page_title: Reportedly haunted locations in the District of Columbia
section_title: President's Park and nearby buildings
hierarchical_section_title: Reportedly haunted locations in the District of Columbia / White House and President's Park / President's Park and nearby buildings
caption_attribution_description: English: President's Pew at St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., looking south.
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: President's Park, better known as Lafayette Square, may have its own spectral resident. Philip Barton Key II was the son of Francis Scott Key and the nephew of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. In the spring of 1858, Key began having an affair with Teresa Bagioli Sickles, the wife of his friend Daniel Sickles. On February 26, 1859, Sickles learned of the affair. The following day, he saw Key in Lafayette Square signalling to his wife. Sickles rushed out into the park, drew a pistol, and shot the unarmed Key three times while the other man pleaded for his life. Key was taken into the nearby Benjamin Ogle Tayloe House and died moments later. Key's spirit, eyewitnesses and authors claim, now haunts Lafayette Square and can be seen on dark nights near the spot where he was shot.
  Decatur House (748 Jackson Place NW) is allegedly haunted by the ghost of Stephen Decatur. In 1820, Commodore James Barron challenged Commodore Decatur to a duel over comments Decatur had made regarding Barron's conduct in the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair of 1807. The two men duelled on March 20, and Decatur was mortally wounded in the stomach. Decatur was rushed back to his home, and died there on March 22. A year after Decatur's death, his ghost reportedly began appearing at the house—standing in a second floor window looking out at H Street NW or leaving the back door of the house with a box of dueling pistols. So many witnesses saw the specter of Decatur that the window was walled up. Some people have also claimed that they can hear his widow, who became hysterical at his death, weeping in the house.
  St. John's Episcopal Church (1525 H Street NW), built in 1816, is the second-oldest structure on the President's Park. The church has a tradition of a "President's pew," which is reserved for the use of the President of the United States. The church's bell was purchased from the Revere Company of Boston (founded by Joseph Warren Revere, son of Paul Revere) and installed on November 30, 1822 (where it remains as of 2009). According to at least two accounts, whenever the bell tolls because of the death of a notable person, six ghostly men in white robes appear in the President's pew at midnight and then vanish.
  The Cutts-Madison House (721 Madison Place NW), also known as the Dolley Madison House, was constructed in 1822 by Richard Cutts, brother-in-law of First Lady Dolley Madison. After ex-President James Madison died in 1836, Dolley Madison took up residency in the house and lived there until her death in 1849. Rear Admiral Charles Wilkes purchased the home in 1851. Wilkes moved the entrance from Madison Place NW to H Street NW, and turned the porch on the west side of the house (facing Madison Place NW) into a window. Witnesses from the mid-19th century onward have claimed to have seen the ghost of Dolley Madison rocking in a chair in the space where the porch used to be, smiling at passersby.
caption: President's pew of St. John's Episcopal Church
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