Haunted Washington

Essay by Dr. Colleen Shogan

Every October, stories of ghosts return to Washington like autumn leaves swept across Pennsylvania Avenue. Some are fanciful, some are rooted in tragedy, and all remind us that history often leaves a trace, even a spectral one.

The White House and its neighboring Lafayette Square have seen their share of strange happenings: whispers, apparitions, and a famous feline who prowls the corridors of American power.

Lafayette Square appears idyllic today, a patch of green framed by elegant townhouses and the White House. But in 1859, it was the site of cold-blooded murder.

Congressman Daniel Sickles, enraged to discover that his wife Teresa was having an affair with Philip Barton Key, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia (and son of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ author Francis Scott Key), confronted his rival in broad daylight.

Key was strolling through the square, reportedly signaling toward the Sickles home with a handkerchief to alert Teresa he had arrived for a liaison. Sickles spotted him, drew a pistol, and fired. Key fell mortally wounded near the statue of Andrew Jackson, with shocked passerby witnessing the crime.

Dragged into the nearby Tayloe House, Key died soon after. The ensuing trial captivated the nation, marked historically as the first time ‘temporary insanity’ was used successfully as a legal defense. Sickles was acquitted, but Lafayette Square was never quite the same.

Over the years, guards and night watchmen have reported seeing a solitary figure pacing beneath the trees, dressed in mid-nineteenth-century garb, his expression mournful. Those who believe in ghosts say it’s Key, doomed to walk the square where his romantic tryst ended in violence.

The White House has always felt larger than life and perhaps larger than death. Its rooms have witnessed births, celebrations, wars, and national mourning. Presidents and first ladies have lived and allegedly still linger within its walls.

The most famous ghostly resident is Abraham Lincoln. For generations, White House staff and visitors have described his presence: the creak of his boots in the hallway, a knock on the door of the Lincoln Bedroom, or a tall silhouette seen by the fireplace. Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, visiting during Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency, fainted after opening her door to find a silent Lincoln looming before her.

Other spirits are said to roam 1600 Pennsylvania: Dolley Madison still guards the Rose Garden she helped design, and Abigail Adams is seen hanging laundry in the East Room where she once dried linens. The faint scent of lavender, which accompanies her appearances, sometimes drifts down the corridor.

Even less illustrious corners of the mansion hum with spectral energy. White House ushers, military aides, and Secret Service agents have told stories of doors that open and close on their own, unexplained drafts, and the sense that someone unseen is watching.

If Lincoln’s ghost inspires reverence, another Washington legend evokes pure superstition: the Demon Cat. The tale began in the United States Capitol basement during the Civil War. Night watchmen reported a mysterious black cat that appeared from nowhere and then grew, swelling to the size of a tiger before mysteriously vanishing.

According to lore, each appearance foretold national calamity. The Demon Cat was reportedly seen before the stock market crash of 1929 and again before President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. Other alleged appearances transpired during the 1890s and World War II.

Some say it’s nothing more than an oversized mouser in the tunnels linking the Capitol, Treasury, and White House, yet others believe it’s a supernatural sentinel that appears when the republic trembles. Whatever its origins, the Demon Cat’s legend continues to slink through Washington’s underbelly as a feline ghost patrolling the boundaries between myth and power.

Whether one believes in ghosts or not, these stories endure because they express something real about the weight of history in Washington. The White House is both a home and a national symbol. It sets the stage for democracy and serves as a repository of American memory. As administrations move in and out, rearranging furniture and repainting walls, traces of the past remain.

Perhaps that’s why ghost stories cling to the White House: they’re metaphors for what can’t be erased by politics, namely historical triumphs and tragedies that still echo through its halls. On a chilly Halloween night, if you glimpse movement in the shadows of Lafayette Square or perhaps hear the faint tremor of large feline paws, take it as a reminder that history is alive, even when it haunts us.