Madison
County Genealogical Society
Minutes of the Meeting – March 8, 2018
The March 2018 meeting of the Madison County
Genealogical Society was held at the Edwardsville Public Library on Thursday,
March 8, at 7:00 pm.
President, Robert Ridenour, called the meeting to order.
GIFT
MEMBERSHIPS AVAILABLE
Do you have a family member that is
interested in (or even obsessed with) genealogy? A membership in the Madison
County Genealogical Society would be a very thoughtful gift. A gift card will
be sent to the recipient of any gift membership.
The following memberships are available:
Individual/Family Annual Membership $25.00
Patron Annual Membership $35.00
Life Membership $300.00
Contact our Secretary, Petie Hunter, at petie8135@att.net,
about a gift membership.
March
Meeting
On March 8, 2018, Linda Cox and
Dorothy Selinger presented a program titled The Two Marys. Linda and Dorothy had worked
together as teachers’ aides and decided to share their interests in the Civil
War by creating programs that would both inform and entertain. Both ladies are
volunteers at the Abraham Lincoln Home in Springfield, Illinois.
This program was about two women
named Mary who had significant impacts on the life and death of Abraham Lincoln
— Mary Todd Lincoln, the President’s wife, and Mary Elizabeth Surratt,
convicted as a co-conspirator in the plot to assassinate him in 1865.
Sometime a life can parallel another
without either person being aware of it or its consequences. Thus it was with
Mary Todd Lincoln and Mary Elizabeth Surratt. We hope to show you the
similarities in their lives and how the events transformed their fate. Without
further ado, we will begin our narrative on The Two Marys.
[To distinguish between the two
Marys, paragraphs pertaining to Mary Todd Lincoln are Bold; those pertaining to Mary
Elizabeth Surratt are Italic – Ed.]
Mary Todd Lincoln was born in 1818
in Lexington, Kentucky. Unfortunately, her mother, Lisa Ann
Parker, died when she was six years old. She was the fourth of seven
children. Her father’s second marriage to Elizabeth Humphrey gave Mary
additional half-siblings of four brothers and five sisters. Mary’s family was
financially secure and they owned slaves. They were able to maintain the family
home quite well in Kentucky.
Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt was
born in 1823 in Waterloo, Maryland. Mary had two brothers – John and James.
Unfortunately, her father Archibald Jenkins died when Mary was just three years
old. However, her mother Elizabeth was financially secure enough to own slaves
and maintain the family tobacco farm.
Mary Todd attended Doctor John Ward’s
Shelby Female Academy, and Madame Mantelle’s Boarding School. Mary became
fluent in French, studied dance, drama, music and the social graces. She was
witty and gregarious. With Mary’s schooling and her father’s close friendship
with Henry Clay, a politician, of course, Mary developed a deep interest in
politics. Mary was a Presbyterian and later became reliant on Spiritualism.
Due to the influence of Mary’s Aunt
Sarah, Mary Surratt attended Sisters of Charity and St. Mary’s Catholic
Churches in Alexandria, Virginia. While attending the churches, she became a
devout Catholic and later even helped to fund the building of St. Ignatius
Church in Oxon Hill. She remained devoted to the church for the rest of her
life.
Mary Todd was just 23 when she went
to live with her eldest sister, Elizabeth Edwards, in Springfield, Illinois.
Elizabeth’s success in marrying off her other siblings, gave Mary hope that she
too would find true love. Mr. Stephen Douglas and Mr. Abraham Lincoln became
two of Mary’s suitors. Elizabeth felt that Lincoln was not Mary’s social equal
and would not be able to maintain the proper station due her. Against her
sister’s approval and, even though he was ten years her senior, Mary chose Mr.
Lincoln. After a courtship, they married in Ninian and Elizabeth Edwards’ home
in 1842.
Mary Jenkins was just 19 when she
married John Surratt. He was about ten years her senior and an orphan, but a
man of means due to his adoptive parents, the Neales.
Abraham was a lawyer riding the
circuit and he would be gone for long periods of time. Due to his hard work,
they were able to leave their apartment at the Globe Tavern and purchase their
first and only home in Springfield. Abraham and Mary had four sons. Robert was
their firstborn, followed by Edward, or Eddie, as they called him, then
William, or Willie, and lastly, Tad or Thomas, as Mr. Lincoln liked to call
him. The couple suffered a severe loss when Eddie died of tuberculosis when he
was four. Luckily, since they were a close and loving family, they were able to
endure.
Mary and John Surratt started out as
a financially secure, close, loving family. John Surratt was industrious and
bought ground, acquired many buildings, and some businesses. Eventually, the
area where these businesses were located became known as Surrattsville in
Maryland. John and Mary had three children – Isaac, Elizabeth Susannah, better
known as Anna, and John Harrison Jr. [John Surratt had an illegitimate son
whose name was also John Harrison.] John Surratt began gambling and drinking.
He was not paying his debts and became very abusive. Mary moved out with the
children, but was forced to move back to their home when John sold the home she
was living in. [That’s one way to get her back.] Their family was a very
unhappy family.
Lincoln became involved in politics.
At first, he was unsuccessful. He lost a race for the House of Representatives,
lost a senate seat, and lost a vice-presidential nomination. With Mary’s
support and advice, he became popular, politically. He and Mary had many
discussions over his role on the political stage. He won the Republican
Presidential election in 1860 and the following February, they bid farewell to
Springfield and headed to Washington, D.C.
John Surratt had served in the War
of 1812, worked for the railroad, and served as the Postmaster in the community
of Surrattsville, operated a gristmill, a general store, and farmed tobacco,
and was widely known as a Southern Sympathizer. Although he had worked
diligently, when he died suddenly in 1862, he left Mary saddled with all his
debts. She had to sell or rent most of the properties that they had acquired.
At that time, she made a fateful decision to move to Washington, D.C., where
John had previously purchased a townhouse. There, Mary made an honorable living
for her and her daughter, Anna, by renting rooms to boarders.
There were many divisions throughout
the country and, with the firing on Fort Sumter, the Civil War had begun. Both Mary and
Abraham suffered emotionally with the faces of death on the battlefield and at
home. Both Tad and Willy suffered with typhoid fever. Tad was able to recover,
but poor Willy did not. Times were hard everywhere.
Divisions indeed. The war was a
burden for everyone. Lives were lost and money was hard to come by. Mary tried,
unsuccessfully, to collect on land she had sold. Mary’s daughter, Anna, and
son, John Jr., had had to leave their schools. Her son Isaac had gone to Texas
to join the Confederate Cavalry and John Jr. worked as the Postmaster in
Surrattsvile, before becoming a courier for the Confederate Secret Service.
Times were hard everywhere.
Mary Lincoln was not accepted in
Washington. Abraham had always treated Mary as a political confidante and she
expected his political cronies to listen to her ideas, as well. To ease her
anxieties and to beautify the White House, Mary spent to excess. When $20,000
was allocated for White House expenditures, Mary spent $26,000. When she
entertained socially at the White House, people said she was being
disrespectful of the fallen Union soldiers. Then after Willie’s death, she
curtailed entertaining and was accused of avoiding her social duties. Her
Southern roots made her unpopular and her allegiance to the Union was
questioned. Mary had a brother who fought for the Rebel cause and she also had
three half-brothers and a half-sister’s husband who were killed in the service
of the Confederacy. People did not realize that Mary’s maternal grandmother had
aided in the Underground Railroad and that Mary herself supported the abolitionists.
Even at that, Mary Todd Lincoln struggled to find her place in Washington.
Mary Surratt had many friends in
Washington. Many acquaintances of John Jr. came and went to her boarding house.
One guest was a well-known actor, John Wilkes Booth. He would often speak
privately to John Jr., if he was available, or to Mary. Her Southern roots made
her a courteous host to all who entered her home.
As the war wore on, Mary attended
the hospitals and would write letters for the wounded soldiers. She sometimes
would accompany her husband to view the Union Army camps or go to his
frequented soldiers’ home. The couple was sure that if Lincoln secured a second
term of office, they could see the end of the war and bind the country together
once again.
As the war raged on, Mary was very
involved in making ends meet. She often made trips to Surrattsville to try to
secure rent money due her. Her Southern allegiance and financial woes made
Mary’s dislike for President Lincoln grow. She felt that his re-election, his flowery
speeches, such as the Emancipation Proclamation and Gettysburg Address, and his
aggression during the war were contributing to the fall of the Confederacy.
The awful war was finally coming to
an end. On April 14, 1865, Abraham and Mary decided a night out would be
comforting and would lighten their spirits. The problem was, their invitations
to others kept being declined, no doubt due to Mrs. Lincoln’s unpopularity. A
Major Rathbone and his fiancée, Clara Harris, accepted their invitation and joined
the Lincolns to attend a party at Ford’s Theatre called Our American Cousin. As they sat
enjoying a rather comic scene, John Wilkes Booth rushed into the unguarded
Presidential box and shot President Lincoln and stabbed Major Rathbone. Booth
jumped to the stage and escaped on horseback. President
Lincoln was given a few more hours of life by a physician who was attending the
play. A decision was made to move the wounded president to the Peterson
house across the street. He passed the next morning. Secretary of War Edwin
Stanton would not allow the wailing Mary in with her husband during the final
moments.
Yes, Robert E. Lee had surrendered
at Appomattox and the war was over for most, but not for Mary or some of her
acquaintances. For a while, before leaving for New York and then on to Canada,
her son John Jr. spent a lot of time at Mary’s boarding house secreted away
with some of his friends. On April14, 1865, ironically Good Friday, Mary asked
one of her boarders and close friend Lewis Weichmann to rent a horse and buggy
to collect more money and to deliver a package for Mr. John Lloyd, her renter
at the Surrattsville Tavern. Later, that day when Mary returned to her Boarding
house, she heard that President Abraham Lincoln had been shot at Ford’s Theatre
and that her friend had been the culprit, but had escaped into the countryside
on a one-eyed bay mare. Rumors were rampant that Secretary of State William
Seward had been attacked too. On April 17, police came to the Surratt boarding
house and arrested Mary, Anna, Lewis Powell, Lewis Weichmann, and some of the
other boarders, 13 in all, for having known John Wilkes Booth. Anna and some of
the boarders were questioned and released. While Mary was suffering in prison,
she heard about John Wilkes Booth being shot and killed at Garrett’s Farm.
David Herold, the man who had escaped with Booth, was arrested at that time.
Over 1000 people were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy during those
turbulent times.
After the assassination, Mary went
into a deep depression. She no longer belonged in the White House, but could
not bring herself to leave until the end of May. With the previous looting that
had taken place during the open door policy, many items taken
as souvenirs were now fodder for Mary’s adversaries. Her makeshift packing and
overabundance of clothing made her a target for those who would accuse her of
taking government property. Leaving was a far cry from arrival just a few years
before. To say the least, Mary was overwrought with emotion.
Lincoln’s death made Mary Surratt
very emotional and depressed too, but for completely reasons. Her imprisonment
was horrid. She was hooded, manacled, chained, and the heat of summer was
unbearable in her cell. Mary became very ill. She was not allowed many visitors
– her distraught daughter and her priest. Mary was being charged with
conspiring with Booth, Herold, Atzerodt, and Powell to assassinate President
Abraham Lincoln. Her accusers were friends and acquaintances that she trusted.
Her military trial, argued by young, inexperienced lawyers, Frederick Aiken and
John Clampett, lasted just three months. Testimony was twisted and witnesses
were intimidated until her chances for acquittal were slim. Her fate was sealed
when deliberations ended and she was found guilty and sentenced to death.
People thought that because of her gender and being just 42, that her sentence
would be commuted. But Patrick Johnson had said the she kept the nest that
hatched the egg. So Mary Elizabeth Surratt will always be known as the first woman
hung by the United States government for her part in the conspiracy to
assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.
With the loss of family members –
her two sons and her beloved husband – Mary was devastated. Public
controversy over her finances only increased her trauma. She was also concerned
over the $3,000 that she and Tad would be given to live on. She thought she
would sell some of the many dresses that she would no longer wear. But Robert,
her oldest son, thought that would be vulgar and would not allow himself to be
embarrassed in such a way. Mary left the talk behind and took Tad with her to
Germany. On her return a few years later, Tad became ill and died of heart
failure. Mary was so alone and broken hearted. At the time, Robert thought that
her behavior was becoming too erratic, and in May of 1875, he had Mary
committed to an asylum in Batavia, Illinois. Thankfully, a few months later,
Myra Bradwell, the wife of her lawyer, helped Mary to obtain her release. Mary
moved to France to avoid her son, but a decline in her health made her return
to Springfield. Elizabeth again took Mary into her home. There, where Mary Todd
Lincoln had married her true love in 1842, she passed away in July of 1882.
We hope that we have shown you that
there are similarities and differences in the lives of Mary Todd Lincoln and
Mary Elizabeth Surratt. And how their lives affected Abraham Lincoln.
This presentation was very well received and
provoked many questions and comments.