“From the Archives” The Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln
Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt has a dubious place in American history as one of four people convicted and hanged in 1865 for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. She also had links to Saint Mary parish.
Mary Elizabeth Jenkins was born in Waterloo, Maryland, now known as Clinton. As a teenager she moved to Alexandria to live with her aunt, Sarah Latham Webster, a Saint Mary parishioner. Mrs. Webster enrolled her niece in the Academy for Young Ladies run by the Sisters of Charity at Fairfax and Duke Streets. Within two years, Mary converted to Catholicism, taking Maria Eugenia as her baptismal name and remained a devout Catholic for the rest of her life. While there is no record that Mary received any of the Sacraments of Initiation (Baptism, First Holy Communion or Confirmation) at Saint Mary, Maria Eugenia Jenkins is listed as godmother when her nephew, Henry Randolph Webster, was baptized here on August 20, 1838.
In 1840, Mary married John Harrison Surratt Sr. in Washington, D.C. They lived in Oxon Hill, Maryland. Their three children were baptized Catholic and attended Catholic schools. After her husband’s death in 1862, Mary moved to a house she owned in D.C. and rented out rooms. That’s where the proverbial plot thickens!
Actor John Wilkes Boothe was one of Mary’s boarders. He and other Lincoln assassination conspirators reportedly held planning meetings in the Surratt house. How much, if anything, Mary knew of the plot is uncertain. One of the others hanged with her, Lewis Powell, said from the scaffold: “Mrs. Surratt is innocent. She doesn’t deserve to die with the rest of us.”
Father Jacob A. Walter, Mary’s pastor in D.C., visited and prayed with her in prison. Convinced of her innocence, he stated: “I cannot believe that a woman who received Communion on Holy Thursday could be guilty of conspiring to kill the president on Good Friday.” Father Walter remained with Mary until her death on the gallows on July 17, 1865, at the Washington Arsenal, now Fort McNair.
Mary’s youngest son, John Harrison Surratt Jr., was born in 1844. As a young man he studied for the priesthood but left college when his father died. During the Civil War, young John was a Confederate courier and spy. When Lincoln was killed, he was in Elmira, New York, delivering messages for a Confederate general. Learning of Lincoln’s death, John fled to Canada and was given sanctuary by a Catholic priest. He then sailed to England and later served in the Pontifical Zouaves, an infantry force formed to defend the Papal State in Rome. While visiting Egypt in late 1866, he was identified as a wanted Lincoln assassination conspirator, arrested and brought back to the United States. John’s attorney admitted his client helped plan an unsuccessful plot to kidnap Lincoln but played no role in the murder. All charges were dropped.
John returned to Maryland and taught for a time at Saint Joseph Catholic School in Emmitsburg. He married Mary Victorine Hunter here at Saint Mary Church on May 21, 1872. A handwritten notation by Saint Mary Pastor Peter Kroes reads: “I married John H. Surratt Jr. and M. Victorine Hunter.”
John and his bride lived in Baltimore, so why travel to Alexandria to get married? Some speculate the Surratt name was still anathema to Northern sensibilities, so they chose to marry in a “southern” town where he had family ties. John died of pneumonia on April 21, 1916, at the age of 72.
— Diane Maple, Bulletin Editor
Throughout 2020, the Basilica of Saint Mary will present “From the Archives.” It is a weekly feature online and in our bulletin spotlighting the history of the parish. All of our “From the Archives” features are located here.