The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-04-16
LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION.
The Maryland Haunts of Wilkes
Booth and His Associates.
The Spot Where the Monumental Crime
Was Incubated-The Country and the
People-The Mudds and Surratts
Gath's New York Letter.

Last tuesday, through the KINDNESS Oh u
lawyer friend in Washington, who furnished
me a carriage and his company, started at
11:30 in the morning for Bryantown, the
center of Booths operations, and reached it
about 5 in the evening, having passed Sur
rattsville, ten miles out OF Washington,
where Mrs. Surratt and her family lived and
left their myth, and also passed ReeYes's
church and the old Catholic parish where
Dr. Mudd attended. Finally drove into
Mudd's fields, and close enough to his house
to make some sketches of it, he having been
dead about two months now.
That night at Bryantown had some talk
with brother of Dr. Mudd and with his
medical preceptor, DIR. George Mudd, who
kept his head level during the whole war,
stood by the Union, assisted the government
in the tragedy, yet did his best to save his
cousins life and fame. The hotel we slept
in Booth had also occupied while visiting
Bryantown about six months before the
crime The next morning "wednesday we
drove a mile or more south of Bryantown to
the Catholic church, built in 1S4S, probably
on the site of numerous others, and we saw
DIR. Mudds new-made and yet unmarked
grave, and were admitted to the church
where Booth first appeared to the people of
that country in the fall of 1864. and was IN
troduced to DR.. Sam Mudd, his subsequent
factor and victim, on a Sabbath morning by
one of the commandments to whom Booth
had delivered letter the day before, and
who had asked him to come up to church.
The church was opened for us, and we had
the romantic interest of sitting emong the OBJ
jects which incloscd that little congregation
when the young demon, now apparently
having lighted down there from the bosom
of evil heard the sensuous forms and sounds
of the mass and the sacrament, while draw
ing his plans mentally to plunge that region
fnd the neighboring capital into mourning
We returned to Washington in drive of
five hours by Beantown which recalled the
fact that the morning Booth killed the Presi-
dent he took break fast with Miss Carrie Bean
at the National Hotel. We also came through
old Piscataway, one of the ruined towns of
Maryland, which formerly was a notable
place of export and one of General Washing
tons haunts, being in the immediate vicini-
ty of Mount Vernon, on the MARYLAND side
This region of country at the time of year
that Booth went through it. red with the
blood of Lincoln and Seward, bore exactly
the same appearance it now does. The trees
were bare OF verdure, except in the case of
evergreens, such as the cedar, the pine and
holly. A few holly trees are seen here and
ground is poor and thin, and grow so close
together that it would seem a snake could
hardly trail his way through the fasces of
the trunks. As for the cedar trees, they line
both sides of the road so continuously that
sometimes | remarked to my friend that we
seemed to be in the lane of public ceme-
terry and presently vaults and monuments
in extent comparable to such q lane would
burst into the vista.
Near the navy-yard, going out. we saw the
house of Herold, the companion of Booths
flight, frivolous boy, who was recommended
to Booth chiefly because he was always ready
to go cunning or rowing anywhere, and was
willing to give up his business in the differ
ent drug-stOres where he was employed from
time 10 time to have little sport He APP
peared 20 be quite dandy among the coun-
try people with his fancy cunning equip
ments, while to the city people he looked to
be one of those immature. veally Maryland
country 9 bps of the quality of their poor
corn, never good for much beyond nubbn.
A man Matching an assassination in a prac-
tical age is often hard up for company, and
Booth had to create his batch of creatures out
of the very dirt of the ground There was
nothing whatever in Herold to make an as
sassin Of; and yet he did keep Booths COM
pany, as you sometimes see tom-tit chase
chicken-hawk through the sky, keeping up
with him and picking at his back, though
with no natural ability for such company.
assassin is not so considerable; both are fell
lows unreliable for anything steady. and the
motive in Booths mind to kill the President
was. then as vagrant as that which took
Herold miles and miles off into the country
to pursue birds he seldom shot and brought
home, merely because he had Il touch of ma
ture and restlessness somewhere in him. -.
u suRRATTsvILLE AND VICINITY. Ia
tSurrattsville, Mrs. Surratt's old tavern
preserves just the same general appearance
large white building, much in need of
paint, and with some of the boards drop
ping off and new weatherboarding re-
Gently nailed on; with two square,
stumpy chimneys, equally distant from
each other and from the gables.
with little porch in front. where once the
honeysuckle twned, and with the bar or
tavern part opening its door and shed
toward Washington. One or two cribs or
barns back OF the garden are falling down
with ruin. We were told that a man named
Taylor had bought it, that the ground here
about would bring from SIS to SIT an acre,
and that Mrs. Surratt was raised mile and
a half nearer Washington. This house has a
front yard with paliDgs around it. Across
the road from the front yard is a large
pigeon-house stuck I'm the top of a pole-a
pigeon-house, ] should think. five or six
feet high. In the residence the hall runs
down the middle, and on one side is the
parlor and on the other the bar and sitting
room. Old Surratt was much older than his
wife, and she therefore survived him with
her. two children. t.,
The position of this house, in the fork of
four roads-one TO Piscataway, one to Bryan
town, a third to Marlborough and a fourth to
Washngton-made it important to spies and
fy-by-nights, because in that day there was
no other tavern ont in the open country in
all this REGION and any one stopping here, if
there was danger toward Washington, could
keep on to Baltimore and the North by less
freqpented roads, avoiding the former city
altogether. When old Surratt died. and left
q rather weak yet headStrong wife and a
son with no great amount of brains and
easily spoiled by ambition or prominence he