Mary Surratt Biography

Quick Facts

NAME: Mary Surratt
OCCUPATION: Criminal
BIRTH DATE: c. 1820
DEATH DATE: July 07, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH: Waterloo, Maryland
Full Name: Mary Eugenia Surratt

Best Known For

Mary Surratt operated a boardinghouse where it is believed John Wilkes Booth planned the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. She was tried and executed.

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Mary Surratt

APA Style

Mary Surratt. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 01:47, May 22, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/mary-surratt-9499375.

Harvard Style

Mary Surratt. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/mary-surratt-9499375 [Accessed 22 May 2013].

MLA Style

"Mary Surratt." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 22 2013, 01:47 http://www.biography.com/people/mary-surratt-9499375.

MHRA Style

"Mary Surratt," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/mary-surratt-9499375 [accessed May 22, 2013].

Chicago Style

"Mary Surratt," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/mary-surratt-9499375 (accessed May 22, 2013).

CBE/CSE Style

Mary Surratt [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 22] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/mary-surratt-9499375.

Bluebook Style

Mary Surratt, http://www.biography.com/people/mary-surratt-9499375 (last visited May 22, 2013).

AMA Style

Mary Surratt. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/mary-surratt-9499375. Accessed May 22, 2013.

Synopsis

Mary Surratt was born in 1820 in Waterloo, Maryland. She owned a boardinghouse in Washington D.C. where it is believed John Wilkes Booth devised his plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. The authorities rounded up Surratt, alleging that she was part of the conspiracy. She was tried and convicted by military commission and was hanged on July 7, 1865, the first woman executed by the U.S. government.

Profile

Alleged member of Abraham Lincoln assassination conspiracy. Born Mary Jenkins in 1820 in Waterloo, Maryland. Mary Surratt has the dubious distinction of being the first woman executed by the U.S. government. She was hung for treason in 1865. Despite her dramatic exit from this world, her life began quietly. Surratt was educated at a Catholic female seminary and married John Surratt in 1840. They lived in the District of Columbia for a time and had three children ?? Issac, Anna, and John, Jr. The couple later settled in the Maryland countryside where they started a tavern and opened a post office and polling place. During the Civil War, the tavern was thought to have served as a safe house for the Confederate underground.

After her husband's death in 1862, Mary Surratt moved to Washington, D.C., where she opened a boardinghouse. It is believed John Wilkes Booth devised his assassination plot at this location. Angered over the Confederacy's defeat in the Civil War, Booth wanted to kill President Abraham Lincoln, Secretary of State William Seward, and Vice President Andrew Johnson. Booth shot President Lincoln on April 14, 1865, at Ford's Theatre. Lincoln died the next morning from his gunshot wound.

Soon after, the authorities rounded up anyone who might have been associated with the plot. Mary Surratt was arrested on April 30. Surratt's son, John, Jr., was also thought to be involved in the conspiracy, but he fled to Canada. Although she claimed to be innocent, she was tried and convicted by a military commission. Mary Surratt was hanged on July 7, 1865.