Trial reporter related to defendant

[Jim Woodall]

I am new to the forums and was looking for an interesting way to introduce myself. Seeing how you all are so wonderful in your research and puzzle and riddle solving, I thought I would introduce myself through a poser of a question which I do not believe you all have covered.

I have been doing my family genealogy which family lore had said we were related to a particular defendant in the trial (please bear with the mystery for now) whom I have determined was a cousin to my fourth great grandmother.

In doing my research, I determined that her grandson, from her first marriage, was a reporter for one of the local DC papers. Furthermore, he covered the trial of the conspirators and supposedly was there for the executions. He probably knew he was related to the defendant in question because his grandmother and her brother were associated with the defendant in earlier times (very much accepted in the general history). His father is not fully accepted as having direct earlier contact with the defendant but I believe it to be more likely than not.

POSER:
So, does anyone know who the reporter is, who is his grandmother and who is the defendant?

If this is an inappropriate manner of introduction, I apologize ahead of time and will put out the answers forthrightly upon indication.

Those who have had contact with me directly and have had the answer, more or less, before them - Please allow the others the opportunity to answer.

If requested, I will provide further clues.

Oh, one more clue - the reporter is mentioned at least once and maybe twice already on these message boards.

Enjoy.

[BettyO]

Welcome, Mr. Woodall! You'll find we're a very fun and friendly group who have some wonderful scholarly discussions -

I have in my collection a contemporary newspaper article from the National Republican, dated May 15, 1865.

Was the reporter in question, George Alfred Townsend (pen name GATH?) He was, however, from the New York World . I have reseached in depth one very good reporter, R. F. Boiseau, of the National Republican (a local paper.) He was also at the execution. Two other local reporters were James Croggon of the Washington Star and C. S. Noyes, also of the Star. They, too were at the execution as far as I know.

   

Was the defendant David Herold? Mary Surratt? They were both from the DC area. It also could be either Sam Arnold or Mike O'Laughlen from Baltimore?

Powell had no family near (he was from Florida) and Spangler had his father as his closest relative (from York, PA)

Is the defendant Dr.Samuel Mudd - also from Maryland?

[Jim Garrett]

I would have to guess Herold also, being the most local.

[RJNorton]

Welcome to the forum, Jim!

[Rsmyth]

Here is a list but I will guess R.F. Boiseau.
L. A. Gobright and F. H. Smith of the Associated Press; C. H. Noyes and James Croggon of The Star (undoubtedly the Washington Star), Messrs. Shaw and Painter of the Philadelphia Inquirer; John B. Woods of the Boston Daily Advertiser; A. H. Carauran of the Washington Chronicle; W. A. Croffuth of the New York Tribune; W. W. Warden of the New York Times and R. F. Boiseau of The Republican who was also present during the execution. George Alfred Townsend of The NY World . Ben Perley Poore.

[Jim Woodall]

Well, since a couple of you actually do name him, along with quite a few other names - it is Richard F Boiseau. I still have not figured out what the middle initial F actually stands for. Richard appears to have been well respected becoming the AP reporter from DC. At his death, papers throughout the country listed his obituary. James Croggon was a pallbearer at his funeral.

That still leaves the question of the defendant(already mentioned) and Richard's grandmother. However, those names should be readily determinable now that Richard has been named.

So, what would you make of a defendant's relative being a reporter of said trial and execution. Do you think that if it was known at the time, would he have been allowed to cover it and the execution? What do you think might have been going through his mind as he covered these events? These questions might become a bit more relevant once the defendant has been named.

And after his relationship to said defendant is clarified by naming his grandmother, a couple more questions. Do you think it likely he knew he was a relative? Do you think it likely that others knew this at the time?

[BettyO]

Jim -

I have a file on Mr. Boiseau which I'll be glad to forward to you - he was quite a reporter. Whether or not he knew that he was related, I do not know as of yet -

Please send me a private message (PM) and I'll send you my email address if you want the files -

Thanks!

[Jim Woodall]

Seeing as there has been at least one request for the answers, even though it was in another post, here are the complete answers with a bit more info:

Reporter
Richard F Boiseau

Defendant
Mary Surratt

My 4th great grandmother, the reporter's grandmother
Sarah Ann Jenkins

Sarah Ann Jenkins first married Joseph Boiseau about 1819 giving birth to James Thomas Boiseau while they were in Alexandria running a confectionary store. Sarah married Richard Mitchell about 1822 with this marriage generating 3 children including Martha Mitchell. Sarah's third husband was George Arthur Smoot (George's 2nd marriage). In this marriage, two children were born.

James Thomas Boiseau married Deborah Mead. One of their children was Richard F Boiseau.

Martha Mitchell married Thomas Anderson in 1852 as his second wife. Thomas Anderson moved out to Good Hope Road at the fork in the road at the top of Good Hope Hill about the 1830s establishing the blacksmith shop across from the Good Hope Tavern. This is the line from which I am descended. My genealogical hunt began here with notes/lore from family. No mention of Martha's ancestry in the family lore. However, family lore did allude to, somehow, we were related to Mary Surratt (and a few others like Francis Scott Key, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and even Max Baer - Jethro from Beverly Hillbillies).

In 1839, 7 acres of land were sold to Ann Smoot up at Good Hope Hill near Thomas Anderson. This land appears to be the land containing the Good Hope Tavern, which at times was named after Smoot, Jenkins, and others. This tavern stayed in the family until finally sold outside of the family in the late 1890s by a daughter of James Boiseau. The Surratts, some indicate, were married at the Boiseau house up on Good Hope Road. It appears that James Boiseau had his own home, later becoming the Wadsworth house, across from Thomas Anderson.

Sarah Ann Jenkins, at the time Ann Smoot, signed as sponsor on a couple of the baptismal records for Mary Surratt's children.

Later, after the Surratts' house fire, they moved in with Sarah Ann Jenkins' brother Thomas Jenkins of Thomas. Thomas' lands were east/southeast of St. Elizabeth's. A third sibling was living next door, Susan Evans (nee Jenkins), who willed a slave to James Boiseau. A fourth sibling appears to have been living behind Thomas Anderson on the back side of Good Hope Hill. This was Basil Jenkins with his wife, Elizabeth Talbert. She was widowed before 1835, the death of the Jenkins father, Thomas Mitchell Jenkins. The father of Thomas Mitchell Jenkins was Francis Jenkins and his father, Enoch Jenkins.

I believe, from other's research, that the link between this line, going back to a Daniel Jenkins eventually, and Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt, is the Daniel Jenkins. I have not proved to myself this yet, but looking over other people's research, this appears to be the case.

Of interest with this Jenkins line, the Civil War forts around D.C. loved the Jenkins' lands. Fort Baker, originally Camp Good Hope, usurped the Jenkins house on the back of Good Hope Hill as officer's quarters with some indications that General Sickles took it over. And, of course, Thomas Jenkins lands coincided with Fort Snyder with his house being dismantled to provide wood for officer's quarters. Fort Wagner was across the road from Thomas Anderson and from the Good Hope Tavern and maybe had some of James Boiseau's lands. His daughter Ida in the 1890s would file suit to clear title to Chichester lands and some of Fort Wagner.

There are also plenty of other Andersons out in the south east D.C. area and elsewhere around D.C. and Maryland. Part of the lore, yet to be proven, was that Thomas Anderson had angered a union general enough, the general ordered Tom locked up in his corn crib.

What I find interesting is the lack of mention regarding the Jenkins line in the family history/lore. There does seem to be a disruption in the families around the Civil War time.

Whether this is religious, Tom Anderson's first family was Protestant and the second was Catholic (thanks to Sarah), seems unlikely. Why marry Martha Mitchell if it was going to be an issue.

The Civil War is always a possibility. I think the Andersons were anti-slave while the Jenkins certainly had no problems owning.

Could the problem just be issues in one family? Thomas Anderson Jr. got walloped in the head with a blacksmith hammer nearly killing him at the beginning of the war when an apprentice got mad after leaving early to work at the Navy Yard. Tom Jr. went on to work(?) at St. Elizabeth's with his wife living nearby.

Was the problem that the Jenkins had been associated with Mary Surratt prior to the assassination?

I think these families were very cognizant of each other for an extended period. Tom Anderson was a witness on the will of Thomas Mitchell Jenkins going back to before 1835. Sarah's kids seemed to associate with each other but I haven't found the Anderson's interacting except through the Association of Oldest Inhabitants of D.C. and estate management and lawsuits from such. The Andersons definitely interacted with other associated families. This generation of Anderson came out of Long Old Fields (later Forestville).

So, that is what ignited my greater interest in the goings on of D.C., the Surratts, the assassination, the Civil War in general and particularly the forts surrounding D.C. I wish to understand these people better and the best way to do so is through the happenings and history that they had lived through, especially the events nearby or involving them.

The area - D.C., Maryland, Virginia - holds a lot of history for western culture in the Americas. History is even more intriguing when you find your ancestors interacting with it and some well-known characters within that history or seeing them being affected by that history.

[L Verge]

Our wonderful librarian, Sandra Walia, has been searching our genealogical files to assist Jim in his work. The problem has now become that there may be too much material to successfully go through, reproduce, etc. Jim lives in Arizona, so distance is another hindrance. We do have the files of a local Jenkins member who shared his genealogical work with us, and I suspect that he is of the same line. The Anderson connection is harder to find.

The area that this all falls into is almost the exact route that Booth and Herold took after crossing the Navy Yard Bridge. Up Good Hope Road (then Harrison Street), between Forts Baker and Stanton, past Good Hope Tavern and out into Maryland.

Speaking of the forts, Jim, there is a book on the ring of forts that encircled D.C. during the war. I can't think of the title or author right now. It'll come to me in the middle of the night, and I'll call you... Maybe Mr. Lincoln's Forts?? Anyhow, I have not read it (just skimmed it about 30 years ago), but there may be some info on the three forts that seem to have been connected to your family's lands.