The Haunted White House | Classic GXP Series

In this remastered Classic GXP episode, Logan walks you through the often-overlooked paranormal history of the most iconic address in America—1600 Pennsylvania Ave. From Lincoln’s lingering spirit to Eleanor Roosevelt’s ghostly tales, this solo deep dive peels back the layers of political power and haunted lore.

It's early podcast Logan again—before co-hosts, fancy gear, or knowing where the mute button was. But the curiosity and weirdness were always there. Remastered for your ears. Nostalgia and awkward energy included for free.

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• 15:46 (Cont.) The Haunted White House | Classic GXP Series

Transcript

Logan Mathias (00:00.472)
Hey friends, we hope you're enjoying the start of the summer. You got your sunshine, late nights, maybe even a few unexplained noises in the dark. I know we've had some. Just wanted to drop by in real quick and let you know that season four of Generation X Paranormal is almost here. And trust us, it's our most haunted, hilarious, and heartfelt season yet. So mark your calendars for July 1st because we're dropping a big announcement about what's coming next.

Until then, stay curious and maybe keep a flashlight handy.

Logan Mathias (01:19.97)
Everybody welcome back. So today we're going to be talking about the White House. Now the White House is a very interesting subject. You're going to find it's got a very rich history and it's got quite a bit of activity paranormal in that sense. But, you know, we're going to we're going to try to cover it in a way where, you know, we state the facts and we kind of go through the history of the White House and

what paranormal activity has been reported. So without further ado, here we go. So getting into the history of the White House, our first president, George Washington, selected this site for the White House way back in 1791. Now an interesting note about George Washington, he never actually got to reside in the White House, contrary to belief. He had three different residencies that can be looked up.

Both or two of them rather were in New York City. And then as president, he would rotate between Mount Vernon and the president's house in Philadelphia. So, yeah, he just never got to actually to live in the White House that he that he actually wanted built. So like anything else that's built in Washington or has anything to do with politics, there's a little bit of controversy behind the White House and the original intent and who or where

the president was originally supposed to reside. See, originally the president's residence or residential, well, that's an interesting tongue twister, was set up to be in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And I guess at some point Thomas Jefferson decided or there was a committee put together to establish a federal city. And as you could probably guess, this federal city became Washington, D.C. So it made sense at that point that

in order to have a federal city, would want the head of the federal government living in the federal city. So that's when the plans were initially set up for the White House or the president's mansion to be erected in Washington, D.C. Now, as for the plans and the architecture, interestingly enough, they decided there should be a competition who would actually design and architect this this mansion. So there was a

Logan Mathias (03:42.606)
There was a design competition held and there were nine proposals submitted to the committee for this new presidential residence. And with the award going to an Irish-American architect, James Hobart. And James Hobart would say that the influences of the White House came from a Dublin, Ireland, basically a Dublin, Ireland institution, the Leinster House, which later became Irish Parliament.

And in 1791, the first cornerstone was laid. And interesting of note, the work crew compromised of slaves and immigrants from Ireland, Scotland, and other European countries. you know, something as American as the White House really was built by a melting pot of individuals. So at the end of construction, the very first U.S. president to reside in the White House was John Adams.

And he moved in in November 1st of 1800. Now, what's interesting about that is that it was just right before he lost his reelection to Thomas Jefferson. The building had always been known as the Executive Mansion. However, Theodore Roosevelt made a made it officially the White House because there had been a long running nickname of the White House for the Executive Mansion. And to this date, 10 people have died in the White House, including former presidents William Harry Harrison and Zachary Taylor.

In addition to that, three First Ladies. Now I bring up the First Ladies because two of them, and I know this is a little bit controversial, but two of them held seances in this building to speak with their diseased loved ones. And those two First Ladies were Abigail Adams and of course, Mary Todd Lincoln.

Now kind of focusing a little bit more on the paranormal. Of course, as you knew, this is where this was going. at any rate, John Adams and his wife, Abigail Adams. So they lived obviously on the on the DC property. And at the time, well, DC was basically a swampy area, which I won't get into the politics of it. But as we know, the ever famous drain, the swamp type stuff. But anyway.

Logan Mathias (06:05.646)
As I said, it was on a swamp and there was a very warm area of the White House and this was the East Room. Abigail used to hang the wash out in that area. Boy, I tell you, if something like that was done nowadays, there would be quite a media stir to hang your laundry out in the East Room. But anyway, I digress. But it has been said that you can see her ghost clad in a cap and lace shawl. And what they report is that she is...

either got her arms stretched out as if she is holding a basket of laundry and some report that they've actually seen her holding a basket of laundry. So there's some purported differences in some of the claims and interesting some have even claimed that they can smell the fresh laundry. And sometimes they say they smell the white clothes or even some lavender in the area. So yeah, it's pretty interesting that even in death, she's kind of going through this same routine. So.

I guess you would call that a residual haunting if you're going to classify it as a haunting. Now, the White House was purchased from a gentleman, his name was David Burns, and he sold the government most of the land of which the city of Washington is in, including the personal residence. So I'd be really interested to see what he actually got for that. But at any rate, it has been reported that he also haunts the White House.

In fact, it was the valet for President Roosevelt who heard disembodied voices coming from the distance in the yellow room saying, I am Mr. Burns. And later during the Truman administration, a guard heard a similar voice and I guess he thought it was then Secretary of State James Burns. He went looking for him, but he found out later that James Burns wasn't even at the residence. So Andrew Jackson, they called him old hickory.

But I think his is a little bit interesting because he has heard stomping and swearing, which I find that very interesting because the first lady, Mary Todd Lincoln, reported hearing it. And that was in the halls of the building. And it was just it was interesting because Jackson's former bedroom, the Rose Room, is said to be one of the most haunted rooms in the whole White House. So that's pretty wild. And many have heard him basically having this really deep, guttural laugh.

Logan Mathias (08:26.702)
I would imagine the people that run into Andrew Jackson's ghost are pretty spooked by the end of it. Teddy Roosevelt, our 33rd US president, he was in the White House for a couple of months and I think he was doing that as a geobaster because I believe his wife didn't live there at the time. But he wrote her basically saying about how he's heard quote unquote ghouls walking up and down the hallway and even in a study. And he talked about the curtains being moved and the floorboards creaking, which he

He considered where Andrew Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt disagreeing. So that was a pretty good way for him to put a spin on it. But it sounded like he was pretty upset about it. Now, on the subject of Harry Truman, he once joked, my choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a in a place of ill repute, we'll just say, or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference. That was his joke.

Anyway, he was on the Truman piano, which later ended up being in the Bush twins, George W. Bush's kids, the two twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna. And they heard in the room after their father took office of this immense amount of piano playing. And then they reported it to the the guard outside. And I guess they said or the guard told them, you should hear the things that I hear. Now, very interesting ghost.

is the ghost of William Henry Harrison. Now, he was our ninth president. He holds a record for having the least amount of time in president. He was just 31 days. But his ghost, however, hangs around the White House in a much longer capacity. And apparently he hangs out in the attic and yeah, he's still walking around there. And as legend has it, he lost something up there one day and apparently

That guy is still looking for whatever he lost. And that's pretty tragic considering he's only in office for 31 days. And then there is Dolly Madison. And for some reason, I hear her name and makes me want to eat like cakes or something. But anyway, Dolly Madison, course, wife of James Madison, was the first first lady of the United States. Apparently, she was very passionate about her famous rose garden and intending it. And it is said that her spirit chased off any gardeners that were asked to work on the garden.

Logan Mathias (10:51.47)
And it's even believed that one can see her among the roses. So I guess you got to be pretty careful when you're out there because it could be more than just the thorns that could get you. Now, an interesting ghost that I'm going to bring up isn't a present or a First Lady at all. However, it has to do very, very much with a presidency that I will get into later in this podcast because there's so much to tell about it. And that is the ghost of Anna Surratt.

Now, Anna Surratt, if you don't know who she is, and a lot of you may not know because she herself isn't linked to this historical event. However, her mother, Mary Surratt, absolutely is. So Anna would go, I guess, knock on the door and constantly ask to have her mother freed because she had played a role in the 1865 conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. And apparently...

Some have said they've even seen her sitting on the steps outside the door every anniversary of the execution of her mother. So I think that's pretty interesting to know because it doesn't just have to be staffers or presidents or first ladies. But I find that very interesting because it was a very traumatic event for for Ansarat. Now, speaking about non-staffers and non-presidents, another very interesting paranormal report is a ghost that they call The Thing.

which I've always thought that was pretty awful to call what I'm gonna explain, apparently the thing is the spirit of a 15 year old boy, which I would think you'd come up with a little bit of a better name for a poor, dearly departed young boy, but anyway, they called him affectionately or not affectionately the thing, and apparently he would pop out randomly and grab the staff's shoulders and then disappear. Yeah, that scared the you know what out of me, but I don't know if I call the kid the thing, but

Anyway, guess President Taft had many encounters with this boy, and I guess he forbade his staff from ever talking about the ghost. So it sure spooked a lot of people. Now, the 10th president of the United States was John Tyler. And not every event, I would imagine, has to be a tragic event in order for a, I guess, a spirit to haunt or to have some attachment to a building or a...

Logan Mathias (13:13.622)
a piece of clothing or any inanimate object. So John Tyler, I guess the report is that he constantly is proposing to Julia Gardner in the Blue Room. yeah, mean, it's not a constant amount of evil that causes people to have sort of this attachment to a place. So it could be of joy as well.

So couple of quick notes before we move on to the coup de grace, so to speak, and that's of Abraham Lincoln. Thomas Jefferson also plays his violin in the yellow room, or I should say the yellow oval room. Yeah, and that would be pretty freaky to listen to as well. An unnamed British soldier, he perished during the War of 1812, and I guess he roams around the grounds of the White House. And there is absolutely no shortage of reports of

feeling spooked out or just that creepy feeling from people who to this day visit the White House. mean, look, this building has a tremendous amount of history. It's been burnt down. It's been redesigned. Anytime you redesign something, obviously that is known to to make spirits either angry or be able to lash out. But, yeah, there's there's quite a bit. So and of course, moving on to the big one.

And that is the ghost of Abraham Lincoln and the ghosts associated with Abraham Lincoln. Now for my non-US based listeners, and I do have some, Abraham Lincoln, he was the 16th president of the United States. He was very, very, very well respected. People know him as being the great emancipator. People credit him with, and historically credit him with,

freeing and abolishing the slavery movement or the slavery laws here in the United States. So he he is seen as a very important figure in U.S. history, up to and including his head on Mount Rushmore. I should say his head being chiseled on Mount Rushmore. That sounds a little bit better and less less grotesque. anyway, Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln served as U.S. president.

Logan Mathias (15:34.456)
from March 4th of 1861 until, of course, his assassination in April 15th of 1865. Aside from being known as the president to abolish slavery and promoted the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which ratified the abolishment of slavery, he was known for many struggles. He was far from a perfect leader, made a lot of mistakes, but

I think the one part that a lot of people don't grasp is he was a family man. His family was very important to him. His wife, Mary, and his children as well. And having family from Illinois, I can tell you that he's obviously very well known in Illinois. call it the land of Lincoln, of course. But I've got family in very rural parts of Illinois. One in particular, that would be Ottawa, Illinois.

And Ottawa is known to be the first location for the Lincoln Douglas debates. And the very first one did happen in a very beautiful area of Ottawa, Illinois, in their town square. I bring that up because not being about the White House, there are so many reported claims of Lincoln's ghost in Ottawa, Illinois. There are so many reported ghost sightings in homes that

that he had either lived in or slept in in Ottawa, Illinois, and quite honestly, throughout the entire state of Illinois, there's usually somewhere, somehow a connection to his presidency, and this is where he slept, and this is where he ate, and there are sometimes reported attachments to those areas. This obviously is not a complete picture of all the hauntings of Abraham Lincoln. This is going to be primarily of the White House.

But I wanted you to know that in no way, or form is his ghost or any, any paranormal sightings of the Lincoln or the Lincoln family is not just attributed to Washington DC and or the White House. Now I mentioned family. He and Mary Todd had four children. Okay. And one will be very important here just shortly, but his children were Robert, Edward, Willie, and Tad. And those were the children he had when he assumed office.

Logan Mathias (17:58.798)
and obviously moved into the White House. Now, starting with his kids, and I'm going to be, or his children I should say, and I'm going to go through them because they're all important, but there's one in particular when it comes to the White House. So his eldest, Robert Todd Lincoln, he was the only one that actually lived to maturity. Eddie Lincoln, he died in 1850 from tuberculosis, I believe. And Tad,

He survived his father, but died of heart failure at the age of 18, which I always found really interesting. 18 years old and heart failure. at any rate, the one that has an attachment or at least a story with the White House is Willie. Now Willie, he was born on December 21st of 1850 and died of a fever at the White House on February 20th of 1862. Now the death of Willie.

I mean, obviously any death of any family member, especially a child, you know, because parents are not supposed to outlive a child, but, you know, and unfortunately it does happen. But at any rate, the death of Willie absolutely shook Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln during his presidency. And it is said that one of the greatest amounts of depression for a president was reported by Abraham Lincoln. Of course, that can be debated, but.

You know, the idea that your child died in the White House, you know, he had such a long amount and well-noted level of depression during his presidency. And of course, that depression was not just felt by him, but also by Mary Todd. Abraham Lincoln reportedly had gone to room in the White House and shut himself in the room and wept alone, which...

Yeah, I find that really, I really troubling because you would think that in a loss like that, you'd want to be around your loved ones. know, loss and death does some interesting things to people in their psyche. But, know, in addition to that, Mary Todd, she just absolutely fell apart. You know, she loved him so much that she remained in bed for three weeks and was unable to attend his funeral. And obviously,

Logan Mathias (20:20.11)
couldn't look after Tad and it was a very difficult, difficult time for them. And apparently he was embalmed in the green room. And what's interesting about that is that that particular room, she never entered it again. So it was just, it was just one of those things where it shook them to the core. And this all happened within the grounds of the White House. Now, having mentioned this before,

She was so distraught by this that she would hold seances in the Red Room. Now, if you don't know what a seance is, it's, and forgive me, I'm certainly not an expert, but it is a ritual performed to speak to spirits or to somewhat bridge the gap or the plane between the living and the dead. And she would do this quite a few times.

In fact, it is reported that Abraham Lincoln himself only went to two, but it was somewhat prophesied that he was going to be assassinated. So I always found that pretty interesting. But at any rate, she would have seances in the Red Room of the White House to try to speak with Willie. Now, the practices of seances was pretty big during the time of the Civil War. You know, there was so much death and so much

So much had happened to the family unit that people would try anything they could in a desperate attempt to speak to loved ones that had perished during the war. Now, Willie's ghost has been reported in the White House, but not in recent time. From my understanding, the last time, or at least the last time it's been noted that he was seen by the Grant administration in the 1870s. Now, I would imagine that if Willie's ghost

did in fact haunt the White House. It would probably be something that you would expect to see a small child or something of that nature. But, you know, there are so many encounters of different reported ghosts or feelings that any one of those could be quote unquote Willie. But, you know, for me, as far as it comes to Willie, I don't know that I believe that he's there.

Logan Mathias (22:41.228)
You know, I do believe in ghosts, but I don't know that he stayed there. I would imagine that, you he had a very fondness of his mother and he probably, if there was an attachment and there was some sort of afterlife or some sort of representation of him, whether residual or active haunting, probably would have followed Mary Todd where she went after leaving the White House. Now, I myself have not found any.

any reportings of Mary Todd, her ghost being at the at the White House. And it could be, who knows, there could be some version or some residual of Mary. But I have not heard of it or it has at least not been well documented. Now, that is certainly not the case of Abraham Lincoln. Now, since his death, or I should say since his assassination,

I mean, years and years of documented sightings by presidents, first ladies, guests, staff. I mean, there has been no shortage of the vast span of people that have witnessed his ghost. There's some great encounters that we're going to talk about, but I kind want to start off with Abraham Lincoln himself. You know, it was reported that he saw his own death. He had, I guess, a lot of

of dreams about it. He didn't sleep a lot. He didn't take any vacations. He's well known to have bags under his eyes because the man just did not rest. And apparently he saw his own death. Ward Hill Lamone, and I hope I pronounced that right. He was a close, I guess, close friend of the president. And he wrote down that Lincoln told him of an evening in early 1865 and he said,

And this is really paraphrasing. roughly about 10 days ago, he had a dream and it seemed like there was a death like stillness about me. And then he had, I guess he had heard subdued sobs of a bunch of people that were crying. And he said that he, he thought he left his bed and wandered downstairs, I should say, and arrived in the East room. And before him was, you know, I guess like a, a almost like

Logan Mathias (25:05.678)
laying in state, you you see that on TV of a bunch of people, you know, around the, around a corpse and there was guards there and, there was just a bunch of people that were mourning upon the corpse and the face was covered. So I guess apparently in his dream, Abraham Lincoln said, well, who is dead in the white house? I demand of one of the soldiers. I guess one of the soldiers replied the president and he was killed by an assassin.

So, yeah, that is that is a very, very spooky accounting by the president himself, who would later be assassinated. As I mentioned before, there is no shortage of accounts of his of his paranormal presence in the White House. So we're going to kind of go through a few of the more well known or well noted, I guess, reported claims. So kind of starting now.

If you don't know who Lyndon Baines Johnson, LBJ was, he was a president and he had a wife or, I guess, of course he had a wife, but his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, had told the press secretary that she believes she felt Lincoln's presence one time while watching a television program about his assassination. And apparently she noticed a plaque she'd never seen before hanging over the fireplace and it mentioned Lincoln's importance to that room.

And she felt a very strange coldness and a very big sense of unease. So that was one report from a First Lady just by watching a show about his assassination. Grace Coolidge, another First Lady, and she was the wife of, of Calvin Coolidge. guess apparently she was the first person to report actually seeing the ghost of Abraham Lincoln.

And her report is that he stood over a window at the Oval Office and his hands clasped behind his back, I guess, gazing out over the Potomac. And I guess she had reported as perhaps he was still seeing the bodies of the battlefields and just sort of gazing beyond. Now, it is said that that his ghost or his presence is felt...

Logan Mathias (27:26.378)
or seen quite a bit during a heavy amount of turmoil within the country. And yeah, I'm sure there are some of you that think, he must be pretty busy these days, but, you know, keeping political views and politics aside, that is sort of the report around his presence. And I guess apparently he was quite frequently at the Roosevelt White House. You know, I guess when Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands

She was a ghost at the White House during that period and she was waken one night by a knock at her bedroom door. And, you know, she had thought that this must be a really important message. So she went ahead and she got up and she opened the door and the top-headed figure of President Lincoln stood in the hallway. apparently the Queen fainted, which I'm sure it was very, very incredibly difficult to see, but

Yeah, guess apparently she knocked. She knocked right out and she was lying on the floor. And I guess the apparition had vanished. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, she claims that she had never actually seen him, but she used her or used the Lincoln bedroom as her study. And she said that she worked really late at night. She could feel his presence when she was working in it, almost like she was or he was looking over her shoulder. Now, moving on to.

What I have to consider is my favorite reported seeing or report of Lincoln's ghost. So once in Churchill, he was the prime minister of Britain. And I guess one night he was he was taking a bath and he emerged from the bathtub holding a cigar and being absolutely stark naked. He stepped out of the bathroom.

and went into the next room and saw Lincoln leaning on the fireplace mantle. So there was a brief moment and I guess apparently they looked at each other and Churchill allegedly took the moment to say, good evening, Mr. President. You seem to have me at a disadvantage. So and I guess Churchill reported that after saying that Lincoln smiled and then vanished.

Logan Mathias (29:47.808)
So that right there tells me that if you are, if you're knowledgeable at all about how, how some of the reported paranormal things work, it especially has to do with an apparition or a, a ghost, if you will, there is a residual and an intelligent haunting. And that has every characteristic of an intelligent haunting. In fact, most of, if not all, how the paranormal sightings of Abraham Lincoln have all been.

intelligent hauntings. So, you know, I'm just kind of going to wrap this up a little by saying, what do you guys think? Do you think that that all this is plausible? I mean, you got to think that that a building with so much history and then believe me, the White House is not the only one. There is the Capitol building. There's literally anything of historical significance have had events there bound to have some kind of paranormal activity or attachment to it.

But I find this one more interesting. Obviously, I'm paying homage to President's Day, which just passed, which is kind of what I got went through this. And my my writer, my wife, she kind of helped me out, put this together. And she's she's definitely the big catalyst behind it. But, know, it's one of those where, you know, it's the White House. This is seen on TV. It's it's where all these major events happen.

And I think a lot of people just take it as face value because it's on the news that, hey, you know, it's just a place where business is done. Well, yeah. And it's a place where, where federal and, and the country's business is done. Absolutely. But you got to remember people live there and have lived there for many, many, many years. and it's seen some just outrageous history in its time and people have died there. And if you believe in the supernatural and if you believe in, in the paranormal and ghost, if you will.

You would have to consider that the White House would be really at the top of the list of hauntings because of all the immense amount of activity that has happened there on the grounds, in the building. I mean, this is definitely one of those places that's got to be a hot spot. And that's a wrap on this episode of Generation X Paranormal. We want to thank you for joining us on the journey. Whether you're a believer, a skeptic, or somewhere in between, you're part of the GXP family now.

Logan Mathias (32:14.114)
This show is hosted by me, Nicole Mathias. We produce this independently with a whole lot of caffeine and an occasional EVP. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment to rate us, review us, or follow us on your favorite podcast app. And believe me guys, it helps more than you know. Visit us on gxparanormal.com. You can also follow us on the socials. Just search Generation X paranormal. Until next time, keep your feet on the ground, your eyes on the skies, and don't be afraid of the dark.

Be curious about it.