Surratt Courier

[Susan Higginbotham]

(08-31-2014 11:22 AM)Jill Mitchell Wrote:  I was browsing through a downloaded copy of Boyd's 1864 directory of Washington, D.C. for the names of people connected to the Lincoln assassination. There is a listing for "Fitzpatrick, Honora, Mrs.; living at "h [house] 5th east, n [near] A south" or, in today's parlance, 5th and A SE. There is no other Fitzpatrick, Honora listed. There is also listed a Thomas Fitzpatrick, laborer, living at the same address. Is it possible that this is "Honora Fitzpatrick" connected with the Lincoln assassination? If it is, I was not aware that she was married. I seem to recall that she was always referenced as "Miss." To be a "Mrs." she would have had to be married at a relatively young age, if she was close in age to Anna. I suppose it possible that she could have lived at the address given in the directory, since in her testimony at the trial of John Surratt, she stated that did not come to board at the Surratt boardinghouse until October 6, 1864. Do we know the name of her father, the date of her mother's death and where she was residing prior to the time she came to the Surratt boardinghouse? ... Guess I'll have to await Susan's article for clarification.

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That was a different Honora. She turns up in various DC records, later as a widow. I don't think she had any family connection with "our" Nora, whose mother, Margaret, died in 1847 when Nora was a small child. Nora was a student at Georgetown Visitation from 1861-64, so she was fairly fresh from school when she arrived at the boardinghouse at age 20. Her widowed father, James Fitzpatrick, also was living in DC, apparently as a boarder himself.