Fame isn’t just reserved for movie and television stars, and ghost sightings aren’t, either. In fact, there are just as many intriguing accounts of people seeing ghosts of historical figures from politicians to judges to scientists to inventors to religious figures to mass murderers. If a person had some semblance of notoriety, good or bad, in life, they carried that over into death in the form of otherworldly apparitions haunting their favorite, or not-so-favorite, places. If their death happened to be traumatic, as in the case of murder or suicide, there was even more chance their spirits would be witnessed roaming Earth, unable to give up the life they left behind so long ago and step into the light.
When it comes to historical hauntings, our first thoughts usually go to politicians and military leaders who lost their lives to an assassin’s bullet or in the heat of war on a battlefield. A senator, general, or even prime minister may not garner the same fan base as a movie idol or pop star, but their importance to the evolution of our country, and even the world, ensures they, too, will be remembered long after the time of their deaths. The more powerful these men and women were in life, the more famous their ghosts become in death.
While many people in the ancient past saw and wrote about ghostly encounters, we focus a bit more on modern historical times, when we have better records of the details of sightings and reports. But who would argue that the ghosts of religious figures, knights, emperors, queens and kings, princes and princesses, pharaohs, prophets, oracles, and high priests roamed the areas important to them in spirit form and probably still do!
Presidents who once walked the rooms of the White House may in their deaths still be walking them. Rumors of ghostly apparitions abound not just from tourists but from those who worked in the White House and halls of Congress throughout history. Their stories have no doubt prompted even more of an interest in historical ghosts and driven thousands of tourists to attempt to get a glimpse themselves of these spectral leaders. Could it be because these men and women were of such great importance that their influence lives on to this day in the form of ghost sightings? Are they actual ghosts or products of our viral imaginations?
Yet, even presidents claim to see and experience ghostly sightings of leaders who came before them, as we shall see.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
The most famous White House ghost of all is former president Abraham Lincoln. In fact, Lincoln is called the “White House Ghost” and has appeared to not only regular folks but many political leaders and figures who admit seeing his stately figure long after his death in 1865.
Lincoln was the nation’s sixteenth president. He began as a self-taught lawyer and legislator known for speaking against slavery. He was elected in November 1860, just prior to the start of the Civil War, and his Emancipation Proclamation was instrumental in the abolition of slavery when it was made law in January 1863 (the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlawing slavery would occur shortly after Lincoln’s death in 1865). Many remember him as a great military strategist and orator, and his Gettysburg Address, made during the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is considered one of the greatest and most widely quoted speeches of all time despite being only 272 words long.
Most Americans are familiar with how President Lincoln was assassinated while attending Ford’s Theatre, but did you know his ghost later appeared before his wife, Mary, as well as first ladies Eleanor Roosevelt and Lady Bird Johnson?
But Lincoln is most remembered for how he died, which was both violent and tragic. He was assassinated by a man named John Wilkes Booth in April 1865, just as the Union was on the verge of achieving victory in the Civil War. Booth was an actor and a known Confederate sympathizer, and he shot the president in the back of the head during a performance at the famous Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.
Lincoln died the next day, never regaining consciousness. But if Booth had hoped to destroy Lincoln’s power and influence as a leader, he failed miserably. Despite being born to humble roots in a one-room log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky, Abraham Lincoln made a huge mark on American politics and became even more iconic in his death than he was in life. He is regarded as one of the greatest U.S. presidents to this day.
The ghost of Abraham Lincoln is alleged to have appeared to his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, in a photograph taken by spirit photographer William H. Mumler around 1869, according to the book Ghosts Caught on Film by Melvin Willin. The photo, which many now believe to be a hoax, shows Lincoln standing behind his wife, who is sitting, with his hand rested upon her shoulder.
Eleanor Roosevelt was reported to have encountered the ghost of Lincoln, or at least his presence, during her time at the White House. She used the Lincoln Bedroom as her study and would feel Lincoln’s presence late at night while she was up working.
Because press secretaries spend so much time roaming the White House, it isn’t surprising to find that James Hagerty, who served as press secretary to President Dwight Eisenhower, and Liz Carpenter, press secretary to Lady Bird Johnson, both claimed to have been in the presence of Lincoln’s ghost on several occasions. Former seamstress Lillian Rogers Parks once investigated strange sounds of someone walking on the upper level of the White House. Other staff members at the time would tell her it was just “Old Abe” pacing the floor.
Lady Bird Johnson herself saw Lincoln’s ghost one night while she was watching a television program about his death!
Lincoln’s former bedroom has been the location of spectral footsteps and strange knocking on the door, even heard by the likes of Margaret and Harry Truman. Lincoln’s figure has been reported seen lying on the bed he once slept in, and his apparition has been reported wearing the coat and top hat he was so famous for. Because of his choice of haunting location, many a president and staff member have claimed to have seen Lincoln’s ghost, including Theodore Roosevelt, Grace Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Maureen Reagan, who, along with her husband, saw Lincoln’s ghost standing at the fireplace. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited the White House often during World War II and would take late baths while drinking scotch, often encountering Lincoln standing beside the fireplace, leaning against the mantle, or sitting in a chair by the fireplace, watching him smoke his cigars. Most of the Lincoln ghost sightings occurred in the Lincoln Bedroom or the Yellow Oval Room, the same place the ghost of Thomas Jefferson is often seen and heard playing his violin.
In 1942, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands answered a knock on the door of the bedroom she was staying in at the White House, only to open it and see Lincoln’s ghost standing there before her wearing a coat and top hat. She fainted at the sight.
Outside of the White House, Lincoln’s ghost often appeared at his gravesite in Springfield, Illinois, and at the house in Loudonville, New York, where a woman who was present during his assassination at Ford’s Theatre lived.
The history of Lincoln ghosts continues with sightings of Abraham Lincoln’s young son, Willie, who died at the age of eleven in the White House from typhoid. Willie’s ghost has appeared to staff members of the Grant Administration during the 1870s as well as to President Lyndon Johnson’s daughter Lynda Bird Johnson, who claimed to have talked to the child’s ghost, according to Historic Haunted America by Beth Scott and Michael Norman.
HAUNTED WHITE HOUSE
Abigail Adams, married to second president John Adams, used to hang laundry out to dry in the East Room of the White House because it was warm and dry. After her death, her ghost has been reported in the same room wearing her cap and lace shawl, arms outstretched as if holding a pile of laundry. As recently as 2002, according to Ancestry.com’s “Ghosts of Presidents Past: Who’s Haunting the White House?”, staff members report smelling wet clothing and the scent of lavender in the room. One of the witnesses who saw Adams’s ghost is none other than President William Howard Taft, who saw her ghost float through doors on the second floor and act out mannerisms as if hanging up laundry to dry.
The ghosts of Andrew Jackson and Harry Truman also haunt the White House. Andrew Jackson’s apparition made an appearance during a séance in the early 1860s held by Mary Todd Lincoln, who was then first lady. She was a big believer in life after death and the occult and often held séances to communicate with her dead sons. She claimed to have heard Jackson moving around in a hallway and swearing, especially in or near the Rose Room, which was his bedroom while in office.
Another first lady who has haunted the White House is the wife of President James Madison. Dolley Madison planted the famous rose garden in the early 1800s, and after her death, First Lady Ellen Wilson demanded the garden be dug up. But garden workers claimed the ghost of Dolley Madison would appear and refuse to let them dig up her beloved garden. Often, staff have reported the scent of roses inside the White House, attributing them to Dolley and her love for her precious rose garden.
REAGAN’S GHOSTLY ENCOUNTER
According to reporter Joan Gage in her December 31, 2013, Huffington Post blog entry titled “Ronald Reagan’s White House Ghost Story,” the former president, known as a brilliant storyteller, recounted at a dinner his story of hearing Rex, his Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and first dog, barking at the Lincoln Bedroom and refusing to enter the room. The president also stated he was watching television with his wife, Nancy, when Rex began standing on his two hind legs and barking at something overhead on the ceiling. He wondered if the dog was responding to some high-pitched noise they could not hear or, perhaps … a ghost. Maybe even the ghost of Abe Lincoln himself. Reagan’s daughter, Maureen, and her husband saw the ghost of Lincoln in the Lincoln Bedroom staring out the window. They could see through the ghost!
MAMIE’S GHOST
Before Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower became president in 1952, he lived with his wife, Mamie, in a farmhouse adjacent the Gettysburg battlefield. Though the place was run-down when they moved in, they came to prefer staying there as a retreat. After their time in the White House, they retreated back to the “Gettysburg house” until Ike’s death in 1969 and Mamie’s death in 1979. The U.S. Department of the Interior made it a National Historic Landmark shortly afterward, but ever since Mamie’s death, strange things have been reported at the farmhouse. Park rangers working at the farmhouse reported hearing thumping noises and seeing apparitions of Mamie, usually in the living room area, even hearing music coming from an empty guest room in the farmhouse.
A respected psychic named Anne Gehman investigated the farmhouse in 1982 and spoke with the rangers, even admitting to communicating herself with the spirit of Mamie’s maid, Rose Wood. Other farmhouse spirits Gehman reported during her time there included a little boy and a Native American spirit who encouraged her to have the Park Service acknowledge the area’s historical importance, which they did. Mamie was specifically quite concerned that the garden behind the house would be torn up for a possible parking lot and voiced her opposition to Gehman during one communication!
A DEADLY DUEL
Aaron Burr was the third vice president and presided under Thomas Jefferson. Most people know him instead for his deadly duel at Weehawken on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River with Alexander Hamilton on July 11, 1804. Burr mortally wounded Hamilton, who, along with being the treasury secretary, was one of the Founding Fathers of the nation and chief of staff to George Washington. Burr was tried for treason but acquitted. Yet, his name will always be associated with that fateful treasonous label. During his VP campaign, he worked out of his carriage house located at 17 Barrow Street in New York City. After his death, that location became the One if by Land, Two if by Sea restaurant, and staff and visitors alike claim all kinds of paranormal activity there, including chairs being pulled out from under patrons and dishes flying through the air in the kitchen area.
One of the most famous gun battles in American history was the 1804 duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Hamilton was mortally wounded. His ghost is said to haunt a restaurant that was built on the spot where he met his fate as well as the home of the former doctor who treated him.
Burr’s own daughter, Theodosia Burr, is said to have perished when she boarded a ship called the Patriot in December 1812 that sank off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, during a terrible storm. She was on her way to see her father when the ship went down, and rumors abounded that pirates may have boarded the boat, forced the passengers and crew to walk the plank, then sank the ship after taking all valuables.
There was a legend long after claiming Theodosia survived with her only possession, a portrait of herself, and was cared for by a local fisherman and his wife until her death. In fact, she may have walked into the ocean holding the portrait, not wanting to part with it. Many people reported seeing her ghost walking along the shoreline. The portrait washed up on the beach. Today, that portrait is said to belong to members of the Burr family.
It wasn’t just his daughter who became a ghost. Burr seemed to have been surrounded by spirits! Later, at the age of seventy-seven, Burr married a woman named Eliza Jumel, who was a wealthy widow that many believed had killed her first husband (his ghost was reported to haunt the mansion she lived in with Burr). Eliza and Aaron Burr separated after only a few months when she suspected his land speculation deals were responsible for much of the loss of her money. Interestingly, Burr died on the same day his divorce to Eliza was finalized: September 11, 1836. Eliza herself may have haunted the same mansion after she died at the age of ninety-three.
Hamilton is said to haunt his former home in Greenwich Village, where newer visitors have reported poltergeist-like activity, as well as the home of his doctor, John Francis, who treated him when he was mortally wounded by Burr. This house, located at 27 Jane Street in New York City, was haunted according to a later resident, Jean Karsavina, who lived there from 1939. Hamilton died during his attempts to recover from the gunshot wound while in his own bed in his home at 80 Jane Street, just a few doors down from the Francis home.
According to noted paranormal researcher Hans Holzer in his book Famous Ghosts: True Encounters with the World Beyond, the 80 Jane Street home no longer exists, but the 27 Jane Street home of Hamilton’s former doctor does, and Karsavina reported hearing footsteps, creaking doors opening and closing, creaking on the stairs, and the unexplained flushing of a toilet! She has witnessed blurred shapes and a shadowy apparition wearing early nineteenth-century garb and white trousers that would walk in and out of her room.
Today, both Burr and Hamilton have found renewed fame in the blockbuster Broadway musical Hamilton, putting a modern spin on their long and tumultuous history in life and in death.
FAMOUS FOREIGN GHOSTS
Adolf Hitler needs no introduction. The man who caused so much death and suffering and ended the lives of millions is said to haunt the ruins of his former Bavarian mountain retreat home. Witnesses claim his ghost looks as if it is grieving or in a state of despair and is often seen sitting in an armchair and gazing out to the mountains. Some report even hearing his voice shouting orders to his men.
Henry VIII, the English monarch once married to Anne Boleyn, is said to haunt the Windsor Castle halls, dragging his ulcerated leg or pacing in the Cloisters. Boleyn is even more active, with her ghost appearing in many of the castle windows and in the Dean’s Cloister. Boleyn, who was Henry’s second of six wives, died in a most horrible way. After she was unable to bear her husband a son and heir, she was tried on charges of adultery and incest and beheaded on the Tower Green inside the Tower of London.
Her headless figure is reported even now moving from the Queen’s House to the Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula, where her remains are buried. Tower sentries witnessed her ghost wearing a cloak with an empty hood or pacing the Green, holding her head under her arm. She is also said to haunt her birthplace in Norfolk and arrives in a carriage pulled by six headless horses driven by a headless coachman. In addition, she haunts her childhood home of Hever Castle, where she often appears on a bridge on Christmas Eve. Other known haunts of hers include Sallie Church and Marwell Hall. Her spirit is clearly restless and active perhaps because of the horrific way she met her death at the hands of the man she loved.
English explorer and writer Sir Walter Raleigh is most famous for trying to bring the colonists to the New World of America in the 1580s. The colonists landed at a place called Roanoke Island in Virginia. Several years later, he returned with another group of settlers. A man named John White returned to England to find supplies to bring back within a year, but it was several years before the supplies could get to Roanoke. When they did arrive, the entire settlement was gone. They had vanished as if into thin air.
Theories abound to this day about where the Roanoke colony disappeared to. Some “conclusions” have been put forth in books, movies, and television shows but are always disputed because of lack of evidence. No one knows where they went, although they may have ended up on another island, where they perished due to elements and starvation or at the hands of natives.
Sir Walter Raleigh was involved years later in an alleged plot against King James I and was banished to the Tower of London. He was released thirteen years later and went to South America for a short time, then back to London, where he was then arrested, tried, and found guilty. He was beheaded.
The Tower of London has served as a palace and prison for centuries—although its prison days ended in the 1950s. Sir Walter Raleigh, who was once a captive there, is said to still linger in spirit form.
His ghost is said to haunt the Tower of London near the cell he was kept in. The Tower is also said to be home to the ghosts of two little princes, Edward V and his brother Richard, the Duke of York, who were also banished there in 1483 after the death of their father at the hands of their protector uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, during attempts to keep the boys from the throne. In 1674, the remains of two skeletons were found in the White Tower under a stairway to the chapel and reburied in Westminster Abbey on order of then King Charles II. The skeletons are said to be those of the two young boys who thought they would be kings one day.
Russian’s capital city of Moscow is home to the iconic Kremlin, a fortified complex that has a reputation of being haunted by old Soviet Russian leaders. The Russian Revolution of 1917 left many ghosts to roam the halls of this imposing building, made of various towers, four palaces, and five cathedrals, including the famous Saint Basil’s Cathedral. In the eleventh century, the entire complex was fortified and later was expanded upon, then rebuilt by Catherine the Great during the Imperial period. It has been the site of various assassinations, deaths, murders, and tragedies, and Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin are among the ghosts said to stalk the vast hallways.
