Page 6 - 201210 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - October 2012

Ghosts in the White House Ghosts in the White House The most famous address in America--1600 Pennsylvania Avenue--is also perhaps the country's most famous haunted house. Presidents, first ladies, White House staff members and guests have reported feeling ghostly presences, hearing unexplained noises and even running into actual apparitions--even on the way out of the bathtub, in one particularly famous case. Abigail Adams & David Burns Abigail Adams and her husband John, the second president of the United States (1797- 1801), moved to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue from the former U.S. capital in Philadelphia. At the time, Washington, D.C. was still just a town, built mostly on swampy land on the banks of the Potomac River. Because the East Room of the new White House was the warmest and driest, Abigail used it to hang the wash. Her ghost, clad in a cap and lace shawl, has reportedly been floors pop and the drapes move back and forth- speculated that Lincoln's spirit remains in the seen heading towards the East Room, arms -I can just imagine old Andy [Jackson] and White House to be on hand in times of crisis, as outstretched as if carrying laundry. Teddy [Roosevelt] having an argument over well as to complete the difficult work that his A lesser-known early White House Franklin [Roosevelt]." untimely death left unfinished. [] personality who has been said to haunt its halls was David Burns, who sold the government Abraham Lincoln most of the land on which the city of Top 10 Signs You Are Too Washington--including the presidential By far the most frequently reported sighting in residence--was built. Lillian Rogers Parks, a the White House over the years has been the Old to Be Trick or Treating seamstress who chronicled her 30-year career ghost--or at least the presence--of the celebrated working at the White House in a 1961 memoir, 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, whose life told the story of a valet to President Franklin D. was cut tragically short by an assassin's bullet in 10. You get winded from knocking on the door. Roosevelt who reportedly heard a disembodied April 1865. Grace Coolidge, wife of President voice coming from a distance in the Yellow Calvin Coolidge (1923-29), was the first person 9. You have to have a kid chew the candy for Oval Room, saying "I'm Mr. Burns." During to say she had actually seen Lincoln's ghost. you. Harry S. Truman's administration, a guard heard According to her, the lanky former president a similar voice; thinking it was then-Secretary was standing looking out a window of the Oval 8. You ask for high fiber candy only. of State James Byrnes, he went looking for him, Office, across the Potomac to the former Civil only to learn that the secretary hadn't been at the War battlefields beyond. Lady Bird Johnson, 7. When someone drops a candy bar in your White House that day. wife of President Lyndon Johnson (1963-69), bag, you lose your balance and fall over. reportedly felt Lincoln's presence one night 6. People say, "Great Keith Richard's mask!" Andrew Jackson & Harry Truman's Ghosts while watching a television program about his and you're not wearing a mask. death. In 1824, Andrew "Old Hickory" Jackson was Most notably, sightings of Lincoln's defeated by John Quincy Adams in one of the ghost were frequently reported during the long 5. When the door opens you yell, "Trick or ..." most contentious presidential elections in administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933- and can't remember the rest. history. Elected president four years later, the 45), who also presided over his country during surly Jackson continued to hold grudges against a time of great upheaval. First Lady Eleanor 4. By the end of the night, you have a bag full of those who had supported his opponent. In the Roosevelt used the Lincoln Bedroom as her restraining orders. early 1860s, First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln-- study, and said she would feel his presence who believed strongly in the occult, and when she worked there late at night. During her 3. You have to carefully choose a costume that reportedly held séances in the White House to visit to the White House, Queen Wilhelmina of won't dislodge your hairpiece. commune with the spirits of her dead sons--told the Netherlands heard a knock on her bedroom friends she had heard Jackson stomping and door in the night; when she answered it, she 2. You're the only Power Ranger in the swearing through the halls of the presidential reportedly saw Lincoln's ghost, wearing his top neighborhood with a walker. residence. The Rose Room, Jackson's hat, and fainted dead away. British Prime bedchamber while he was president, is believed Minister Winston Churchill, who visited the 1. You avoid going to houses where your ex- by some to be one of the most haunted rooms in White House more than once during World War wives/ex-husbands live. the White House. II, told a story of emerging naked from his Jackson's ghostly presence also showed evening bath smoking his customary cigar, only up in the White House correspondence of Harry to find a ghostly Lincoln sitting by the fireplace One-Liners Truman, America's 33rd president. In June in his room. 1945, just two months into his first term, When Lillian Rogers Parks, the Truman wrote to his wife Bess of the spooky seamstress, once investigated the sound of Q. In what room of the house would you never quality of his new residence: "I sit here in this someone pacing an upper level of the White find a ghost? old house and work on foreign affairs, read House, another staff member told her the room A. The living room. reports, and work on speeches--all the while in question had been unoccupied, and "that was listening to the ghosts walk up and down the old Abe pacing the floor." Psychics have Q. What is a vampire's favorite sport? hallway and even right in here in the study. The A. Casketball.