Regular Episode
#189 – GHOSTS OF THE WHITE HOUSE
The conversation is equal parts history seminar and ghost tour: Chervinsky keeps a steady scholarly hand on the tiller while guiding listeners through apparitions, olfactory hauntings, and at least one very underdressed Prime Minister. Blake notes upfront that a microphone mishap means his audio is subpar for the interview — luckily, Karen and Lindsay do most of the talking.
🏛️ The House, the Land, and Its Dead
The White House sits on land originally owned by David Burns, a famously stubborn farmer who resisted ceding his acreage to the new federal city by continuing to plant crops down Pennsylvania Avenue and letting his livestock graze — earning him an early cease-and-desist from Washington and the city commissioners. His ghost is reportedly seen in the Yellow Oval Room on the second floor, apparently still miffed about the whole arrangement.
Chervinsky tallies only eleven known deaths inside the White House over more than 200 years — a surprisingly small number. Of the eight presidents who died in office, only William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor died in the building itself. Three First Ladies — Letitia Christian Tyler, Caroline Harrison, and Ellen Axson Wilson — also died there, as did Willie Lincoln. What’s notable, Chervinsky observes, is that most White House ghost lore is not primarily organized around death: it tends to attach to people who lived there intensely, loved the space, or were forcibly separated from it.
👻 The Lincoln Haunting (and Mary Todd’s Séances)
Abraham Lincoln is by far the most frequently reported apparition. Mary Todd Lincoln held regular spiritualist séances — both in the White House and at their summer residence, the Soldiers’ Home — largely as a response to the devastating loss of their son Willie. Lincoln himself occasionally attended, though he was considerably less invested in the practice. Blake notes the famous spirit photograph of Lincoln taken by William H. Mumler.
Reported Lincoln sightings span decades and social strata: First Lady Grace Coolidge, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, and Linda Bird Johnson Robb (President Johnson’s daughter, who reportedly had a full conversation with him in the 1960s) all feature in the canon. The most entertainingly awkward encounter belongs to Winston Churchill, who was reportedly surprised by Lincoln’s ghost while soaking in the bath — cigar presumably in hand — in the Lincoln Bedroom suite. Churchill thereafter insisted on different accommodations. His reported quip about being caught at a disadvantage sounds, as Karen notes, very much in character.
A clarification Chervinsky offers that ghost-tour guides sometimes skip: “Lincoln’s Bedroom” was not originally a bedroom. It served as Lincoln’s working office and map room during the Civil War and was only later repurposed as a guest suite.
🕯️ The Supporting Cast of Apparitions
The White House ghost roster is impressively crowded:
– Abigail Adams — the first First Lady to occupy the White House (the Adamses moved in on November 1, 1800, before the building was finished). She hung laundry in the unfinished East Room for privacy. Staff today reportedly still detect the scent of wet laundry and lavender there.
– Dolley Madison — one of Washington’s more sociable ghosts, seen tending the Rose Garden, and also reported at both the Octagon House and the Cutts-Madison House, where she lived after James Madison’s death — still rocking on the front porch.
– John Tyler — said to eternally re-propose to his second wife, Julia Gardiner, in the Blue Room where they wed.
– William Henry Harrison — reportedly haunts the attic.
– Thomas Jefferson — said to play the violin in the Yellow Oval Room.
– Chester Arthur — disturbed one late night by an unknown white-haired old man.
– A ghostly British soldier carrying a torch, wandering the grounds — a detail Chervinsky finds amusing given the historical context of the burning of Washington in 1812.
– “The Thing” — a nameless ghost of an approximately 15-year-old boy that plagued domestic staff during the Taft presidency around 1911. Staff reported feeling a presence leaning over their shoulders while they worked at night. Taft eventually ordered his military aide, Major Archibald Butt, to threaten dismissal for anyone caught discussing it further.
🔦 Storytellers, Skeptics, and a Very Useful Rat Problem
Not all White House ghost stories originate with presidents and dignitaries. One of the most prolific sources was Jeremiah “Jerry” Smith, a White House staff member who started under President Grant as a footman and eventually styled himself the “official duster.” Reporters on deadline loved him — so much so that the press nicknamed him the “Knight of the Feather Duster.” Many Lincoln-era ghost stories trace back to him. His most practically motivated tale: he convinced President Grant’s daughter Nellie that the noises from the White House attic were the devil himself, successfully keeping her out — noises that were later attributed to a severe rat infestation.
One of the sadder stories involves Anna Surratt, daughter of Mary Surratt — convicted conspirator in Lincoln’s assassination and the first woman executed by the United States government. Anna reportedly visited President Johnson to beg for a pardon and was turned away. Legend holds that every July 7th her ghost returns to bang on the White House gates and weep.
The episode also includes a Blake editorial aside: the idiom “your name is mud” predates the Dr. Samuel Mudd case by some twenty years in print, making the Lincoln-assassination connection a piece of folk etymology rather than history. Blake also connects the Dr. Mudd story to the 1980 TV film The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd, starring Dennis Weaver, and notes that it featured Richard Dysart — better known to horror fans as Dr. Copper in John Carpenter’s 🎬 The Thing 💵.
🗺️ Beyond the White House: Haunted D.C.
Chervinsky’s own office is in the Decatur House on Lafayette Square — reportedly one of the most haunted buildings in Washington, D.C. She was warned on her first day to expect banging and strange noises when working late alone.
Other notable haunted sites in the D.C. neighborhood include:
– The Octagon House and the Cutts-Madison House (both on Lafayette Square), associated with Dolley Madison’s ghost.
– The Hay-Adams Hotel, built on the site of townhomes belonging to the Hay and Adams families. Marian “Clover” Hooper Adams, who struggled with a family history of mental illness and died by suicide, is said to haunt the hotel.
– Old Town Alexandria, Virginia — older than D.C. itself, a former major port city and home to one of the country’s longest-running farmers’ markets, with its own active ghost tour tradition.
The conversation closes with a thoughtful exchange about “dark tourism” — the trend of historic sites like Gettysburg leaning into supernatural lore to attract visitors. Chervinsky sees it as a potential gateway to genuine historical engagement, analogous to how the musical Hamilton has drawn new audiences into early American history. She also raises a subject she hopes future researchers will pursue: the largely untold ghost stories (and human stories) of the enslaved workers who built and staffed the White House during its first six decades.
📚 Further Reading
– 📚 The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution 💵 by Lindsay Chervinsky
🔗 Related Links
– White House Historical Association
– White House — Wikipedia
– Mary Surratt — Wikipedia
– Samuel Mudd — Wikipedia
– William H. Mumler (spirit photographer) — Wikipedia
– Marian “Clover” Hooper Adams — Wikipedia
– Spiritualism in the United States — Wikipedia
– Tecumseh’s Curse (the “zero-year curse”) — Wikipedia
Note: ads inserted into the distributed audio alter the timestamps in unpredictable ways, so timing references in these notes are approximate.
An interview with White House historian Lindsay Chervinsky (of the White House Historical Association) about the ghostly legends of the White House.
Mentioned in the episode
Music
- Monstertalk Theme: Monster by Peach Stealing Monkeys
MTArchivist
0