Mary Surratt the first and only woman to be executed for plotting to assassinate an American president

Mary Surratt

Early life

A portrait of Mary Surratt

Born Mary Jenkins in the early 1820s to Archibald and Elizabeth, outside of what was Waterloo, Maryland, she had two older brothers. Her family owned a tobacco plantation, Archibald sadly died in the mid 1820s and Elizabeth and Mary inherited the land. Mary enrolled at an all-girls catholic boarding school despite both her parents being protestant, Mary’s maternal aunt likely persuaded the family to take her to that school. Two years go by and Mary is full on converted to Catholicism and observes catholic calendar.

Married life

Mary met John Surrat in the year 1836, John was a couple of years Mary’s senior and catholic. In August of 1840 they officially got married at a supposed catholic church. They and moved to a mill. The couple had three kids, Isacc, Elizabeth “Anna” and John jr. They lived there for a bit before moving to a bigger piece of land.

The construction of Surrattsville

A photo depicting Surratsville

Mary and John moved away from the in-law’s house and John bought a whole bunch of land by barrowing money, John basically built a community on the border of Maryland and Washington DC. This place included a tavern, houses, a post office and a stable just to name a few of the amenities. This was their business known as Surrattsville, that they used to keep their kids educated despite being in debt.

 

The civil war and debts galore

An image depicting the american civil war

The couple were Confederate sympathizers and during the civil war, they hosted Confederate spies and used their property as a safe house despite being in the state of the opposing force. John suffers a fatal stroke in August of 1862, and they still have an immense number of debts to the point were both Anna and John are no longer educated and instead working on the homestead to make money, Isacc is enlisted in the confederate army.

Boarding house extraordinaire

An Imge of Mary's boarding house in Washington DC

Mary moves to Washington DC with Anna and John Jr after leasing the land known as Surrattsville to make more money. She moved into a four-storey house, she used three of the rooms for her and her kids, the rest were all for rent. Mary puts a whole bunch of advertising in the news to hopefully get new customers. She can rent out rooms for the next 3 years. One of her later tenants is the infamous John Wilkes Booth, this is where things take a turn for the worse.

 

The plotting to Assassinate Abraham Lincoln and some of the government officials.

A portrait of Abraham Lincoln

Booth brought along three other individuals who were also agitated with Lincoln and the government. Mary listened in on the conversations and housed all the individuals that would play a part in this plot, her son also joined in. It is unclear how much Mary and her son participated in the plotting. The plan would be that Booth would take on the task of killing Lincoln, another person would guide a second person to kill the secretary of state, and the third was to kill the Vice President. Someone inside the building has the guns that will be used for both Lincoln and the Secretary of state’s assassination. The plan was for everything to start at 10 pm on April 14^th after a meeting at 8:45 meeting that evening. Mary also sends a package to her house in Surrattsville so that Booth could pick it up after shooting Lincoln.

Trial and execution

A drawing of Mary's trial attire

The police arrested Mary and the rest of the conspirators. They were taken to stand trial for plotting Lincoln’s assassination, one by one. The only one not stand trial was John Jr who ended up escaping to Canada. Mary fought to declare her innocence till the end, a letter of appeal for Mary was misplaced and sadly not taken to the newly minted president. Unfortunatley the government court sentenced everyone but John Jr and Booth to be hanged.

An image of Mary's execution

Legacy

Mary remains the only woman to ever be executed for plotting to assassinate a president in US history. She also has the distinction of being the first woman to be executed by the government. Surrattsville still exists as a historic place to visit. Mary’s descendants are still around till this day.

An image of the Mary Surratt museum.