weighed heavily against her, but several witnesses testified that her eyesight was poor.
The trial ended on June 28, 1865, and for the next two days, the military tribunal considered guilt and sentencing. Because her case presented problems of evidence and witness reliability, Mary's guilt was the second-to-last considered.
On June 30, The military tribunal found Mary Surratt guilty on all charges but two. She was sentenced to death, and the sentence announced publicly on July 5. When Powell learned of his sentence, he declared that Mary was completely innocent of all charges but George Atzerodt bitterly condemned her, implicating her even further in the conspiracy and so Powell's was the only statement by any conspirator exonerating Surratt.
At noon on July 6, Surratt was informed she would be hanged the next day along with four of her co-conspirators. Her menstrual problems had worsened, and she was in such pain and suffered from such severe cramps that the prison doctor gave her wine and medication. She repeatedly asserted her innocence and spent the night on her mattress, weeping and moaning in pain and grief, ministered to by the priests and her daughter, Anna. Early the next morning, Anna went to the White House to beg for her mother's life one last time but her entreaty was rejected.
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| Execution of Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt on July 7, 1865 at Fort McNair, Washington, D.C. |
Many expected President Andrew Johnson to pardon Surratt because the U.S. government had never hanged a woman. The execution was delayed until the afternoon, and soldiers were stationed on every block between the White House and Fort McNair, the execution site, to relay the expected pardon. But the order never came and on July 7, 1865, at approximatively 1:30 P.M., Mary Surratt, along with Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt, was hanged.
Her last words, spoken to a guard as he moved her forward to the drop, were "Please don't let me fall."
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