The Backstory: Ghosts in the White House

The White House has long been described as one of the most haunted houses in America. But imagine there's a world famous politician, staying in the Lincoln Bedroom. Just out of the shower, he walks naked over to the fireplace in the bedroom . . only to see Abe Lincoln sitting there. And he actually spoke to him!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, when you think of a really old house that's
connected to a whole lot of interesting American history, the
White House has to be in the top ten, now,
maybe top five. So if those events and the people
associated with them leave some of their energy behind, you
can probably feel it. Before you write that off as
new agy or just plain wacky, know that some of

(00:23):
the folks who have claimed to have had close encounters
of that sort while in the White House include presidents,
first ladies, and visiting dignitaries including royalty, as well as
longtime loyal White House workers. I'm Patty Steele. Hey, what
was that noise? That's next on the backstory. We're back

(00:46):
with the backstory. Ghost Stories are always intriguing, but when
they're based in fact, they can be pretty chilling. Okay,
it's late at night. You're in the White House, the
official residence of the President of the United States of America.
Maybe you work there, or you're a guest, or by
some bit of fate, you're living there. Now imagine this scenario.

(01:09):
You've just gotten out of the shower, you're toweling off.
When you walk out into your bedroom, as is your
rather bizarre custom, you decide to sit by the fire
completely naked to enjoy a late night cigar. But who's
already sitting by the fireplace. It's Abraham Lincoln. This story

(01:29):
actually happened, and not to any old whack job, but
to the whack job Winston Churchill, who was staying in
the Lincoln bedroom during World War II. Where it is.
Churchill said to Abe's ghost, good evening, mister President, you
seem to have me at a disadvantage. Apparently an unnerved
Churchill enough that on subsequent visits he asked not to

(01:51):
be put in the Lincoln bedroom but in the Queen's bedroom.
By the way, the Lincoln bedroom wasn't actually Lincoln's bedroom
during his time in all Office, but that room was
Lincoln's office and cabinet room during the Civil War. Other
sightings of Lincoln included President Calvin Coolidge's wife Grace, who
in the nineteen twenties said she actually saw Lincoln's ghost.

(02:14):
She said he was standing looking out of a window
in the Oval Office, gazing across the Potomac at the
former Civil War battlefields in the distance. FDR's wife Eleanor Roosevelt,
who frequently used the Lincoln bedroom as a study, said
she felt his presence numerous times when she worked there
late at night, and Lady Bird Johnson, President Lyndon Johnson's wife,

(02:37):
said she didn't see Lincoln but felt overwhelmed by his
presence one night while watching a TV show about his
assassination there now On a humorous note, although apparently not
for her, During her visit to the White House, Queen
Wilhelmina of the Netherlands said she heard a knock on
her bedroom door during the night. When she answered it,

(02:59):
she says she saw Lincoln's ghost wearing his top hat.
She says she then fainted dead away. Other Lincoln sightings
have been reported by a bunch of White House employees.
They claim to have seen both the late president and
also his little boy, Willie Lincoln, who died in the
White House when he was just eleven years old. Longtime

(03:19):
White House employee Jeremiah Smith said he experienced numerous sightings
of Lincoln in the room, and described one of them
in a nineteen oh three newspaper article. Smith worked for
the White House for thirty five years, serving under eight presidents,
including US Grant Rutherford B. Hayes and Teddy Roosevelt. And
animals seemed to be super sensitive to that ghostly energy

(03:43):
as well first dogs. In particular, when wandering past the
Lincoln bedroom, the Reagan's dog Rex would stand outside the
room and bark his head off, but refused to go
into the room. While Lincoln seems to be the most
common ghost reported in the White House, he's not the
only one. John Adams was the second President of the

(04:05):
United States and the first one to live in the
White House, which was briefly called the President's Palace back
in those days. At the time, Washington, d c. Was
still mostly a swamp on the banks of the Potomac River.
The East Room was one of the first rooms finished
in the brand new house, and so it was the
warmest and the driest, so First Lady Abigail Adams used

(04:28):
it as a place to hang the laundry to dry
it out in nasty weather. Didn't know first ladies did
their own laundry. On that note, there have been multiple
sightings of Abigail's ghost wearing a cap and lais shawl,
carrying damp laundry with the distinct scent of lavender into
the East room. Other rooms that are haunted include the

(04:49):
Red Room, where Mary Todd Lincoln held seances after the
death of Little Willie Lincoln, as well as the Yellow Room,
where folks claimed to have seen and or heard Thomas
Jefferson playing his violin. And then there's the Rose Room
that was where the old grouch President Andrew Jackson slept
when he was president. Some say it's one of the

(05:10):
most haunted rooms in the White House. Mary Todd Lincoln
swore she heard Jackson stomping around that room swearing up
a storm, and just two months into his first term,
President Harry Truman said in June of nineteen forty five
that while working late at night, I sit here in
this old house and I work on foreign affairs, read reports,

(05:33):
and work on speeches, all the while listening to the
ghosts walk up and down the hallways, and even right
here in this study, the floors pop and the drapes
move back and forth. I hope you're enjoying the backstory
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(05:57):
feel free to DM me if you have a story
you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele
and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The
Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis Durand Group,
and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our

(06:17):
writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.
Feel free to reach out to me with comments and
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Backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces of history you didn't
know you needed to know.