Mary Victorine Hunter Surratt

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(09-28-2018 05:26 PM)Dennis Urban Wrote:  It's really cool that you've stayed in touch with the Surratt descendants. Any recent contacts or events? I am going to try to research the Mary Victorine Hunter connection to upper Montgomery County. I'd appreciate any information the Surratt research center may have.

The younger generation of Surratts seldom contact us, but we do have quite a number of collateral descendants from the original immigrants in the late-1600s that are members of the Surratt Society. They are scattered all over the country, but a good number are still in North Carolina, where a branch of the original family settled in the mid-1700s after emigrating from Maryland.

For information on Mary Victorine Hunter's family, email colleen.puterbaugh@pgparks.com She's our research librarian and is very accommodating.

Mary Victorine was a second cousin to Francis Scott Key, whose connections are to Frederick County (but pretty close to upper Montgomery, I think). There is a town in Frederick County named for the Keys - I bet that therein lies the connection. We do have a rather extensive drawing of her family tree.

We also own a handkerchief with the name "Surratt" embroidered on it. The family that donated it said that it was given to their female ancestor by John when he was teaching near Rockville. She was supposedly one of his students.

We would like to think that his mother did the embroidery, but I doubt that the handkerchief survived in such good condition if done before 1865 when things turned bad.