Ghostly Tales from the White House: A Washington DC Tour

Presidents may come and go, or so you thought. On this walking tour, I’ll share stories about America’s former leaders who’ve outstayed their welcome and linger in the shadows of the White House.

Starting outside St John's Episcopal Church, you’ll walk around Lafayette Square, tracing the perimeter of the White House South Lawn and through the Ellipse to the National Theatre DC. Along the way, You’ll hear how President Abraham Lincoln was once seen by a naked Winston Churchill and made a queen faint. I’ll show you where around the mansion and nearby park other presidents and First Ladies like William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Thomas Jefferson, Abigail Adams and Dolley Madison have been spotted.

While walking along the outside of the White House, you’ll have the opportunity to:

• Wave hello to Clover Adams who haunts the Hay-Adams Hotel
• Spot the windows on DeCatur house that have been boarded up after passerbyers grew tired of seeing his ghost watching them while holding pistols
• Find out about the two ghostly assassins, Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo, who’ve been seen Blair house
• Watch as a phantom murder victim chases his limping tormentor around Lafayette Square
• Pass by the second most haunted house in Washington, the Octagon Museum
• Walk down Rum Row where presidents and press drank together during the Prohibition Era
• Stop by the Willard Hotel where First Lady Jane Pierce spent a month while mourning the death of her 11-year-old son

On this 60-minute tour, you’ll also hear about:

• Tales of seances by First Lady, Mary Lincoln
• Loud laughter reportedly coming from President Andrew Jackson
• Pet ghosts nibbling on the Obamas feet
• A First Daughter talking to ghostly First Son, Willie Lincoln
• The original White House landowner introducing himself
• Six ghostly visitors appearing in a church when the bell tolls
• First Lady, Dolley Madison, rocking on a porch

Join award-winning Washington journalist and tour guide Rick Snider, who has walked the streets since the 1960s as a sixth-generation Washingtonian to discover if President Harry Truman was correct when he told his secret service, “the damned place is haunted sure as shootin’!”