Things That Go Bump at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Part Two: Shadows of the West Wing| The Strange History Podcast

0:00 Speaker 1: Welcome back, dear listeners, to part two of our White House Haunting series. Last time we met the presidential phantoms, Lincoln, Abigail Dolly, and the rest of the elite Afterlife Club. But tonight we're stepping into the other side of the mansion's history. The forgotten corners, the attic, the garden, the places the Secret Service doesn't list on the tour. Here's the truth. The White House isn't just haunted by the famous. It's haunted by the forgotten, the ones who died too quickly, were erased from memory, or simply refused to give up their view of the Rose Garden.

0:37 Speaker 1: So settle in light another founding Fragrance's candle. This one's called Oath of Office and Ominous Drafts. Because tonight, dear listeners, the halls are busier than you think.

0:50 Speaker 2: The shortest stay William Henry Harrison.

0:54 Speaker 1: In eighteen forty one, William Henry Harrison moved into the White House full of enthusiasm and without a coat. He gave the longest inaugural address in US history, standing in cold March rain for nearly two hours. A month later, he was dead of pneumonia. The shortest presidency in American history, just thirty one days, and yet, according to more than a century of reports, he never left. White House. Staff say the attic above the second floor sometimes echoes with slow, deliberate footsteps. One nineteen forties usher claimed he heard drawers open and shut when no one was there.

1:33 Speaker 1: Another said he felt someone breathing behind him as he inventoried old furniture, but when he turned there was only dust, motes and cold air. Even modern maintenance crews have commented on a man walking up there no pranksters, no intruders, just a lonely sound of someone searching through trunks, perhaps still unpacking for a presidency that never began. Harrison's ghost is less of a fright and more of a sigh, a reminder that sometimes the briefest stories echo the loudest. He didn't get to make history, so he made the guest list instead.

2:09 Speaker 2: The land's original owner, David Burns.

2:13 Speaker 1: Before there was a White House, there was farmland, And before there was farmland, there was David Burns, the stubborn Scottish farmer who owned the land that George Washington wanted for his new capital city. Burns didn't go quietly. He refused to sell, at first, earning himself the nickname the obstinate Mister Burns. Eventually, after some heated negotiations and a bit of presidential persuasion, he relented, but perhaps not happily. For over a century, guards and staff have reported hearing a gruff male voice in the Yellow Oval Room or near the South portico, muttering about my land or what they've done to it.

2:54 Speaker 1: In nineteen oh three, a night watchman swore he saw an older man in eighteenth century close, pacing and gesturing towards the city beyond the gates. When the watchman approached, the man vanished, leaving behind only the faint smell of pipe smoke. Some ghosts cling to people, others cling to property lines, and honestly, in DC, that's probably the most relatable haunting of all.

3:20 Speaker 2: The daughter who kept knocking, Anna Surrett.

3:24 Speaker 1: Few stories in American history are as tragic as Anna Surret's. Her mother, Mary Surrett, owned the boarding house where John Wilkes Booth and his conspirators plotted Lincoln's assassination. When the government rounded them up, Mary was convicted and sentenced to hang. Desperate to save her, Anna spent the night before the execution, pounding on the White House doors, begging President Andrew Johnson for clemency. The guards refused to wake him. The next morning, Mary Surrat was hanged, the first woman ever executed by the US government.

3:59 Speaker 1: Years later, guards began hearing frantic knocking on the North Portico doors, especially in the humid summer months when the air felt heavy with memory. Some claimed they heard a woman's voice crying, let me in. Others described the doorknobs rattling violently, as if someone were still outside, still begging. There's something heartbreakingly human about Anna's haunting. She's not a wandering spirit. She's a memory that refuses to fade. If you ever stand before the North Portico late at night and hear a faint tapping, you might be listening to history still trying to rewrite itself.

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5:01 Speaker 2: The Unfinished War, The British soldier in eighteen fourteen.

5:06 Speaker 1: During the War of eighteen twelve, British troops marched into Washington and set fire to nearly every public building, including the White House. Legend says that one of those soldiers never left. Guards have reported seeing a shadowy figure in a red coat patrolling the north lawn, musket on shoulder, face obscured. Some call him the smoking Man because witnesses often see a faint wisp of smoke drifting up from where his pipe glows in the dark. In nineteen fifty three, a Marine sentry on duty swore he saw the figure cross the lawn, salute and vanish.

5:43 Speaker 1: Another decades later chased what he thought was an intruder, only to find the footprints ended abruptly in soft grass. Maybe he's a soldier still on guard duty, protecting the place he once destroyed. Or maybe he's just very, very lost, like a Britage tourists trying to find the nearest pub. Either way, I hope someone's told him the war's over.

6:05 Speaker 2: The Romantic Return, John Tyler.

6:09 Speaker 1: The Blue Room of the White House is one of the most elegant chambers, the sight of receptions, holiday photos, and one ghostly love story. President John Tyler, widowed during his term, became the first president to marry while in office. He proposed to his young bride, Julia Gardner, right in the Blue Room in eighteen forty four. Long after his death, Musicians performing during holiday events reported feeling a tap on the shoulder and no one there. One clarinetist said he felt a cold hand push his elbow just as he played a wrong note, as though someone disapproved of his tune.

6:46 Speaker 1: During Christmas tours, visitors have described a sudden hush falling over the Blue Room, as if a private moment is being replayed in time. If the White House can be a battlefield, it can also be a ballroom. And if anyone deserves a lingering encore, it's a president who found love again in the middle of his presidency. The original Oval Office rom com.

7:09 Speaker 3: This episode is sponsored by Seance Safe tablecloths, stain resistant, candle friendly and guaranteed not to burst into flames during contact with the spirit realm. Sayance safe, because when you're raising the dead, presentation matters.

7:25 Speaker 2: The thing in the White House.

7:28 Speaker 1: Now, dear listeners, we come to perhaps the strangest haunting in the entire White House the thing. Between nineteen eleven and nineteen twelve, staff members began reporting something unseen, a presence that would press lightly on their shoulders, as if someone tall were peering over them. They described a feeling of cold curiosity, and then nothing. Soon rumors spread, maids refused to go into certain rooms alone, Butler's claimed to see a boy with messy hair and sad blue eyes darting through the halls.

8:03 Speaker 1: One maid, Florence Marsh, swore she saw him standing by the staircase one morning, pale, silent, watching her, before vanishing. When President William Howard Taft caught wind of the hysteria, he ordered everyone to stop talking about it. No ghosts in my administration, he said, firmly, But privately, he reportedly told his military aid to find out what in the devil they're seeing. No answer, ever, came. After nineteen twelve, the sighting stopped, but even now staff occasionally mention a strange sense of being watched in the West Wing corridors late at night, a feeling that something is almost there.

8:45 Speaker 2: What was it?

8:46 Speaker 1: A trick of light, collective imagination, the ghost of Willie Lincoln playing hide and seek? Or maybe and this is my favorite theory. The thing is the White House itself a living, breathing memory of power and consequence, because after two centuries of triumph, tragedy, and laundry, maybe the House doesn't just remember. Maybe it observes every era leaves a fingerprint on that building, every choice, every laugh, every secret. The White House isn't haunted because it's old. It's haunted because it's alive with history.

9:22 Speaker 1: And that history has a way of walking the halls when the lights go out. So next time you see a shadow move in a photo from the Lincoln Bedroom, or you hear music in an empty hall, or you get the sudden urge to knock on a locked door, remember you're in good company. Presidents, first, ladies, soldiers, children, They all left something behind. I'm Amy and this has been the Strange History podcast Things that Go Bump at sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue. If you enjoyed our little ghost tour, subscribe, leave a review, and maybe send a candle to the Lincoln bedroom.

9:58 Speaker 1: He's been working late for one hundred and sixty years. Good Night, dear listeners, and if you ever get invited to stay overnight at the White House, keep your slippers by the bed. You never know who'll be walking past your door.