Trivial Trivia - taking trivia to new levels

[Steve]

I have Frederick Hatch's book "John Surratt: Rebel, Lincoln Conspirator, Fugitive" so I looked it up. Is this cheating?

Never!

[RJNorton]

Excellent, Anita! Kudos. You are correct as to the cost of the entire funeral. Mary paid $50 for a mahogany coffin and the hearse plus attendants. She also had $7 in additional costs, and the grand total was $57. However, she only paid $50, and the remaining $7 was never paid.

SOURCE: March 2019 Surratt Courier in an article by Joan Chaconas.

(Anita, if I hope people won't research a question, I always try to say this when I ask it; a question like this one can always be researched in any source available.)

[L Verge]

One frustrating thing about Surratt Senior's funeral is that there is no known record of where he is buried! The undertaker was a Mr. Robinson of the nearby T.B. area, and his grandson told us in the 1960s that the records were thrown out over the years, but that he thought the burial was in the church cemetery at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Piscataway. However, the church had a fire that destroyed records.

To complicate things further, Surratt descendants have told us that their patriarch hated the Catholic Church and never converted. If he is at Piscataway, he will be outside the cemetery walls since non-Catholics would never have been buried in blessed ground. The descendants think he was buried on his wife's family's old farm which was taken over during WWII for what is now Joint Base Andrews.

I think I may have posted this before, but I did contact the base and talked to a gentleman who had been in on the process of the government taking over five villages, locating graves, and returning them to families or re-burying them at a tiny Methodist church in what had been the village of Meadows. That church still is used on the base, but no records bear the name of Surratt.

In the 1840s, as a young wife, Mary Surratt rode horseback to solicit funds for establishing a Catholic church near the area where the family first lived. The church still exists, St. Ignatius Oxon Hill, and Mary's mother was buried there in 1878. If hubby had converted to Catholicism, I would think that cemetery would be a logical resting place for him.

One thing I have never pursued is finding a family graveyard for the Neales. John Harrison Surratt, Sr. was raised as a foster child by the Neales and inherited (and then sold) their lands, some of which now lie within the D.C. boundaries. I'm betting the Neales had a family graveyard that has long since disappeared, or that no one has searched Episcopal records in churches near their old farm (either Maryland or D.C.). Mary Surratt was left with about $3500 in debts when her husband died, so the chances of him ever having a tombstone are slim.

The Surratts were Protestant Episcopal in the generations leading up to his marriage with Mary Jenkins (who was also Protestant Episcopal until educated at a Catholic girls' school), and their names, as well as Jenkinses, appear on the records of St. John's Broad Creek - a church frequented by George Washington when he crossed over the Potomac from Mount Vernon to visit Maryland friends. Foster mother Neale was converted to the Catholic Church on her deathbed, but there is a note that to the effect that "it might not take since she was a Protestant all of her life."

It seems very strange that we have found no written record as to where John Harrison Surratt, Sr. is buried. Another mystery to solve.

[Steve]

Has anyone checked Catholic cemeteries in Washington DC for Surratt Sr.? I ask because in the 1840's Isaac, Elizabeth and John Jr. were brought to St. Peter's in Washington to be baptized. (Though, John was baptized 3 years later in 1847.) I understand why certain members of the Surratt family would be reluctant to have John buried in the "enemy's capital", but there does seem to be a family connection to that particular church.

[L Verge]

I believe that Mr. Hall checked records there early on because in the early-1840s, St. Peter's was the closest Catholic church to where the family was living (now half in and half out of D.C. and in a bad area). When John and Mary Surratt were married, the ceremony was in D.C., but in a private home of a friend, not in a church -- another good indication that John did not convert to Catholicism.

Until 1850, Catholic families in that area known as Oxon Hill attended Masses in the home of Mrs. Christiana Summers Edelen. Mrs. Edelen's husband was an Episcopalian who, along with another Episcopalian, Dr. Folsom, gave the land for the future St. Ignatius.

St. Ignatius, the church that Mrs. Surratt solicited funds for, had not been established at the time of the Surratt children's baptisms - the cornerstone was laid in 1849 and the church dedicated in 1850 by the Archbishop of Baltimore. It was a mission church for St. Mary's in Alexandria, Virginia (where Mary had received her education), and a young priest from St. Mary's was sent to be the first pastor. Some of you may know that there has been lingering gossip about that priest (Fr. Joseph Finotti) and Mrs. Surratt having an affair that got him shipped up north.

Back to St. Peter's in D.C., I have been there, but I don't remember a graveyard, and most city burials were within larger cemeteries. Mrs. Surratt, Anna, husband, Isaac, and some of Anna's children are in Mt. Olivet in D.C., but that plot was donated by the diocese to the family at the time of the release of Mary's body by the government. Husband was not there waiting.

I'm still betting on the descendants being correct that he was buried on the old Jenkins farm about four miles from their tavern. The grave was never marked and became forgotten (on purpose?) during the 1865 chaos. It was gobbled up decades later when villages were established around that farm. You have no idea how many private cemeteries in Prince George's County alone have been destroyed by developers.

[RJNorton]

The Lincoln funeral coach burned and was destroyed by a raging grass fire in 1911. An associate professor at a college visited the smoking ruins, and found a small piece of gilded window molding. He fashioned it into something he could wear. What did he make it into?

[Eva Elisabeth]

A ring?

[L Verge]

Tie clasp?

[RJNorton]

Eva, that is a very logical guess, but kudos to Laurie. The associate professor, whose name was Maury Ostrander, made the piece into a tie clasp. The article about this comes from the Minneapolis Star, but I don't have an exact date for the newspaper.

[L Verge]

Eva, that is a very logical guess, but kudos to Laurie. The associate professor, whose name was Maury Ostrander, made the piece into a tie clasp. The article about this comes from the Minneapolis Star, but I don't have an exact date for the newspaper.

I think Roger and I are reading the same newspaper clipping, sent to us by forum member, Dr. Blaine Houmes. Both Blaine and I were surprised to see (for the first time, we think) that the fire was started by a boy burning trash.

I also looked for a date on the newspaper clipping, but had to do some arithmetic. The fire was in March of 1911, and the article states the Lincoln coach "burned in a fire in Columbia Heights just 53 years ago Wednesday." That would date the article to 1964 - even though the copy makes it appear much older. Yikes! It was written when I was in college.

[AussieMick]

when you were in college, Laurie? You mean kindergarten, surely?

[Eva Elisabeth]

So the clipping is nowhere available in public space? Seems fascinating!

[Steve]

Eva, that is a very logical guess, but kudos to Laurie. The associate professor, whose name was Maury Ostrander, made the piece into a tie clasp. The article about this comes from the Minneapolis Star, but I don't have an exact date for the newspaper.

I think Roger and I are reading the same newspaper clipping, sent to us by forum member, Dr. Blaine Houmes. Both Blaine and I were surprised to see (for the first time, we think) that the fire was started by a boy burning trash.

I also looked for a date on the newspaper clipping, but had to do some arithmetic. The fire was in March of 1911, and the article states the Lincoln coach "burned in a fire in Columbia Heights just 53 years ago Wednesday." That would date the article to 1964 - even though the copy makes it appear much older. Yikes! It was written when I was in college.

It's from the 17 March 1964 issue of the Minneapolis Star.

[L Verge]

when you were in college, Laurie? You mean kindergarten, surely?

Bless you, my child, but I reached senior citizen status years ago -- and have the battle scars to prove it. My age is one of the things that causes me to be so cynical about the way things are going in this modern age. I am now of the disillusioned Woodstock generation.

[Gene C]

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[ My age is one of the things that causes me to be so cynical about the way things are going in this modern age. I am now of the disillusioned Woodstock generation.

Look at it this way. You now qualify for a senior citizen discount at most restaurants.
Food that is unhealthy and scare mongers say will kill you, is now offered to you at a discounted price that is less than they charge for younger people.
Now doesn't that make you feel better.

I choose to look at it this way. If it's bad for you, why does it taste so good?
With all those preservatives in fast food, that should help me live longer, or look younger as I age.

- So far, so good.

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