Mary Surratt

About Mary Surratt

Mary Elizabeth Eugenia Jenkins Surratt (May/June 1823 in Waterloo, Maryland, USA – July 7, 1865 in Washington, D.C) was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. She was the first woman executed by the United States federal government, after being tried and found guilty, and was executed by hanging. She was the mother of John Surratt, also alleged to have been involved in the conspiracy.

Mary was born to Archibald (who died when Mary was two years old) and Elizabeth Anne Jenkins in southern Maryland. She had two brothers. As a child, Mary was enrolled in a private Roman Catholic girl's boarding school, the Academy for Young Ladies in Alexandria, Virginia.

Mary Jenkins was married to John Harrison Surratt, a fellow Roman Catholic and a farmer of French and Spanish ancestry, in 1839, when she was sixteen and he, twenty-seven; his family had settled in Maryland in the 18th century and the community in which they lived, Surrattsville, was named for Mary's husband's family. The couple had three children, Isaac (born in 1841), Elizabeth Susanna ("Anna", 1843), and John, Jr. (1844).