Dr. Samuel A. Mudd
Treating an Assassin
This house was the home of Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd and his wife, Sarah Frances Dyer. Early on the morning of April 15, 1865, John Wilkes Booth arrived here with a companion, David E. Herold, and asked Mudd to set Booth’s broken leg. Afterward, as Booth rested in an upstairs bedroom, Mudd rode into Bryantown, then returned home late in the afternoon to find his visitors departing.
Questioned later by U.S. authorities, Mudd
claimed he did not recognize Booth or know that he
was being sought, and only learned of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in Bryantown.
Other witnesses stated, however, that late in
1864, Booth had met Mudd at St. Mary’s
Catholic Church, below Bryantown, while visiting Charles County ostensibly to purchase real estate. He then came here, spent the night, and
bought a horse from Mudd’s neighbor. Mudd allegedly accompanied Booth into Bryantown and introduced
him to a friend, Confederate agent Thomas Harbin. A
few days later, a witness stated, Mudd met Booth again in Washington and introduced him to John H. Surratt.
Charged with conspiring with Booth from the
beginning, Mudd claimed that the earlier meetings were
innocent, Booth had been disguised on April 15, and he
had only done his duty as a physician. Convicted and sentenced to life in prison at Fort Jefferson in the Florida Keys, Mudd distinguished himself treating sick prisoners and guards alike during a deadly 1867 yellow fever epidemic. President Andrew Johnson pardoned him in 1869. Mudd died here on January 10, 1883.
Marker is on Dr. Samuel Mudd Road (Maryland Route 232) near Poplar Hill Road (Maryland Route 382).
Courtesy hmdb.org
