The Ghost Of Abraham Lincoln Walks The White House

There was a post yesterday about Abraham Lincoln and I've stayed on the same subject today, but this time it's about his ghost.

There are lots of references to Abraham Lincoln's ghost being seen in the White House. The first reference I could find was of Theodore Roosevelt who records that he often 'felt the presence' of Lincoln.

The first sighting of Lincoln's ghost was by Grace Coolidge, the wife of President Calvin Coolidge, in the 1920s. She saw the ghost while standing at the Oval Office looking out onto Pennsylvania Avenue. Since then other staff have seen an apparition at the same window.

A famous sighting was by none other that Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. She was sleeping in the Lincoln Room when she heard a gentle knock on the door. She opened the door and standing there was President Lincoln who doffed his stovepipe hat and then vanished.

When the Queen informed President Roosevelt about her night encounter he told her that he knew the room was haunted. It appears that Winston Churchill had also seen Lincoln's ghost while sleeping in the same bed.

In the late 1940's Harry S Truman told guests about Lincoln's ghost though he admitted he had never seen it for himself. He did, however, reckon he had heard it. Footsteps would often approach his bedroom door, this would be followed by a knocking - but there was no one to be seen.

Friends of the Kennedys have also said that both John and Robert Kennedy had seen the spirit of Lincoln while at the White House.

When you get people such as Churchill and Queen Wilhelmina claiming to have seen the ghost of Abraham Lincoln it makes you wonder. They surely wouldn't have made it up, would they?