President Lincoln: Sightings After Death
If any average Joe’s house can be haunted, it should come as no surprise that The White House has its own host of ghost stories. For decades, it has housed countless employees, family, friends, and visitors. However, some of these guests seem to want to stick around one of America’s most infamous homes. While you could probably fill a book with all of the famous sightings and strange going-ons in the White House, one of my favorites is that of Abraham Lincoln’s ghost.
Abraham Lincoln seems to have a preference on where he chooses to spend his afterlife. He is most often spotted in the Lincoln Bedroom, unsurprisingly. There have also been sightings of him in the Yellow Oval Room. While there have been dozens of sightings, First Lady Grace Coolidge, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands have all claimed on the record to have spotted President Lincoln well after his death.
Grace Coolidge was one of the first people to claim, ardently, that she had witnessed President Lincoln’s ghost. She was in the Oval Office during the experience. When she walked into the room, she saw President Lincoln with his hands clasped behind his back, gazing out over the Potomac and apparently lost in thought. Before she could call in another witness or even gather her own thoughts, the apparition of the former president faded and President Lincoln left only his legacy and Grace in the Oval Office.
Winston Churchill, unsurprisingly, had the silliest reaction to seeing the ghostly president. According to the legend, Churchill had just stepped out of a bath in Lincoln bedroom and was smoking a cigar, naked, when President Lincoln suddenly appeared. Churchill reportedly said, “Good evening, Mr. President, you seem to have me at a disadvantage.”
Although Eleanor Roosevelt claimed she had never seen Lincoln’s ghost, despite setting up her office in his former bedroom, she did claim to feel his presence. Frequently, she later admitted, that whenever she worked late into the night she could feel a presence standing behind her. Soon, she would feel as if someone was peering over her shoulder and watching as she worked. Although she would turn around and explore the room, she never witnessed another living person. However, she seemed adamant that it President Lincoln’s presence that was sneaking a peek at her important work.
Even other Presidents have claimed to see President Lincoln. One of them was Harry Truman, who went to bed around 9pm on a quiet night in 1946. He was awoken in the early morning hours by three strange nocks at his door. The sound boomed and awoke him. He wrote a letter to his wife shortly after this incident in which he recounts his experience: “I jumped up and put on my bathrobe, opened the door, and no one there,” he wrote. “Went out and looked up and down the hall, looked in your room and Margie’s. 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.” This letter is on view at his presidential library.
Others claim to have spotted him on White House tours, especially when the country is deeply divided or there is strong tension within the country. Perhaps his ghost is conjured forth in times that, in some ways, mirrored the stress of the looming Civil War.
President Lincoln isn’t the only Lincoln to stick around. His son, Wilie, who died while living in the White House has also been sighted by the White House Staff. Shortly after his death, Mary Todd, who was often said to have an interest in the paranormal, began to host and participate in seances in the White House. Spiritualism was on the rise before and after Lincoln’s death, so perhaps it is not shocking that their spirits stuck around, especially if they were often called upon by loved ones.
The above image is of the south front of the White House and is under public domain.