Lost Cow at 541 H Street

[L Verge]

(08-17-2016 03:53 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Forum member John Hewitt sent this to me. He came across it in the July 12th 1864 edition of the Evening Star. I told John that Mary Surratt had not yet moved in at that time, and I did not know what was going on at the boardinghouse prior to her arrival. So the question is why would someone have a cow in town?

Livestock roamed the streets of Washington all the time in the "good old days." The noxious Tiber Creek (now Constitution Avenue) had carcasses in it constantly.

As for the H Street home in July of 1864, it probably still had renters. At one point, there was a piano teacher renting from the Surratts, and quite a few employees of the Patent Office lived there before and during the war. Mrs. Surratt began to move in and convert to a boardinghouse business in the late-fall of 1864.