Local Legends: The Lincoln conspirator

WTOP's Jason Fraley explores the Lincoln Conspirator of D.C. (Jason Fraley)

NOTE: This is the second in a three day series of scary urban legends in D.C., Maryland and Virginia. Unlike our typical journalistic pieces of hard news and fact-based evidence, this is an intentionally tongue-in-cheek presentation based on lore, rumor and innuendo. Enjoy.

WASHINGTON — Reader beware: what you are about to read might give you nightmares.

Just in time for Halloween, we present the D.C. legend of the Lincoln conspirator.

The legend goes like this.

At 2 a.m. on April 15, 1865, authorities knocked at the boarding house of one Mary Surratt.

She was arrested for aiding and abetting John Wilkes Booth, who allegedly planned the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln at her boarding house at 604 H St. Northwest.


Read other spooky local legends:


After a military tribunal, Suratt and three other conspirators dropped to their deaths in the most famous hanging in American history on July 7, 1865.

Since then, the hanging location – Fort McNair along the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers — has seen sightings of a black-clad figure, bound hand-and-foot with a hood over her head.

Meanwhile, a nearby home has a window thatView Post fogs up mysteriously at night, possibly the breath of Suratt’s daughter watching her mother drop to her death through that very window.

As for her boarding house, it’s since been turned into the China Wok restaurant and karaoke bar in Chinatown where you can still hear strange sounds, whispers, muffled cries and shuffling feet.

Should you trick or treat there?

Forget it, it’s Chinatown.

An 1865 photo print of the Surratt House (left) in H St. NW in D.C. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
An 1865 photo of the Surratt House (left) in H St. NW in D.C. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
The four condemned Lincoln assassination conspirators (Mary Surratt, Lewis Payne, David E. Herold, George A. Atzerodt), with officers and others on the scaffold, with guards on the wall, in 1865. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
The four condemned Lincoln assassination conspirators (Mary Surratt, Lewis Payne, David E. Herold, George A. Atzerodt), with officers and others on the scaffold, with guards on the wall, in 1865. Later investigations indicated that Surratt was innocent. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
Lincoln assassination conspirator Mary Surratt's grave circa 1918. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
Alleged Lincoln assassination conspirator Mary Surratt’s grave circa 1918. Later investigations indicated that Surratt was innocent. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
The Surratt House between 1910 and 1926 where it's believed the plot to assassinate Lincoln was hatched. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
The Surratt House between 1910 and 1926 where it’s believed the plot to assassinate Lincoln was hatched. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
The front of the Surratt House during a Historic American Buildings Survey circa 1972. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
The front of the Surratt House during a Historic American Buildings Survey circa 1972. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
The second-floor front room of the Surratt House during a Historic American Buildings Survey circa 1972. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
The second-floor front room of the Surratt House during a Historic American Buildings Survey circa 1972. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
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An 1865 photo print of the Surratt House (left) in H St. NW in D.C. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
The four condemned Lincoln assassination conspirators (Mary Surratt, Lewis Payne, David E. Herold, George A. Atzerodt), with officers and others on the scaffold, with guards on the wall, in 1865. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
Lincoln assassination conspirator Mary Surratt's grave circa 1918. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
The Surratt House between 1910 and 1926 where it's believed the plot to assassinate Lincoln was hatched. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
The front of the Surratt House during a Historic American Buildings Survey circa 1972. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
The second-floor front room of the Surratt House during a Historic American Buildings Survey circa 1972. (Courtesy Library of Congress)

Jason Fraley

Hailed by The Washington Post for “his savantlike ability to name every Best Picture winner in history," Jason Fraley began at WTOP as Morning Drive Writer in 2008, film critic in 2011 and Entertainment Editor in 2014, providing daily arts coverage on-air and online.

Will Vitka

William Vitka is a Digital Writer/Editor for WTOP.com. He's been in the news industry for over a decade. Before joining WTOP, he worked for CBS News, Stuff Magazine, The New York Post and wrote a variety of books—about a dozen of them, with more to come.

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