Haunted Washington, D.C.

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Haunted Washington, D.C.
Manidoo Village

For nearly 200 years, the District of Columbia has been alive with stories of restless spirits and vengeful phantoms. Some of these supernatural tales involve the famous and powerful, while other concern the downtrodden and forgotten. All of them are part of the strange and haunting mystery that envelops the capital.

Some of the ghosts that have appeared in the Capitol building include a stonemason, unlucky enough to be buried alive and two previous presidents, John Quincy Adams and James Garfield. There’s also the huge demon cat that prowls the narrow marble halls by night, and the stone figures of those memorialized in Statuary Hall who have come down from their pedestals each New Year’s Eve to celebrate the health of the country.

Dark Stains
A famous murder took place on the marble steps of the House gallery in 1890: a journalist Charles Kincaid shot and killed Kentucky congressman William Taulbee. To this day there are ugly red blotches on the marble where Taulbee’s blood fell. No amount of scrubbing can remove these stains. Taulbee’s spirit is thought to be haunting this particular flight of steps.

Haunted White House
The White House is said to be haunted by Abraham Lincoln, who roams the halls, and Thomas Jefferson, who can be heard playing the violin in the Yellow Oval Room. President Andrew Jackson is said to haunt the Queen’s bedroom, from which you can hear laughter at night.

Woodrow Wilson is said to haunt a mansion off Embassy Row. He spent the last three years of this life here, shuffling around in a cane and given to crying spells. Since his death, there have been reports of people hearing shuffling noises and crying voices. Wilson’s ghost is known to have been sighted once. A cleaning lady, entering the bedroom one day, caught sight of a bespectacled figure sitting in the president’s favorite rocking chair. Startled, she blinked and looked again. The figure had vanished, but the empty chair continued to rock back and forth.

Lincoln’s Ghost
Lincoln's Ghost, or to others known as the White House Ghost, is said to have haunted the White House since his death. It is widely believed that Lincoln might have known that he would die before his assassination when he was president. He had had a dream…

The dream as Lincoln told his cabinet is as follows. "In the dream, I was awakened by a faint moaning coming from somewhere nearby. I stood, and began hunting the noise, finally finding my way to the east room, where men and women were shrouded in funeral shawls. I saw a coffin on a dais, and soldiers at either end. A captain stood nearby, and I addressed him 'Who is dead in the White House' say I. 'The President,' is his answer, 'he was killed by an assassin.' In the coffin was a corpse in funeral vestments, but the face was obscured. A loud sob left the crowd, and I awoke."