Mary Surratt Boarding House (Wok and Roll)

The building at 604 H Street NW was constructed in 1843 as a Greek Revival row house. In 1853 it was acquired by John Surratt, a Maryland farmer and tavern keeper. After John Surratt's death in 1862, his widow Mary Surratt moved into the H Street house and, beginning in September 1864, operated it as a boarding house to support herself, her son John Jr., and her daughter Anna.

From September 1864 to April 1865, John Wilkes Booth, Lewis Powell (Lewis Paine), George Atzerodt, and other Confederate sympathizers used the second floor as a meeting place to plan their plot — initially to kidnap President Abraham Lincoln, and ultimately to assassinate Lincoln and other senior federal officials on the night of April 14, 1865. John Surratt Jr. was a Confederate courier directly involved in the conspiracy; whether his mother Mary participated knowingly remains historically contested.

Following Lincoln's assassination, federal authorities arrested everyone associated with the conspiracy. Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt, and David Herold were tried by military tribunal and sentenced to death. On July 7, 1865, all four were hanged at the Old Arsenal Penitentiary (now Fort McNair). Mary Surratt thus became the first woman to be executed by the U.S. federal government — a sentence that drew widespread protest at the time and continues to be debated by historians.

The building has had many subsequent uses. After the Civil War it became a restaurant and tavern; it has been a Chinese restaurant since at least the late 20th century, and currently operates as Wok and Roll, combining a downstairs restaurant with upstairs karaoke rooms. A National Park Service-style historical marker on the sidewalk identifies the building's role in the Lincoln conspiracy.