Several strands of Surratt's hair, encapsulated in clear plastic and affixed to an 8.5 x 11 certificate, headed: "The hair of Lincoln conspirator Mary Surratt taken at her hanging." The certificate and an accompanying page report that the hair was found in an envelope identified by Samuel Curtis as "The hair [of] Mrs. Surratt." Curtis was a member of the 8th regiment, which served as guards for the execution of the Lincoln assassination conspirators. In fine condition.
Following the death of her husband, John H. Surratt, Sr., in 1862, Mary Surratt (1823-1865) rented out her husband’s tavern and opened a boarding house on H Street in Washington, D.C. In the early months of 1865, the boarding house was used as the meeting place for the conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, led by John Wilkes Booth. Surratt was questioned by the police following the assassination, and witnesses claimed she had met several times with conspirator Lewis Powell; moreover, the keeper of her late husband’s tavern claimed that on the day of the assassination, she had ordered him to 'make ready the shooting irons.' Surratt was arrested soon after and held in military custody. Found guilty of treason, conspiracy, and plotting murder on June 30, 1865, Surratt was sentenced to be 'hanged by the neck ’til she be dead.' When the sentence was carried out on July 7, Surratt earned a dubious place in history as the first woman to be executed by the U.S. government.
