Mary Surratt Conspirator to assassinate senior US leaders Country: USA

Biography of Mary Surratt

Mary Surratt, a participant in the conspiracy to assassinate top US officials, became the first woman in American history to be executed by hanging. Born Mary Jenkins in 1823 in Maryland, she attended a Catholic seminary in Virginia. At the age of seventeen, she married John Surratt. In 1853, the couple purchased a plot of land in Prince George's County. There, they built a farm, a post office, and a tavern. Soon, this place became known as Surrattsville. John Surratt served as the postmaster there until his death in 1862.

In 1864, his widow rented out Surrattsville to former policeman John Lloyd for $500 a year and moved to her Washington, D.C. home, converting it into a boardinghouse and renting rooms to lodgers. Mrs. Surratt never openly displayed her Southern sympathies. However, when the war broke out, she did not prevent her sons, John Harrison and John, from joining the Confederate Army. John Harrison chose military service, while John became a secret agent for the South, smuggling contraband supplies. It was during this time that he met John Wilkes Booth. Later, Booth would stay at Mary Surratt's boardinghouse when his business brought him to the capital. From there, he would go to Ford's Theatre, where he would attempt to escape with Lewis Powell.

John Lloyd and one of Mrs. Surratt's lodgers, Louis Weichmann, also fell into the hands of the police. However, they managed to regain their freedom in exchange for testifying against Mary Surratt. Lloyd testified that Surratt had visited him on Tuesday, April 11th, and asked him to be prepared to shelter several individuals. Weichmann, in turn, confirmed the police's suspicions that Surratt's boardinghouse was a center of the conspiracy. This was enough for a severe sentence - death by hanging. Five out of the nine members of the tribunal appealed to President Johnson for leniency, but he did not spare the woman who, in his words, "kept the nest where the egg was hatched."

On July 7, 1865, Mrs. Surratt became the first woman in American history to be executed by hanging.