Assassination Trivia

[Laurie Verge]

Yes, and there's an interesting story here. In the 1840s, Mary Surratt and Christina Edelen rode horseback around the area of present-day Oxon Hill, Maryland, (near her first home with John Surratt and children) to raise funds to establish a church in that area. The first priest assigned by the Jesuits to that church (St. Ignatius - named after St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order) was Father Joseph Maria Finotti, who had previously come from Italy and been assigned to St. Mary's Church in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1850. Mrs. Surratt had been educated by the Sisters of Charity at a school attached to St. Mary's in the 1830s.

To make a long story short, it appears that Mrs. Surratt and Fr. Finotti developed a close relationship - so close that tongues began to wag. Soon the priest received notice that he was being transferred to Brookline, Massachusetts. He arrived there on Holy Saturday in 1852, and never returned to Maryland.

However, Mrs. Surratt maintained correspondence with Finotti during the 1850s; and some of these letters still exist. Professor Joseph George, now retired professor emeritus from Villanova University, published a booklet on them for the Maryland Historical Society about fifty years ago.

It is clear as you read the letters that Mary was an unhappy soul. In fact, she appears almost whiney in her writings - complaining about an alcoholic husband who will not take her to church, who is a bad influence on the children, and even ending one letter with "bless me father for this may be the last you hear from me. He has threatened to kill me if I do not become what he wishes me to become."

Given the fact that Mary had been given a good education, I have speculated that she wanted better in life than what she got. Her husband squandered a sizeable estate that he inherited from foster parents, so she watched finances go steadily downhill. She was stranded in the country, and she wanted better for her children. Then she became a widow in the middle of a devastating war with one son in the army in Texas and another running the roads between Richmond and Canada.

We could do a psycho-analysis and probably determine that she was pleased to have John Wilkes Booth enter her home. Perhaps she saw it as an indication of things looking up - especially since he had that flair and a promise of money to someone already involved in the Confederate cause. And, there was a marriageable daughter...

I have always wondered what happened to Fr. Finotti. Was he still in America, and what did he think of Mary's fall from grace? We have on display a small book of prayers which was given to her by the Father and which she supposedly kept in her cell until her execution. Author Elizabeth Trindal did a good amount of research on Mary and Fr. Finotti when she wrote American Tragedy.