THE REPUBLICAN

March 17, 1882

 

The Grave of Mrs. Surratt

 

The following relative to Mrs. Surratt, who was hung in 1865 with the Lincoln conspirators, appears in the Washington Star:  In Mount Olivet Cemetery, on the Blandensburg road, repose the remains of Mrs. Mary Surratt, who, it will be remembered, was hung on the 21^st day of July, 1865, as one of the conspirators implicated in the assassination of President Lincoln.  Her body was buried in the arsenal grounds near the scaffold, with those of Payne, Harrold and Atzerodt; and subsequently Wirz, or Andersonville notoriety, was buried near them.  While the bodies were lying there plain headboards were placed over their graves.  When the old penitentiary building was torn down the remains of John Wilkes Booth, buried in the end of the building, and the bodies above named were all moved into one of the large store-houses of the arsenal and placed under the flagging.  About the close of President Johnson’s administration the bodies were surrendered to the friends or relatives of the deceased persons, and were removed elsewhere – those of Wirz and Mrs. Surratt were taken to Mount Olivet.  When the body of the latter was exhumed a black ribbon tied in a bow-knot was removed from her dress as a memento.  A number of her former friends were present when the reinterment was made, in a lot at the extreme northwest corner of the cemetery. Stones marked with the letter “S” were set at the corners of the lot.  With no other mark the spot was difficult to find without guidance, and Mr. Duffy, the sexton at the time, and for several years afterward, was frequently called upon to point out the spot where Mrs. Surratt was buried.  About 1875, Mr. Gustavus Craney, a stone-cutter residing in this city was engaged in putting up some head-stones in the ground and Mr. Duffy called his attention to the want of a stone to mark Mrs. Surratt’s grave.  Mr. Craney agreed to cut the letters on a stone if Mr. Duffy procured one.  Mr. Duffy having procured a stone, it was chiseled by Mr. Craney, who cut the name “Mrs. Surratt,” upon it and set it at the head of the grave.  Since then there have been two interments on the lot – one, a grandchild of Mrs. Surratt, and the other Dr. Thomas of New Orleans.