Former boarding house where John Wilkes Booth met with co-conspirators to plan the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
After her husband died, Mary Surratt rented out her tavern in Surrattsville, Maryland and moved into her boarding house on H street. There, John Wilkes Booth became friends with her son, John. Almost every article about the Surratt Boarding House unequivocally says John Wilkes Booth, John Surratt, and the other conspirators used the boarding house as a meeting place to plan the assassination plot. However, the signs for the “Civil War to Civil Rights: Downtown Heritage Trail” outside the building say that although many of the conspirators were known to frequent or live at the boarding house, no formal meeting took place there. It is likely that the Surratt Boarding House was just one of many locations where details of the plot were discussed among the conspirators. After the assassination, President Andrew Johnson called it the “nest in which the egg was hatched,” and the boarding house went down in history.
Most local blogs have written about the Surratt Boarding House, yet somehow after six years of living in DC, I still missed it. While doing some research for the blog post on Grant Hall, I came across the historic street address for the Surratt Boarding House (541 H Street). Realizing this was likely near current-day downtown, I looked into it further and discovered the house is only a block from the H Street exit of the Chinatown metro stop. It is surprising to see how close the boarding house is to Ford’s Theatre – it only takes 10 minutes to walk the half mile between the two locations.
Given the building’s significance in one of the most well known events in American history, it is baffling why the National Parks Service hasn’t taken it over and restored it. The site was not even added to the National Register of Historic Places until 2009. Not much remains of original interior, and the building is currently a Chinese restaurant and karaoke bar. Despite the lack of preservation of the boarding house, nothing brings history to life like walking the same streets that have been immortalized in literature and film for the past 150 years.
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Address
604 H Street NW
Metro Station
- Gallery Place-Chinatown (RD, GR, YL)
Cost
Free
Hours
Open 24 hours but best in the daylight
Length of Adventure
10 minutes
Website
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_E._Surratt_Boarding_House
