America’s First President Beyond the Grave
To hear some sources, George Washington wasn’t done even after he shuffled off the mortal coil. His home, Mount Vernon, has been the site of numerous ghost stories. The best ones involve the ghost of the great man himself. One such is attributed to members of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, America’s first national historic preservation organization, and the country’s first women’s patriotic society. The MVLA raised money to purchase a dilapidated Mount Vernon in the nineteenth century, in order to restore and preserve it for posterity. In the early years, when members were in the area, they slept in the mansion, sometimes in the four poster bed in which Washington died.
Many who slept in Washington’s bed were adamant that they felt the presence of his ghost, often described as “a strange and brooding spectre“. On one occasion, as two MVLA members shared Washington’s bed one night, they saw a figure as their bedside candle went out with a noise. Alarmed, one of them told her friend: “You are on the side of the bed where Washington died!” Her friend replied: “No, I’m not. He died on your side!” That killed their sleep that night. Both got up, dressed, and sat around wide awake until sunrise, terrified by every squeak. As an 1890 newspaper article put it: “They all agree that Washington visits his chamber in the still watches of the night“.
