page_title: Reportedly haunted locations in the District of Columbia
section_title: The Capitol
hierarchical_section_title: Reportedly haunted locations in the District of Columbia / Capitol Hill / The Capitol
caption_attribution_description: English: The National Statuary Hall inside the United States Capitol
context_page_description: There are a number of reportedly haunted locations in Washington, D.C. Founded on July 16, 1790, the city is the capital of the United States. Washington, D.C., has been the site of military battles, deadly duels, assassinations, untimely deaths, and associated tragedies.
  Washington's haunted history is so well known that some of its haunted locations were featured in a 2006 documentary, America's Haunted Houses, on the A&E cable network. Novelist Dan Brown mentioned them prominently in his 2009 novel, The Lost Symbol. Notable purportedly haunted locations include the United States Capitol, Capitol Hill, the White House, Lafayette Square and nearby buildings, Independence Avenue SW, The Octagon House, Chinatown, the National Theatre, Hay–Adams Hotel, Woodrow Wilson House, Omni Shoreham Hotel, and many others.
  The United States Capitol is reputedly haunted by many past representatives of the United States House of Representatives and government officials, officers who served during the American Revolutionary War, workers who died during its construction and a "demon black cat" that is said to make appearances just before national tragedies or changes in Presidential administration.
context_section_description: The United States Capitol is considered one of the most haunted buildings in Washington. The first apparition to be seen there was in the 1860s as the Capitol was being completed. Several spirits are said to haunt the Capitol due to tragedies associated with its construction. One such ghost is said to be that of a worker who died after a fall during the construction of the rotunda, and who now is occasionally seen floating beneath the dome carrying a tray of woodworking tools. Another spirit is allegedly a stonemason who died (crushed to death beneath a wall which collapsed, or murdered by a co-worker) and is seen in the Old Senate chambers or passing through a wall in the basement beneath the Senate.
  Many politicians with strong personalities and a powerful attachment to the institution of Congress are reputed still to roam the halls of Congress long after their deaths. The shades of Representative Joseph Cannon (R-Ill. and Speaker from 1903 to 1911) and Rep. Champ Clark (D-Mo. and Speaker from 1911 to 1919) are claimed to occasionally return to the dark chamber of the House of Representatives after midnight and, after a loud rap from a gavel, resume the strong, angry debates they once had in life. Members of the United States Capitol Police have claimed to have seen Senator (and from 1852 to 1854, Representative) Thomas Hart Benton sitting at a desk in National Statuary Hall, although it has not been used as a legislative chamber since 1857. Steve Livengood, chief tour guide for the United States Capitol Historical Society, says he has seen the ghost of former Representative Wilbur Mills (D-Ark.) near Mills' former office late at night. Pierre Charles L'Enfant, although not a politician, was a brevet Major during the American Revolutionary War who served with George Washington at Valley Forge. In 1791, L'Enfant was appointed architect and planner of the new city of Washington in the District of Columbia. Although L'Enfant submitted grandiose plans for the new capital city, his plans were never fully adopted and President Washington dismissed him. L'Enfant spent much of the rest of his life attempting to wrest a monetary payment from Congress, and he died in poverty in 1825. Eyewitnesses, however, claim to have seen his spirit walking through the Capitol, head down, murmuring to himself, with the plans for the capital city tucked under his arm.
  The Capitol has also been witness to murder and death. Rep. William P. Taulbee had been a congressman from Kentucky from 1884 to 1888. Charles E. Kincaid, a journalist for The Louisville Times, had accused Taulbee of adultery and involvement in a Patent Office scandal, which had ruined Taulbee's political career. On February 28, 1890, the ex-congressman and the reporter ran into one another in the Capitol, and Taulbee assaulted and embarrassed Kincaid by tweaking the much smaller man's nose. Kincaid ran home, grabbed a pistol, and, when he encountered Taulbee on a marble staircase leading from the House chamber down to the dining room, shot him in the face just below Taulbee's left eye. Taulbee died two weeks later, and Kincaid was acquitted after claiming self-defense. Journalists and others claim that whenever a reporter slips on these steps, Taulbee's ghost briefly appears. Former President and then-Rep. John Quincy Adams suffered a stroke at his desk in the House chamber on February 21, 1848, and was taken into the Speaker's Room. His physical condition was too precarious to permit him to be moved, and he died at the Capitol two days later. Many people claim to have heard Adams' ghost denouncing slavery late at night in National Statuary Hall, and one Congressional staff member claims that by standing in the spot where Adams' desk once stood a person can still hear the former president's ghostly whisper. James A. Garfield was a member of the House from 1863 to 1881 before assuming the Presidency in March 1881. Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau, a disgruntled office seeker, on July 2, 1881, at 9:30 a.m. as he walked through the Sixth Street Station of the Baltimore and P
caption: National Statuary Hall, said to be haunted by a number of former members of Congress
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