By: Kristen Anderson
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If intense emotions and energy within a house’s walls make it more apt to be haunted, then it should be no surprise to hear that it’s not just the living politicians who inhabit the hallowed halls of the White House. The First Family’s home has a long history of tenants who had a healthy curiosity about the paranormal—and apparently, some former, non-living inhabitants still like to roam its halls as well.
The first White House resident who dabbled in the occult was Jane Pierce, the wife of Franklin Pierce, who was president in the 1850s. They tragically lost their 11-year-old son Benny in a train accident in which Jane and Franklin survived. So Jane invited the infamous Fox Sisters—celebrated mediums of the day (who later admitted they were cons)—to come to the White House in an attempt to communicate with Benny through numerous séances. Jane seemed to gather some comfort from the communication she felt she had with him, both in the séances and in her dreams. But still, she grieved for the rest of her life and dressed only in black mourning clothes.
First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln, sadly lost two sons as well, Willie and Tad, who passed away from illnesses. And so, Mary also spent some of her time in the White House trying to contact them. She held séances in the White House Red Room (at least one of which Abraham attended) and also went outside the home to participate in séance circles.
She felt these attempts might have helped pierce the veil. Speaking of the apparition of her son Willie, she said:
“He comes to me every night and stands at the foot of my bed with the same sweet, adorable smile he has always had; he does not always come alone. Little Eddie is sometimes with him.”
After Abraham Lincoln was killed, Mary joined a spiritualist commune for a short time while on a trip to New York, and during her stay, she sat for a spirit photography session that produced an infamous photo. Spirit photos were said to be taken with a special camera that revealed the ghosts present around a subject, but they were invisible to the naked eye.
Her session produced a photo that appeared to show Mary’s husband, Abraham, standing behind her, looking down and resting his hands on her shoulders. It gave her a lot of comfort, and Mary reportedly treasured the image. (Her photo was taken by William Mumler, a photographer who was later exposed as a fraud. His ruse was born when he accidentally double-exposed a photo of himself once and saw it created another person’s image in the picture. He saw a market for claiming he could capture ghosts in his photos).
The supernatural happenings in the White House weren’t all focused on the ghosts of the past, however—some residents sought to look toward the future with astrology. Both Edith Wilson, married to President Woodrow Wilson, and Florence Harding, married to the next president, Warren Harding, consulted fortune-teller Madame Marcia Champney. Madame Champney would visit Edith at the White House, always ushered quietly in through the back. This secrecy didn’t hold water with the next First Lady, Florence, who spoke with Madame Champney before her husband’s election and said that if they made it to the White House, Champney would be the official White House astrologer—and this time, she would be allowed in the front door.
Perhaps the most famous astrology fan in the White House was Nancy Reagan, Ronald Reagan’s wife. Her interest in the cosmos was written about in former Chief of Staff, Donald Regan’s tell-all book, For the Record, toward the end of the Reagans’ run, and the press seized on it (a White House spokesperson even confirmed it to the New York Times). Regan said that Nancy had been interested in astrology for some time, but it ramped up after her husband’s assassination attempt. Regan was clear that there were no significant decisions made based on astrology, but it occasionally affected scheduling; for example, the cosmos were consulted to find the best time to announce Reagan’s run for re-election.
Lest you think it was only the First Ladies getting spooky in there, at least one president is on record as believing in the paranormal. Two months into his first term, Harry Truman wrote a letter to his wife saying,
“I sit here in this old house and work on foreign affairs, read reports, and work on speeches–all the while listening to the ghosts walk up and down the hallway and even right in here in the study. The floors pop and the drapes move back and forth–I can just imagine old Andy [Jackson] and Teddy [Roosevelt] having an argument over Franklin [Roosevelt].”
That could seem like he was joking or speaking hypothetically, but in another letter, he wrote of hearing knocks at his door, at which point:
“I jumped up and put on my bathrobe, opened the door, and no one there. Went out and looked up and down the hall, looked in your room and Margie’s [their daughter]. Still no one. Went back to bed after locking the doors, and there were footsteps in your room whose door I’d left open. Jumped and looked, and no one there! The damned place is haunted sure as shootin.’ Secret Service said not even a watchman was up here at that hour. You and Margie had better come back and protect me before some of these ghosts carry me off.”
Then, after receiving a reply from his daughter about that letter where she said she was skeptical, he wrote this back:
“I’m sure they’re here, and I’m not so much alarmed at meeting up with any of them...I am sure old [Andrew Jackson] could give me good advice and probably teach me good swear words, and I’m sure old Grover Cleveland could tell me some choice remarks to make to some political leaders. … So I won’t lock my doors or bar them either if any of the old coots in the pictures out in the hall want to come out of their frames for a friendly chat.”
Truman wasn’t the only one who saw Andrew Jackson posthumously. Mary Todd Lincoln also said she heard him stomping around and swearing on occasion.
While there aren’t many stories of Mary Todd herself haunting the White House, some of her fellow First Ladies seem to spend time out and about in the White House halls. Abigail Adams, John Adams’ wife, has been seen clad in a cap and lace shawl heading toward the East Room with her arms outstretched as though carrying laundry. Back in the day, the East Room was the warmest and driest, so she would hang laundry there.
Dolly Madison, Jame’s Madison’s wife, has been seen tending the rose garden–which she seems to like a particular way. Her spirit first showed up during Woodrow Wilson’s presidency when they were considering moving the rose garden. After seeing her ghost, they decided to leave it.
But perhaps the most famous ghost in the White House is of Abraham Lincoln. The ghostly activity in his bedroom is legendary.
Abraham Lincoln’s bedroom/ haunt.
Numerous First Ladies reported sensing Lincoln in their new home. Grace Coolidge, Calvin Coolidge’s wife, spoke to magazines about seeing him look out a window in the room that had been his office. Lady Bird Johnson said she felt his presence one night while watching a show about his death.
Employees had run-ins with Lincoln, as well. Mary Eben, who worked for Eleanor Roosevelt, said she saw him sitting on the bed of the Lincoln Bedroom, pulling on his boots. She screamed, and Secret Service agents came running, only to find nothing. Lillian Parks, a seamstress at the White House for 30 years, heard pacing in a room above and was told by another staffer that Honest Abe was pacing the floor. In a 1989 Washington Post article, one of Ronald Reagan’s staffers said that his dog would go into any room except the Lincoln bedroom. There, he would just stand outside the threshold and bark.
It seems like there was a particular concentration of sightings during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency, which was during a time of upheaval for the country, leading people to speculate that Lincoln shows up during times of crisis. Eleanor Roosevelt used the Lincoln bedroom as her study and said she felt his presence there, saying, “I get a distinct feeling that there is somebody in the room.”
During a White House visit, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands was sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom when she heard a knock at the door. She said she opened it, saw Lincoln standing there, and fainted.
Another visitor during Roosevelt’s tenure, Winston Churchill, emerged naked from his evening bath, smoking his cigar, and found Lincoln sitting by the fireplace.
Part of the reason we seem to never tire of ghost stories is because of the inherent mystery behind them, and the hauntings in the White House have just a little bit less of that mystery, but they’re no less intriguing. What if you knew the specific ghosts that lived where you do, and tons of other people have talked about seeing them? Still scary. Plus, of course, we’re talking about the fancy and much-respected White House, but you could also look at it as an extremely old, kind of creepy mansion.
Maybe the memories and events that took place in the White House were so intense for those who lived and worked there, that it’s a natural place to be drawn back to. Living in the famous mansion is such a once-in-a-lifetime experience that perhaps they’ve decided to make it a huge part of their afterlives, as well.