Throughout the years, certain historians and other writers have alluded to President Abraham Lincoln’s personal premonitions and encounters with the paranormal.

Seances

First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln began attending séances at the homes of friends after the 1862 death of her son Willie in the White House. Her husband attended some of these séances.

Spiritualist Nettie Colburn Maynard claimed to have conducted a séance in the White House’s Red Room. In his book “Lincoln in American Memory”, Merrill D. Peterson examined urban myths around Abraham Lincoln, including Nettie Colburn Maynard’s claim that the President had composed The Emancipation Proclamation under the guidance of spirits. Maynard also said that she had seen the levitation of a piano bench that the President was sitting on.

Lincoln’s Premonitions

Only three months after Lincoln’s death, one of the first articles about his premonitions of assassination appeared in “Harper’s Magazine.” According to the article, he had told writer Noah Brooks that he saw a fading double image of himself in a mirror. 

According to members of his cabinet, only months before his death, he had told them of a dream of sailing on a “mysterious boat” to “a dark and indefinite shore.”

The First Lady’s “Insanity”

As for the First Lady, both the death of her son and the assassination of her husband had sent her into spirals of depression. Her eccentric behavior included walking around the streets of Chicago with $56,000 worth of government bonds sewn into her petticoats. She told her physician that an “Indian spirit” was removing bones from her face and were pulling wires out of her eyes. Along with prior eccentric behavior, such as the séances, her son Robert had himself declared her executor and began managing her affairs. In 1875, he had her committed to an insane asylum in Batavia, Illinois. Due to political pressure, she was released after three months. To her dying day, she never forgave her oldest son for betraying her. She believed that he was after her money.

Lincoln’s White House Ghost

According to former White House Chief Usher Gary Walters, Mrs. Lincoln had once heard the ghost of President Andrew Jackson roaming the hallway and shouting a streak of obscenities. Also according to Walters, White House employee Tony Savoy, among others, have claimed to have seen President Lincoln’s ghost.