May 8, 2024 • 18 mins
You are correct if you've ever suspected the home of America's President was haunted. The White House is full of spooky happenings, and Edwin tells us all about them.
Get ad-free episodes and support the show at ScaryMysteryClub.com
Hosted by Michelle Newman and Edwin Covarrubias. Episode edited & sound designed by Sarah Vorhees Wendel of VW Sound
Scary Mystery Surprise (Campfire Story) is no longer being updated, but be sure to check out our other shows from Scary.fm for more scares!
Get ad-free episodes and support the show at ScaryMysteryClub.com
Hosted by Michelle Newman and Edwin Covarrubias. Episode edited & sound designed by Sarah Vorhees Wendel of VW Sound
Scary Mystery Surprise (Campfire Story) is no longer being updated, but be sure to check out our other shows from Scary.fm for more scares!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm trying not to sneeze right now. So that's like what I'm yeah,
focused focused on. You know whatworks? If you imagine a banana flying
around the world, it really makesyour sneeze go away. Why did it
do that? I don't know.Did it work? Yeah, but I
mean it's still in there. Itfeels like that I should have sneezed.
Welcome to Scary Mystery Surprise, wherewe talk about scary things that surprised us
(00:25):
around the Internet. I'm Edwin andI'm Michelle. Everybody here knows Michelle likes
history. I mean I can't liehere as close as I get to history
as probably dark history. And whenI was researching all this stuff, I
(00:45):
was like, you know, there'sdark history, like there's war and all
these things like that disaster, alot of death. But then there's also
like the paranormal side, and Ithink I get that specific, like that
arm of like so this is why, so like there's a ghost here,
why what happened? And then itturns out, is this story that happened
in the sixteen hundreds or the youknow, long ago very interesting? But
(01:10):
if we take it back up towhen the White House was being built.
Wait are we getting in the time? I think we should. I've never
I've never led the expedition. Yeah, we could do. I don't know
how to do this. Okay,well we just get in. What year
are we going to We're going toseventeen ninety one. Okay, well here
we go. So we are inseventeen ninety one. Now the White House
(01:40):
was ordered by George Washington to bebuilt, like it's just like hey,
He's like, hey, we shouldbuild a place. And it built the
first version of the White House,but that was the temporary home of John
Adams and Abigail Adams. Eight yearsafter that and then it was burnt like
to the ground, like it wasjust a burned down building. Was that
because of a skirmish like the eighteentwelve War or something like that? Exactly
(02:06):
show you one, yay, Yeah, it's the War of eighteen twelve.
British soldiers became determined to burn itto the ground, like that was their
objective too, like one of themand they're like, this is important to
the United States, we must burnit down anyway. This other guy,
James Hobin, was tasked with theredesign and the construction of the new version
of the White House. It wasready eighteen seventeen President James Monroe moved in,
(02:30):
and it wasn't even fully constructed.Like some parts are still you know,
you're still hear well, I guessyou wouldn't hear drills, you would
hear the hammers or something like that. But that place that started with such
a rough start build, it getsburnt, rebuilt. War around there is
(02:53):
significant. You're starting a new country, so like it's still like, should
we invest in a building that's notgoing to last because our country's going to
die? Is it going to betaken over? Are these are all valid
questions. It was a rough andtumble time of angry. Yes, we
built this, We've got to protectit. So such a rough start to
a place could attract ghosts and sightingsof these really tough times. You and
(03:19):
I've never toured the White House.I have it either. As you probably
know, some of the best gossipcomes from secretaries in businesses. Well,
some of the best witness accounts froma place like the White House would come
from people that are there all thetime, like janitors and other employees.
Like the house staff doesn't change dependingon who's present. There's an official duster
(03:44):
for example, Like there's cooks,Dorman, butlers. I don't know they
had butlers, but I guess theyhad butler's back then. They still have
butlers. People can still be abutler. Really yeah, who would have
a butler? A rich person?Wow, I learned something new. Such
was the case with Jeremiah Smith,an employee at the White House, worked
(04:06):
there during the Ulysses S. Grantadministration, and he worked there for thirty
five years until he retired. Hewas all the jobs that I mentioned earlier,
footman, butler, Dorman, cookeven became official duster, which is
official. It's an important job,it is. Everybody loved Jeremiah like he
(04:29):
was entertaining. He had a bunchof stories. But in terms of ghosts,
he said that he had seen presidentsGrant, McKinley, and Lincoln.
There was some truth to a lotof those things. Like there was there
was this thing called literally the Thing. The thing is the nickname of a
(04:49):
teen boy who was estimated to bearound fourteen or fifteen years old, and
he was blamed for the hysteria aroundthe White House and this apparition that was
there when presidents get elected they comein with the new staff and administrators that
help run day to day operations andstuff like that, but the house staff
(05:10):
usually stays like they're just there.During President tafts administration, staff members started
noticing a strange apparition around the houseand that sense was very strange, and
members of the staff, when theywere standing or sitting, they would feel
a slight pressure on their shoulder,feeling almost as if a child was leaning
over them to see what they weredoing. But a little kid. Imagine
(05:35):
you're working on something, I feela little kid kind of lean over it.
It's kind of a familiar feeling.Anyway, That's what the thing was,
and they actually found out that thiswas this ghost, this apparition of
this teen boy who was fourteen tofifteen. People that were working at the
White House kept seeing this figure andmore and more people can coming forward saying,
(05:59):
hey, this is real. I'veseen it two way and I felt
it too. Even President Taft hadgotten involved and resorted to threatening with an
order that any person not the ghostto leave. I was gonna say,
like, yeah, I order youto leave the White Houses, and he
signs it, it's official, andthen you have to He threatened with an
(06:24):
order that any person who spoke withthe thing is going to was going to
be fired. Wow. And alsothe Obama family said that they would hear
strange noises in the hallways at night, they would feel something chewing or gnawing
at their feet in the no whatit's Lincoln, Lincoln. This whole time,
(06:48):
everything indicates that something is there.One night, twin sisters Jenna and
Barbara, daughters of President Bush,were in their bedroom when from the fireplace,
they start to hear something strange.It was the sound of a piano
and it was music from another era. Also, one time, when President
(07:10):
Reagan was passing by the Lincoln bedroom, his dog would always bark right at
the entrance and he would just nudgehim like, hey, come on,
let's just go inside. The dogwould not and dogs no things. I'm
telling you. Dogs can sense stuff, and he could sense Lincoln being like
mangan no, thank you. Hisdaughter, like President Reagan's daughter and son
(07:38):
in law, also had experiences withthe apparition in that bedroom the Lincoln One.
Witnesses to his ghost even include WinstonChurchill. Huh who who was he?
He? He helped win World Wartwo? Just that like that's all
he did. He was their primeminister a few times in a few different
crises, but I think World WarTwo is probably his biggest class to famous.
(08:03):
But anyway, he once stayed inthe Lincoln bedroom and then gave his
own account that yes, in fact, President Lincoln did appear in that room.
You know. They also say thatI don't know the story here of
Andrew Jackson, right, but Iknow that he was super pissed when he
lost to John Quincy Adams, sayingthat Adams had cheated. He would curse
(08:24):
at the walls, stomp his shoes. He was just he was angry.
But it seems like that habit followedhim in the afterlife because the room where
he stayed, the Rose Room,is thought to be one of the most
haunted rooms in the entire estate.He was heard through one of the first
(08:45):
lady's seances, actually, which isLady Mary Todd Lincoln, our favorite spiritualist.
I appreciate her. She would tryto talk to spirits in the White
House and she would tell people thatshe would hear the sound of Andrew Jackson
stomping, pacing, swearing through thewalls. What would you swear like?
Back then, like, what werethe swears? Was there an F word
(09:09):
back then? That's where I'm kindof at a loss. I don't know
for sure. What's the history ofthe word fuck? Write in linguistic professors
and let us know. Thank you, scary mystery, surprise cares and even
President Truman claimed to have heard Jacksonstomping. How do they know it was
him? I don't know. Hewas probably the only one with them,
(09:31):
I don't know. He wrote itin a letter to his wife. Actually
he was saying, quote, Isit here in this old house and to
work on foreign affairs, read reports, and work on speeches, all the
while listening to the ghosts walk upand down the hallway. And even right
here in the study the floors popand the drapes moved back and forth.
(09:52):
I can just imagine old Andy andTeddy having an argument over Franklin. That's
a pretty good ghost story, hejust wrote. Also, to know that
you might also become a ghost there. Who knows? Like there's just you
know, they say that they hearlike the laughter of Jackson. But this
is recent too, Like in thenineteen sixties the staff claimed that they could
(10:13):
hear him like they know because itcame directly from his old bedroom in the
White House. Oh funny, Andthis is all guttural, like you know,
like God. The East room ofthe White House was supposedly the warmest
and the driest, so Abigol Adams, the wife of President Adams, had
(10:37):
heard, so she would use aroom to hang laundry there and to dry
it when it's been washed. Andremember that at the time, Washington,
d c. Was only a smalltown by the Potomac River, so has
very swampy grounds. And yes,first ladies also did their own laundry like
that was a thing. But theWhite House staff would frequently see Abigail wearing
(10:58):
her cap and the shawl, headingright for the East Room with her arms
outstretched holding a phantom basket of laundry. Maybe she really loved doing a laundry.
Maybe that was like one of herjoys in life, was doing laundry,
the fresh smell of sheets. Also, there's another story here of David
Burns. He was a man whoowned the land and sold it for the
(11:20):
White House to be built there,and they say that his voice can still
be heard there. The first timeit was heard, it was President Franklin
Roosevelt who heard the distinct voice comingfrom the Yellow Oval room as it said,
I'm mister Burns, just introducing himself. I guess a guard during the
Truman administration was performing his duties whensuddenly he heard the same voice say I'm
(11:46):
mister Burns. He was confused,and then he went to look for the
Secretary of State, who was JamesBurns Byrnes and asking around, and after
a quick search, he found outthe Secondary of State had not been at
the White House that day. Weird. I mean, there's a lot of
these ghost stories, but obviously themost famous ghost President Abraham Lincoln, who
(12:11):
already had a series of tragic eventsfollowing him even prior to when he was
a president, and he stopped beinga president because of a tragic event death.
Thank you for clarifying. I wasn'tsure. It's very very sad,
life, very tragic. In eighteensixty two, their eleven year old son
Willie died. Marytal Lincoln was devastated, right, and she started looking for
closure in spirits and seances and gettinga psychic group together in Georgetown. So
(12:39):
mediums had even gotten invited to theWhite House and they would go straight to
the Red Room, where they wouldattempt to contact their dead son. Willie,
one of the psychic mediums, hadwritten a memoir where she also speaks
about these meetings, saying that howeven President Lincoln attended some of them with
his wife, and she said thatthe President was skeptical at first, then
(13:00):
came a believer something was involved withhis dreams. Like he was telling his
friend Ward Hill Layman that he hadbeen having a dream that had been annoying
him. He was walking completely lostamong a group of sobbing mourners when he
saw a corpse lying down in theEast room. In the confusion, he
(13:22):
asked the soldier who was standing,who is dead in the White House,
and the guard replied that it wasa president who was killed by an assassin.
Soon after that dream, President Lincolnwas shot in the head while attending
a play when John Wilkes Booth sneakedinto the fourth Theater. The assassin managed
to escape, but the hunt wason, and it didn't take long for
(13:45):
everyone to realize that this had beena conspiracy against a president and not a
single person working alone. The authoritiesmanaged a quick investigation that tried the guilty
parties to found a woman, Mary, guilty for conspiring to kill the president,
and she was said tense to deathon July seventh of that year.
People have heard voices in her oldhouse along with other noises, especially on
(14:05):
the second floor. Mary Todd Lincolncontinue with the Sean says even after her
husband's assassination, it was a wayto prefer to process deaths, like it's
just how she did it. It'sher way. But President Lincoln still roams
the White House and even the FordTheater right at that box where he was
shot. Some people say that youcan hear the sound of a gun shot
(14:28):
and screamed. The place where hewas taken immediately after being shot, which
is the Peterson House. People claimto feel a very heavy presence there and
overcome with sadness. And you canactually see the real bloodstained sheets on display
there today. They've kept them.I guess, yeah, they're there.
It's a little weird, but alsolike smart on their part, you know,
(14:50):
to have the foresight to be like, well, he's dead. I
guess we should frame these sheets forhistory. I wouldn't do, but I
appreciate it because now it's like,oh, wow, those are the actual
sheets or that's his actual blood.Wow, I guess I'm surprised Zach Begans
hasn't bought it and like put itin his Yeah. Yeah. They say
(15:11):
that even the son Willie Lincoln hasbeen seen roaming around the White House by
staff members, especially during the Grantadministration during the eighteen seventies. But there's
a lot, Like there's a lot, Like people say that they've heard Thomas
Jefferson and his violin in the YellowOval Room. Dolly Madison, the wife
of President James Madison, also knownto protect the White House Rose Garden.
(15:33):
President Henry Harrison was president for onlya month and it was the first president
to die in the White House,also said to haunt the attic now because
he doesn't get the main house,like so he has to go because he
was just like he was only therethree months. So they're like, sorry,
sorry, you have to go bein the attic. Okay. There's
just a bunch of ghosts, likeeven the ghost of a British soldier that
(15:54):
roams around carrying a torch, justlike they did during the War of eighteen
twelve. Oh wow, even nowadays, like because this is a huge,
huge place, one hundred and thirtytwo room, six floors. It's huge.
People say that with all the history, all the space that's there,
it's likely to be haunted because ofjust all the eras is to live through.
(16:17):
And they say that, you knowwhen when presidents they're used to living
there because they have to and maybethey want to, they get used to
that, and like since it takesso much out of them, so much
energy, sometimes they think like,oh, this is this was my purpose
in life, so they just wantto stick around the White House. But
it's creepy, just as any historicalmansion would be to me. But it
doesn't look old and you know,run down, but it's still like it's
(16:41):
just a cover up. So liketo me, it still has the same
value as like this old abandoned mansion. But really this one has been kept
as in you know, maintenance,constant maintenance. I mean, imagine talking
to all the layers of ghosts onthat property, you know, be pretty
crazy, you know, going fromthe soldier with the flame and then you
go to Lincoln with his little footfetish now which only developed after death.
(17:06):
So you know, guys, don'tat me about this. Lincoln's foot fetish
only developed after death. So there'syou know, no historical record of it,
but now he likes to suck ontoes. So god, President Lincoln,
President Lincoln, our best friend,President Lincoln. Man. But like
(17:27):
how you said earlier, like it'sit might be weird for a president nowadays
to be like, wow, Imight actually be a ghost here Clinton.
I mean, is he playing hissaxophone in there? Like? Does he?
Yeah? Does Jimmy Carter raise peanuts? Will George Bush be looking for
oil or painting his weird paintings oilpaintings? Ah? Anyway, there's there's
(17:56):
still many, many more stories thatare going to develop with future presidents,
hopefully as long as the United Statesstays alive and doesn't get invaded or collapses
under its own government. This isa developing story. We'll get back to
you, we'll update well. Staytuned. Please if you're Apple Podcasts wherever
Spotify, just leave us five stars, drop some stars please. Yeah,
(18:19):
Oh that's it all right. Whatare we gonna talk about next week?
Michelle, I don't know, butI think it'll be a surprise scary Mystery
Surprise is hosted by Michelle Newman andEdwin Komarubies. This podcast was edited and
sound designed by Sarah orhez Wendel aVW Sound
I'm trying not to sneeze right now. So that's like what I'm yeah,
focused focused on. You know whatworks? If you imagine a banana flying
around the world, it really makesyour sneeze go away. Why did it
do that? I don't know.Did it work? Yeah, but I
mean it's still in there. Itfeels like that I should have sneezed.
Welcome to Scary Mystery Surprise, wherewe talk about scary things that surprised us
(00:25):
around the Internet. I'm Edwin andI'm Michelle. Everybody here knows Michelle likes
history. I mean I can't liehere as close as I get to history
as probably dark history. And whenI was researching all this stuff, I
(00:45):
was like, you know, there'sdark history, like there's war and all
these things like that disaster, alot of death. But then there's also
like the paranormal side, and Ithink I get that specific, like that
arm of like so this is why, so like there's a ghost here,
why what happened? And then itturns out, is this story that happened
in the sixteen hundreds or the youknow, long ago very interesting? But
(01:10):
if we take it back up towhen the White House was being built.
Wait are we getting in the time? I think we should. I've never
I've never led the expedition. Yeah, we could do. I don't know
how to do this. Okay,well we just get in. What year
are we going to We're going toseventeen ninety one. Okay, well here
we go. So we are inseventeen ninety one. Now the White House
(01:40):
was ordered by George Washington to bebuilt, like it's just like hey,
He's like, hey, we shouldbuild a place. And it built the
first version of the White House,but that was the temporary home of John
Adams and Abigail Adams. Eight yearsafter that and then it was burnt like
to the ground, like it wasjust a burned down building. Was that
because of a skirmish like the eighteentwelve War or something like that? Exactly
(02:06):
show you one, yay, Yeah, it's the War of eighteen twelve.
British soldiers became determined to burn itto the ground, like that was their
objective too, like one of themand they're like, this is important to
the United States, we must burnit down anyway. This other guy,
James Hobin, was tasked with theredesign and the construction of the new version
of the White House. It wasready eighteen seventeen President James Monroe moved in,
(02:30):
and it wasn't even fully constructed.Like some parts are still you know,
you're still hear well, I guessyou wouldn't hear drills, you would
hear the hammers or something like that. But that place that started with such
a rough start build, it getsburnt, rebuilt. War around there is
(02:53):
significant. You're starting a new country, so like it's still like, should
we invest in a building that's notgoing to last because our country's going to
die? Is it going to betaken over? Are these are all valid
questions. It was a rough andtumble time of angry. Yes, we
built this, We've got to protectit. So such a rough start to
a place could attract ghosts and sightingsof these really tough times. You and
(03:19):
I've never toured the White House.I have it either. As you probably
know, some of the best gossipcomes from secretaries in businesses. Well,
some of the best witness accounts froma place like the White House would come
from people that are there all thetime, like janitors and other employees.
Like the house staff doesn't change dependingon who's present. There's an official duster
(03:44):
for example, Like there's cooks,Dorman, butlers. I don't know they
had butlers, but I guess theyhad butler's back then. They still have
butlers. People can still be abutler. Really yeah, who would have
a butler? A rich person?Wow, I learned something new. Such
was the case with Jeremiah Smith,an employee at the White House, worked
(04:06):
there during the Ulysses S. Grantadministration, and he worked there for thirty
five years until he retired. Hewas all the jobs that I mentioned earlier,
footman, butler, Dorman, cookeven became official duster, which is
official. It's an important job,it is. Everybody loved Jeremiah like he
(04:29):
was entertaining. He had a bunchof stories. But in terms of ghosts,
he said that he had seen presidentsGrant, McKinley, and Lincoln.
There was some truth to a lotof those things. Like there was there
was this thing called literally the Thing. The thing is the nickname of a
(04:49):
teen boy who was estimated to bearound fourteen or fifteen years old, and
he was blamed for the hysteria aroundthe White House and this apparition that was
there when presidents get elected they comein with the new staff and administrators that
help run day to day operations andstuff like that, but the house staff
(05:10):
usually stays like they're just there.During President tafts administration, staff members started
noticing a strange apparition around the houseand that sense was very strange, and
members of the staff, when theywere standing or sitting, they would feel
a slight pressure on their shoulder,feeling almost as if a child was leaning
over them to see what they weredoing. But a little kid. Imagine
(05:35):
you're working on something, I feela little kid kind of lean over it.
It's kind of a familiar feeling.Anyway, That's what the thing was,
and they actually found out that thiswas this ghost, this apparition of
this teen boy who was fourteen tofifteen. People that were working at the
White House kept seeing this figure andmore and more people can coming forward saying,
(05:59):
hey, this is real. I'veseen it two way and I felt
it too. Even President Taft hadgotten involved and resorted to threatening with an
order that any person not the ghostto leave. I was gonna say,
like, yeah, I order youto leave the White Houses, and he
signs it, it's official, andthen you have to He threatened with an
(06:24):
order that any person who spoke withthe thing is going to was going to
be fired. Wow. And alsothe Obama family said that they would hear
strange noises in the hallways at night, they would feel something chewing or gnawing
at their feet in the no whatit's Lincoln, Lincoln. This whole time,
(06:48):
everything indicates that something is there.One night, twin sisters Jenna and
Barbara, daughters of President Bush,were in their bedroom when from the fireplace,
they start to hear something strange.It was the sound of a piano
and it was music from another era. Also, one time, when President
(07:10):
Reagan was passing by the Lincoln bedroom, his dog would always bark right at
the entrance and he would just nudgehim like, hey, come on,
let's just go inside. The dogwould not and dogs no things. I'm
telling you. Dogs can sense stuff, and he could sense Lincoln being like
mangan no, thank you. Hisdaughter, like President Reagan's daughter and son
(07:38):
in law, also had experiences withthe apparition in that bedroom the Lincoln One.
Witnesses to his ghost even include WinstonChurchill. Huh who who was he?
He? He helped win World Wartwo? Just that like that's all
he did. He was their primeminister a few times in a few different
crises, but I think World WarTwo is probably his biggest class to famous.
(08:03):
But anyway, he once stayed inthe Lincoln bedroom and then gave his
own account that yes, in fact, President Lincoln did appear in that room.
You know. They also say thatI don't know the story here of
Andrew Jackson, right, but Iknow that he was super pissed when he
lost to John Quincy Adams, sayingthat Adams had cheated. He would curse
(08:24):
at the walls, stomp his shoes. He was just he was angry.
But it seems like that habit followedhim in the afterlife because the room where
he stayed, the Rose Room,is thought to be one of the most
haunted rooms in the entire estate.He was heard through one of the first
(08:45):
lady's seances, actually, which isLady Mary Todd Lincoln, our favorite spiritualist.
I appreciate her. She would tryto talk to spirits in the White
House and she would tell people thatshe would hear the sound of Andrew Jackson
stomping, pacing, swearing through thewalls. What would you swear like?
Back then, like, what werethe swears? Was there an F word
(09:09):
back then? That's where I'm kindof at a loss. I don't know
for sure. What's the history ofthe word fuck? Write in linguistic professors
and let us know. Thank you, scary mystery, surprise cares and even
President Truman claimed to have heard Jacksonstomping. How do they know it was
him? I don't know. Hewas probably the only one with them,
(09:31):
I don't know. He wrote itin a letter to his wife. Actually
he was saying, quote, Isit here in this old house and to
work on foreign affairs, read reports, and work on speeches, all the
while listening to the ghosts walk upand down the hallway. And even right
here in the study the floors popand the drapes moved back and forth.
(09:52):
I can just imagine old Andy andTeddy having an argument over Franklin. That's
a pretty good ghost story, hejust wrote. Also, to know that
you might also become a ghost there. Who knows? Like there's just you
know, they say that they hearlike the laughter of Jackson. But this
is recent too, Like in thenineteen sixties the staff claimed that they could
(10:13):
hear him like they know because itcame directly from his old bedroom in the
White House. Oh funny, Andthis is all guttural, like you know,
like God. The East room ofthe White House was supposedly the warmest
and the driest, so Abigol Adams, the wife of President Adams, had
(10:37):
heard, so she would use aroom to hang laundry there and to dry
it when it's been washed. Andremember that at the time, Washington,
d c. Was only a smalltown by the Potomac River, so has
very swampy grounds. And yes,first ladies also did their own laundry like
that was a thing. But theWhite House staff would frequently see Abigail wearing
(10:58):
her cap and the shawl, headingright for the East Room with her arms
outstretched holding a phantom basket of laundry. Maybe she really loved doing a laundry.
Maybe that was like one of herjoys in life, was doing laundry,
the fresh smell of sheets. Also, there's another story here of David
Burns. He was a man whoowned the land and sold it for the
(11:20):
White House to be built there,and they say that his voice can still
be heard there. The first timeit was heard, it was President Franklin
Roosevelt who heard the distinct voice comingfrom the Yellow Oval room as it said,
I'm mister Burns, just introducing himself. I guess a guard during the
Truman administration was performing his duties whensuddenly he heard the same voice say I'm
(11:46):
mister Burns. He was confused,and then he went to look for the
Secretary of State, who was JamesBurns Byrnes and asking around, and after
a quick search, he found outthe Secondary of State had not been at
the White House that day. Weird. I mean, there's a lot of
these ghost stories, but obviously themost famous ghost President Abraham Lincoln, who
(12:11):
already had a series of tragic eventsfollowing him even prior to when he was
a president, and he stopped beinga president because of a tragic event death.
Thank you for clarifying. I wasn'tsure. It's very very sad,
life, very tragic. In eighteensixty two, their eleven year old son
Willie died. Marytal Lincoln was devastated, right, and she started looking for
closure in spirits and seances and gettinga psychic group together in Georgetown. So
(12:39):
mediums had even gotten invited to theWhite House and they would go straight to
the Red Room, where they wouldattempt to contact their dead son. Willie,
one of the psychic mediums, hadwritten a memoir where she also speaks
about these meetings, saying that howeven President Lincoln attended some of them with
his wife, and she said thatthe President was skeptical at first, then
(13:00):
came a believer something was involved withhis dreams. Like he was telling his
friend Ward Hill Layman that he hadbeen having a dream that had been annoying
him. He was walking completely lostamong a group of sobbing mourners when he
saw a corpse lying down in theEast room. In the confusion, he
(13:22):
asked the soldier who was standing,who is dead in the White House,
and the guard replied that it wasa president who was killed by an assassin.
Soon after that dream, President Lincolnwas shot in the head while attending
a play when John Wilkes Booth sneakedinto the fourth Theater. The assassin managed
to escape, but the hunt wason, and it didn't take long for
(13:45):
everyone to realize that this had beena conspiracy against a president and not a
single person working alone. The authoritiesmanaged a quick investigation that tried the guilty
parties to found a woman, Mary, guilty for conspiring to kill the president,
and she was said tense to deathon July seventh of that year.
People have heard voices in her oldhouse along with other noises, especially on
(14:05):
the second floor. Mary Todd Lincolncontinue with the Sean says even after her
husband's assassination, it was a wayto prefer to process deaths, like it's
just how she did it. It'sher way. But President Lincoln still roams
the White House and even the FordTheater right at that box where he was
shot. Some people say that youcan hear the sound of a gun shot
(14:28):
and screamed. The place where hewas taken immediately after being shot, which
is the Peterson House. People claimto feel a very heavy presence there and
overcome with sadness. And you canactually see the real bloodstained sheets on display
there today. They've kept them.I guess, yeah, they're there.
It's a little weird, but alsolike smart on their part, you know,
(14:50):
to have the foresight to be like, well, he's dead. I
guess we should frame these sheets forhistory. I wouldn't do, but I
appreciate it because now it's like,oh, wow, those are the actual
sheets or that's his actual blood.Wow, I guess I'm surprised Zach Begans
hasn't bought it and like put itin his Yeah. Yeah. They say
(15:11):
that even the son Willie Lincoln hasbeen seen roaming around the White House by
staff members, especially during the Grantadministration during the eighteen seventies. But there's
a lot, Like there's a lot, Like people say that they've heard Thomas
Jefferson and his violin in the YellowOval Room. Dolly Madison, the wife
of President James Madison, also knownto protect the White House Rose Garden.
(15:33):
President Henry Harrison was president for onlya month and it was the first president
to die in the White House,also said to haunt the attic now because
he doesn't get the main house,like so he has to go because he
was just like he was only therethree months. So they're like, sorry,
sorry, you have to go bein the attic. Okay. There's
just a bunch of ghosts, likeeven the ghost of a British soldier that
(15:54):
roams around carrying a torch, justlike they did during the War of eighteen
twelve. Oh wow, even nowadays, like because this is a huge,
huge place, one hundred and thirtytwo room, six floors. It's huge.
People say that with all the history, all the space that's there,
it's likely to be haunted because ofjust all the eras is to live through.
(16:17):
And they say that, you knowwhen when presidents they're used to living
there because they have to and maybethey want to, they get used to
that, and like since it takesso much out of them, so much
energy, sometimes they think like,oh, this is this was my purpose
in life, so they just wantto stick around the White House. But
it's creepy, just as any historicalmansion would be to me. But it
doesn't look old and you know,run down, but it's still like it's
(16:41):
just a cover up. So liketo me, it still has the same
value as like this old abandoned mansion. But really this one has been kept
as in you know, maintenance,constant maintenance. I mean, imagine talking
to all the layers of ghosts onthat property, you know, be pretty
crazy, you know, going fromthe soldier with the flame and then you
go to Lincoln with his little footfetish now which only developed after death.
(17:06):
So you know, guys, don'tat me about this. Lincoln's foot fetish
only developed after death. So there'syou know, no historical record of it,
but now he likes to suck ontoes. So god, President Lincoln,
President Lincoln, our best friend,President Lincoln. Man. But like
(17:27):
how you said earlier, like it'sit might be weird for a president nowadays
to be like, wow, Imight actually be a ghost here Clinton.
I mean, is he playing hissaxophone in there? Like? Does he?
Yeah? Does Jimmy Carter raise peanuts? Will George Bush be looking for
oil or painting his weird paintings oilpaintings? Ah? Anyway, there's there's
(17:56):
still many, many more stories thatare going to develop with future presidents,
hopefully as long as the United Statesstays alive and doesn't get invaded or collapses
under its own government. This isa developing story. We'll get back to
you, we'll update well. Staytuned. Please if you're Apple Podcasts wherever
Spotify, just leave us five stars, drop some stars please. Yeah,
(18:19):
Oh that's it all right. Whatare we gonna talk about next week?
Michelle, I don't know, butI think it'll be a surprise scary Mystery
Surprise is hosted by Michelle Newman andEdwin Komarubies. This podcast was edited and
sound designed by Sarah orhez Wendel aVW Sound
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