Page 18 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - November 2013 Edition

The Ghost of Abe Lincoln The Ghost of Abe Lincoln Ghosts are most often reported to be haunting one particular place. Whether in the White House or on a Greek battlefield, such hauntings appear to dignify the spirits’ irresistible compulsion to return to the surroundings that were familiar to them in life. When Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands was visiting the White House, as a guest of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, she stayed in the Lincoln Room. As she slept one night, the queen was awakened by a knock on the door. She gave permission for the caller to enter, but there was no reply. The knock was repeated. Finally, the queen climbed out of bed and continuing presence in the White House was account, listened spellbound as she delivered in opened the door. What she saw next made her most frequently sensed. Along with the a deep, trance-like voice a plea for the president faint and fall to the floor. For there before her, president, Eleanor Roosevelt believed strongly to carry out his plan to emancipate America’s as she explained to Roosevelt the next morning that the Lincoln Room was haunted. Mrs. slaves. According to Colburn, the president took stood the unmistakable figure of president Roosevelt also reported that late one evening, this to be a personal spiritual message from the Abraham Lincoln, gravely doffing his when she was working in her study, a maid American statesman Daniel Webster, whose characteristic stovepipe hat. named Mary Eban burst into the room and portrait hung on the wall. Roosevelt himself confided to Carl exclaimed: “He’s up there - sitting on the edge Sanburg, the poet and historian who wrote the of the bed, taking off his boots.” When Mrs. Face of death biography Abraham Lincoln: The War Years Roosevelt asked who “he” was, the maid (1940), that on a few occasions, when he had replied, “Mr. Lincoln.” Lincoln also apparently saw what some might been alone in the Blue Room, he was convinced believe to be his own spirit. He told journalist that Lincoln was there too. Roosevelt once told “That was Abe” Noah Brooks that one day, not long before he actor Frank Wilson: “The spirit of Lincoln still was elected president, he lay-down exhausted lives here.” Another White House maid, Lillian Parks, on a sofa and was taken aback by what he saw remembered a day when the building was in a mirror opposite him. The glass reflected a Footsteps and rappings almost empty and she was in a room next to the double image of himself: one face was normal, Lincoln Room. Over and over she heard but the other was deathly pale, like that of a Other presidents, important visitors, and staff footsteps crossing the Lincoln Room Floor. But corpse. Several days later he saw the same have helped support the belief that the White whenever she looked in, there was no one there. thing. Although he explained it away to others House is haunted by the ghost of Abraham After an hour she went upstairs and asked the as simply an optical illusion, it may have been a Lincoln. Even Winston Churchill, according to houseman why he kept walking across that hallucination produced by a subconscious fear. Susy Smith’s book, Prominent American Ghosts room. He replied that he had only just come on Lincoln’s wife was certainly anxious for his (1967), saw a figure that resembled Abraham duty and had not been on that floor. “That was safety, and feared that the strange reflection Lincoln. Abe you heard,” he said. was a portent of his death in office. Rumors began within months of the Why should it be Lincoln’s spirit, rather president’s assassination in 1865, when several than that of any other president, that allegedly The haunted restaurant inhabitants of the building reported hearing has been sensed, heard, or seen so often at the mysterious footsteps and rappings with no White House? Believers in ghosts suggest that Houses, castles, prisons, theatres, cinemas, visible source. the hauntings may be connected to the fact that factories, colleges, stores, stadiums - almost The first recorded occasion on which an in his lifetime Lincoln was far more interested every type of structure built for human apparition of Lincoln was supposedly seen was and involved in spiritual matters than any other occupation has provided some stories of ghosts. during the presidency of Calvin Coolidge president. One example of this was revealed Restaurants are no exception, and in the U.S. (1923-29). Grace Coolidge, the president’s after the death of his 11-year-old son, Willie, in there are a number that are said to be haunted. wife, claimed that she was in the Oval Room February 1862. The loss plagued Lincoln into According to Arthur Myer’s book The one day when she saw the figure of Lincoln deep despair, but then one day, after listening to Ghostly Register, one such is Ashley’s standing out the window, gazing out in deep the condolences of a minister, the president Restaurant, a mock-Tudor building dating from thought. And in her book, White House Profile suddenly exclaimed that he knew Willie was the late 1920’s on South U.S. Route 1, (1951), Bess Furman states that Theodore still alive. And, in private conversation with the Rockledge, Florida. Waitresses and bartenders Roosevelt, president from 1901 to 1909, was Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P Chase, he have reported that glasses and dishes often fall aware of the ghostly presence of Lincoln’s confided: “Ever since Willie’s death I catch to the ground on their own; Judi Cowles, spirit. myself involuntarily talking to him as if he were manager of the restaurant from 1979 to 1984, Yet another president, Harry S Truman, with me - and I feel that he is.” claims that customers have reported being in office from 1945 to 1953, disclosed in 1956 pushed by an unseen presence; and the police that he had been awakened several times at The medium is the message have reports of burglar alarms going off with no night by knocks on his bedroom door only to sign of break-in and of lights switching of when find that no one was there. His daughter Undoubtedly, it was a hope that he might the building is empty. Margaret, who slept in the same part of the communicate with his dead son that led Lincoln Continued on Page 19 White House, reported having similar to various séances organized by Mrs. Lincoln at experiences. the White House. The young medium Nettie Dare to Believe and Dare to be Heard But it was during the presidency of Colburn conducted a séance in December 1862. with Rob McConnell in Franklin D Roosevelt (1933-45) that Lincoln’s Lincoln, according to the medium’s later The ‘X’ Zone