It is common knowledge amongst Americans that President Abraham Lincoln was
assassinated. But what many people don't know about is the conspiracy surrounding it.
The uncovering of this conspiracy led to the first execution of a woman in the United
States. The resulting execution of Mary Surratt was unconstitutional.
Lincoln was assassinated in Ford's Theater on April 13, 1865. Multitudes of conspiracy
theories have been concocted to try to explain why, but there is one that is considered the
real story. It is the concept of the small conspiracy that named John Wilkes Booth as
After the murder, the government arrested hundreds of people it believed were
capable of having participated in the crime. In the end, eight were charged with
conspiracy and the others were let go. (1865 Assassination)
One of these eight people was Mary Surratt. She owned a boarding house in
Maryland, right outside of Washington DC. Mary was 42 at the time of these occurrences
and had three children. (1865 Assassination) During the Civil War, one of her children
John Surratt Jr., became a spy for the Confederate army. Through this, he met a man
named John Wilkes Booth. They became friendly and Booth started to frequently visit the
Boarding house that Mary owned. This is how she came to be accused of "keeping the
nest that hatched the egg" and doing favors for Booth to help organize the assassination
and help him escape. It was said that Booth used the boarding house to hold meetings
concerning Lincoln's assassination. Other people who were associated with the murder
also visited the boarding house, but nobody can be positive that Mary had anything to do
On April 11, 1865, Mary made a trip to Surrattsville. She was accompanied by
Louis Weichmann. They met John Lloyd on the way. Mary had rented the tavern that her
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