SURRATT, MARY

born May 1820, near Waterloo, Md., U.S. died July 7, 1865, Washington, D.C. in full Mary Eugenia Surratt, ne Jenkins American boardinghouse operator who with three others was convicted of conspiracy to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. Mary Jenkins married young, and, though in 1840 her husband purchased some 1,200 acres of land, by 1857 his means were much reduced, and the outbreak of the American Civil War completed his ruin; he died in 1862. With the aid of John, the younger of their two sons, Mary Surratt moved into Washington, where she opened a boardinghouse. Among her son's pro-Southern friends who met at her boardinghouse was John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor who conspired with John Surratt and others to kidnap Lincoln. When the Confederacy fell, Booth instead assassinated Lincoln and died resisting capture. Mary Surratt was arrested with Lewis Payne (who had wounded William Seward, the secretary of state), George Atzerodt (who had failed to murder Vice President Andrew Johnson), and three other alleged conspirators. She stood trial on May 12, 1865, before a nine-man military commission. On July 5 all were found guilty, though only fourMary Surratt includedwere sentenced to hang. At then-president Johnson's insistence, they were hanged within 48 hours. Most later historians believe Surratt to have been unconnected with the conspiracy and innocent of any crime.