Was John Surratt engaged to Miss Roose?

[Jim Woodall]

In searching for something else, I came across an obit for a William Roose in the Evening Star 23 March 1897 page 1 column 6 near the top. Also, an obit is in the Morning Times 24 March 1897 page 2 rightmost column midway down.

Evening Star:
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/s...d-1/seq-1/

The Times (Morning Times)
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/s...d-1/seq-2/

In the obit it mentions that when he was a boy, his sister went to live with the Surratts after their parents died and she was later engaged to John Surratt Jr. After the assassination, she went into a convent and was still there in 1897 in seclusion. Her given name was not provided.

I searched these boards but did not find anything about it. I did a quick search on the web but did not turn up anything with those searches except the for-mentioned obits.

Checking the census records, William S. Roose was born in Baltimore city in 1833. Genealogy trees indicate the mother died 1841 shortly after child birth. Supposedly William was left an orphan at about the age of 12, putting it about 1845. The trees indicate two sisters of which one died as an infant. The surviving sister is shown as Sarah Elizabeth Roose born 1841 and dead in 1900.

Sarah Elizabeth and William Smith Roose were the only children to survive past 1852. William S Roose had a daughter, Mary C. An obituary attached to her in one of the trees indicates she was a belle of Washington and educated at St. Xavier's Academy near Latrobe in Pennsylvania where her aunt, Sister Mary Benedicta, was teaching.

There is a St. Xavier's Academy at Latrobe which was associated with the Sisters of Mercy. It still appears to be operating today.

That is about what I have found currently besides some supporting information for the above.

[BettyO]

What fun, Jim! I have found that a lot can be uncovered in old newspaper articles. Never heard of Mr. Roose - nor Miss Roose! But interesting all the same. It's the little tidbits like this that make for interesting reading and give better insight into what one is researching.

I found out in an old article that Powell was, in fact, engaged to be married at the time of the assassination to Miss Mary Branson.

[Lincoln Wonk]

Imagine the wedding announcement for Miss Branson and Mr. Powell, Betty.

Surratt's jobs after his trial are fascinating, Jim. I can't imagine having a teacher who was a friend of John Wilkes Booth. He must have been very adaptable to move from carrying secret war plans in his shoe to being a teacher at a girl's school to being a freight auditor to moving to the C-Suite as a company treasurer.

Obits are amazing. I found a woman who died in the mid-West but she lived on Tenth Street in 1965. Her obit said she was inside Petersen House as a teenager on assassination night and she felt sorry for Booth.

[Jim Garrett]

Welcome Jim and a very interesting thread. John Surratt moved to Baltimore and worked for the Old Bay Steamship Line (as did his brother Isaac). He was a pariah to many in town. One of John's grandson related to a good friend and retired history teacher, Sue Ketron, that when he would walk down the street with his grandfather, people would cross the street to avoid them

[Lincoln Wonk]

That's so interesting, Jim. I wish there were books in every burg in the library or city hall about famous people who lived there and how they were viewed. What great records they would be.

[Jim Garrett]

John Surratt was also writing his story of the Lincoln Assassination. One Sunday, his family came home from church and Surratt had burned his manuscript. His response as to why...........the country (or world) isn't ready.

[L Verge]

I have had several of the descendants tell me that John burned his papers because there were still people who could be hurt by what was in them. There is also a letter written by one of his children that says much the same thing about people shunning the family on the streets. In a way, I find this a tad hypocritical given Baltimore's "behavior" during the Civil War and the fact that the first attempt on Lincoln's life was supposedly planned for his trip through the city in February of 1861.

[Susan Higginbotham]

I wonder if John was shunned for his role in the conspiracy or because it was believed that he had abandoned his mother to die.

[Lincoln Wonk]

Good point, Susan. I haven't read anything about how Anna and John got along after their mother's death, but it had to be awkward.

[L Verge]

Good point, Susan. I haven't read anything about how Anna and John got along after their mother's death, but it had to be awkward.

Most sources do not mention that John went to South America to "rest" once the authorities refused to seek another indictment against him and that he failed to return in time for his mother's re-burial at Mt. Olivet. That had to really hurt Anna and Isaac. He did show up for Anna's wedding, however.

There is a letter that I have seen that mentions Anna and Dr. Tonry sort of estranging themselves from the rest of the family, but also hinting that it was because she had married a Yankee.

[BettyO]

I think the shunning more or less was in relation to the fact that many folk considered John Surratt a scoundrel because it was felt he had abandoned his mother. Baltimore was definitely "pro Confederate" during the war and as Laurie said, very few had strong feelings about Lincoln either during the war or after; particularly in the phase of "Confederate memorial revival" in the 1880s and 1890s when Veterans and their wives were attempting to create a sense of "The Good Ol' Days" regarding the "moonlight and magnolia" myth of the Old South. There were a lot of articles written criticizing the hanging and "judicial murder" of Mrs. Surratt. It was, I think definitely felt that Mrs. Surratt was innocent and that her son had deserted her.

[Jim Woodall]

When I cam across the obit, it seemed odd to me that it would say so much about his sister and the troubles visited upon her. But, as Betty was indicating, the times were a bit different regarding connecting with the confederate past. Also, in the late 1800s/early 1900s people were reflecting more on their ancestors and including in their obits about strong family ties to history. I still am not sure many would go out of their way to connect to the Surratts especially implying the sister, who was not named, running off to the convent because of her engagement with John Surratt, Jr.

As I uncovered more info that matched up with the obit, I came to believe that whoever wrote it believed what they had written. I presume, the likely writer was the daughter, Mary, since her obit talks about being taught by her aunt, Sister Mary Benedicta. (see "The Daily Courier", Connellsville, PA, 7 Nov 1939 pg 4)

I presume that if the last parent of William and Sarah Roose died around 1845 that it was about that time or shortly thereafter that Sarah would have been at the Surratts' house over at Oxon Run. She does not show up in the 1850 census over there or elsewhere, so far. I would be surprised that an orphan from Baltimore would end up at Oxon Run unless they were related somehow.

Further more, Sarah Roose and John Surratt Jr., would have to reconnect at a later time to become engaged. I wonder if that happened when John was in school in Baltimore before John left to go back to the tavern.

Back to obits in the late 1800s and early 1900s, how much of what is said in those obits would you take as correct or probable when these obits seemed to inflate the ancestry lines. I know I have a couple of obits from the late 1890s within my ancestry that both claim a connection to a certain Captain Richard Anderson of the Maryland line from the Revolutionary War but haven't yet found further supporting info. How far did people at the turn of that century exaggerate the importance of their ancestry?

[Susan Higginbotham]

Back to obits in the late 1800s and early 1900s, how much of what is said in those obits would you take as correct or probable when these obits seemed to inflate the ancestry lines. I know I have a couple of obits from the late 1890s within my ancestry that both claim a connection to a certain Captain Richard Anderson of the Maryland line from the Revolutionary War but haven't yet found further supporting info. How far did people at the turn of that century exaggerate the importance of their ancestry?

I suspect then as now it was fairly common--especially when the ancestor in question was prominent or even notorious. I came across a newspaper article from 1892 correcting a misstatement, at the behest of Anna Surratt's husband, that a Mrs. Kirby involved in a divorce case was a daughter of Mrs. Surratt. After assuring the reader that Mrs. Surratt had only one daughter, Anna, the article concluded that "Although Mrs. Kirby at one time posed as the daughter of Mrs. Surat [sic], her claim was long ago proven worthless." (I wonder if the Mrs. Kirby in question was connected to the Mr. Kirby who was a neighbor of the Surratts on H Street.)

[HerbS]

John Surratt was slick! He was truely"A man around Town"!BettyO-You never cease to amaze me with your precise newspaper, historical research!

[L Verge]

One of Mary's nieces married into the Kirby family, if I remember correctly, and it may have been Olivia Jenkins, who spent time with Anna and her mother - especially after they moved to the city. I find the reference to a Kirby divorce strange, however, because Mary had converted her brother Zadoc's family to Catholicism, and I believe that the Kirbys were Catholics also. Of course, stranger things have happened.

Stranger yet is that I know of no other researcher having seen mention of Miss Roose living with the Surratts or a supposed engagement to John Surratt. That would include Hall, Brennan, Trindal, Larson, Isacsson, and Jampoler over the past forty years; and Fred Hatch and Michael Schein both have books coming out next year on Johnny.