Mary E. Surratt Boarding House

The three-story brick townhouse on H Street is unremarkable among its neighbors, save for the blue historical marker near the entrance. In eighteen sixty-five, Mary Surratt operated this building as a boarding house, renting rooms to guests and providing meals. John Wilkes Booth visited here frequently to coordinate with his co-conspirators. Federal investigators arrested Mary Surratt in these rooms for her involvement in the plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. She became the first woman executed by the United States federal government.