I was reading a book that I found on my bookshelf about the ghosts in the White House of in Washington, DC. 

It was written by John Alexander. And it was called ghosts. Washington revisited the ghost lore of the nation’s capital.

I tell ghost stories. And if there’s one thing everybody who tells good ghost and true ghost stories knows is that the ghosts are listening and they always want the truth. This is the story in the book sold in the White House gift shop:

George Washington never lived in the White House, though he was instrumental in choosing its location. His first presidential residence was in New York, his next one in Philadelphia.

The first family to occupy the president’s house was not unlike any other family that had to move into a new home that isn’t completed. John and Abigail Adams, Bostonians by birth, had tolerated all the Inconvenience inside, plus a wide muddy, and unpaved Pennsylvania Avenue. Abigail used to say that even though the East Room wasn’t completed, it was the driest area in the house. That’s the room in which she hung her wash. Over the years,  there have been those who have seen Mrs Adams, with her arms outstretched, as though carrying a load of laundry wandering through the East Room doors.

Over the years. Her ghost passes through the locked doors to the East Room, where she spent many hours touring her husband’s presidency. Some say that they can tell when Abigail’s ghost has been there, for it leaves behind the faint smell of soap and damp clothing.

President James Madison and his wife Dolly escaped the advancing British only by minutes. The president actually headed out of town a little before his wife, riding north toward Brookville, Maryland, where he spent the night with the Quaker family for swinging south into Virginia. Dolly had grown to love the executive mansion and its large green lawn. In the rear of the house, towards the southwest side, She had lovingly planted her own garden. As she prepared to evacuate, she could guess its fate. Legend has it that the servants and troops found her there, taking one last loving look at her well manicured garden, when they came to rush her evacuation. Mrs Madison grabbed up her Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of George Washington, and a few other White House treasurers, and was accompanied by a small detachment of troops to the Madison’s Virginia home.

While while rebuilding was going on, President and Mrs Madison resided in two locations. From September 1814 to October 1815, Colonel John Tayloe made available to the first Family his spacious townhome, known as the Octagon, on New York Avenue at 18th Street. It was just a couple of blocks away from the White House. The Octagon had not been burned because the French ministry had been using the house, and the flag of France protected it from British torches. In October 1815, until the end of his term in March of 1817, the Madisons resided in a townhome at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 19th Street. In New York City. It was still close enough. So that all during the rebuilding of the Executive Mansion, Mrs Madison could keep her eyes on everything, including the restoration of her garden, which she intended as her legacy to future first ladies.

Almost exactly 100 years later, the second Mrs Woodrow Wilson, Edith, ordered gardeners to move Dolly Manson’s garden. Dolly’s ghost, supposedly always on the alert that some upstart first lady might try such a bold move, swoop down in all her 19th century magnificence and frightened off the gardeners by flouncing up to them with arms waving and tongue and the tongue lashing.

Storytellers say that in order to soothe Mrs Madison’s spirit, hundreds of roses were planted in the garden and it was kept just where Dolly Payne Madison wanted it.

If you know anything about history, you know that Dolly Madison never did one piece of laundry. There was a whole staff of washerwomen with that job. So if there is a ghost carrying laundry in the White House East room, it sure’s shoot isn’t Abigail Adams.

The first 12 presedents to live in the whitehouse owned slaves. Excluding John Adams and John Quincy Adams (father and son) never owning slaves. Those are the people who did the laundry and the rest of the work. This fun little ghost story lead me to find the book written by Paul Jenning in 1865 and man born and raised a slave. This is the first memior of a White House Sevant. He wasn’t the slave of the Adam’s family, rather that of James Madison the 4th president. If there is a ghost in the White I suspect Paul Jennings.

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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Colored Man’s reminiscences of James Madison by Paul Jennings

BROOKLYN :GEORGE C. BEADLE   1865.

Among the laborers at the Department of the Interior is an intelligent colored man, Paul Jennings, who was born a slave on President Madison’s estate, in Montpelier, Va., in 1799. His reputed father was Benj. Jennings, an English trader there; his mother, a slave of Mr. Madison, and the granddaughter of an Indian. Paul was a “body servant” of Mr. Madison, till his death, and afterwards of Daniel Webster, having purchased his freedom of Mrs. Madison. His character for sobriety, truth, and fidelity, is unquestioned; and as he was a daily witness of interesting events, I have thought some of his recollections were worth writing down in almost his own language.

On the 10th of January, 1865, at a curious sale I of books, coins and autographs belonging to Edward M. Thomas, a colored man, for many years Messenger to the House of Representatives, was sold, among other curious lots, an autograph of Daniel Webster, containing these words: “I have paid $120 for the freedom of Paul Jennings ; he agrees to work out the same at $8 per month, to be furnished with board, clothes, washing,” &c.

J. B. E.

 

REMINISCENCES OF MADISON.

About ten years before Mr. Madison was President, he and Colonel Monroe were rival candidates for the Legislature. Mr. Madison was anxious to be elected, and sent his chariot to bring up a Scotchman to the polls, who lived in the neighborhood. But when brought up, he cried out : a Put me down for Colonel Monroe, for he was the first man that took me by the hand in this country.” Colonel Monroe was elected, and his friends joked Mr. Madison pretty hard about his Scotch friend, and I have heard Mr. Madison and Colonel Monroe have many a hearty laugh over the subject, for years after.

When Mr. Madison was chosen President,

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we came on and moved into the White House ; the east room was not finished, and Pennsylvania Avenue was not paved, but was always in an awful condition from either mud or dust. The city was a dreary place.

Mr. Robert Smith was then Secretary of State, but as he and Mr. Madison could not agree, he was removed, and Colonel Monroe appointed to his place. Dr. Eustis was Secretary of War — rather a rough, blustering man ; Mr. Gallatin, a tip-top man, was Secretary of the Treasury; and Mr. Hamilton, of South Carolina, a pleasant gentleman, who thought Mr. Madison could do nothing wrong, and who always concurred in every thing he said, was Secretary of the Navy.

Before the war of 1812 was declared, there were frequent consultations at the White House as to the expediency of doing it. Colonel Monroe was always fierce for it, so were Messrs. Lowndes, Giles, Poydrass, and Pope — all Southerners; all his Secretaries were likewise in favor of it. Soon after war was declared, Mr. Madison made his regular summer visit to his farm in Virginia. We had not been there long before an express reached us one evening, informing Mr. M. of Gen. Hull’s surrender. He was astounded at the news, and started back to Washington the next morning.

After the war had been going on for a couple of years, the people of Washington began to be alarmed for the safety of the city, as the British held Chesapeake Bay with a powerful fleet and army. Every thing seemed to be left to General Armstrong, then Secretary of war, who ridiculed the idea that there was any danger. But, in August, 1814, the enemy had got so near, there could be no doubt of their intentions. Great alarm existed, and some feeble preparations for defence were made. Com. Barney’s flotilla was stripped of men, who were placed in battery, at Bladensburg, where they fought splendidly. A large part of his men were tall, strapping negroes, mixed with white sailors and marines. Mr. Madison reviewed them just before the fight, and asked Com. Barney if his ” negroes would not run on the approach of the British ?” u No sir,” said Barney, ” they don’t know how to run ; they will die by their guns first.” They fought till a large part of them were killed or wounded ; and Barney himself wounded and taken prisoner. One or two of these negroes are still living here.

Well, on the 24th of August, sure enough, the British reached Bladensburg, and the fight began between 11 and 12. Even that very morning General Armstrong assured Mrs. Madison there was no danger. The President, with General Armstrong, General Winder, Colonel Monroe, Richard Rush, Mr. Graham, Tench Ringgold, and Mr. Duvall, rode out on horseback to Bladensburg to see how things looked. Mrs. Madison ordered dinner to be ready at 3, as usual ; I set the table myself, and brought up the ale, cider, and wine, and placed them in the coolers, as all the Cabinet and several military gentlemen and strangers were expected. While waiting, at just about 3, as Sukey, the house-servant, was lolling out of a chamber window, James Smith, a free colored man who had accompanied Mr. Madison to Bladensburg, gallopped up to the house, waving his hat,

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and cried out, “Clear out, clear out ! General Armstrong has ordered a retreat !” All then was confusion. Mrs. Madison ordered her carriage, and passing through the dining-room, caught up what silver she could crowd into her old-fashioned reticule, and then jumped into the chariot with her servant girl Sukey, and Daniel Carroll, who took charge of them; Jo. Bolin drove them over to Georgetown Heights ; the British were expected in a few minutes Mr. Cutts, her brother-in-law, sent me to a stable on 14th street, for his carriage. People were running in every direction. John Freeman (the colored butler) drove off in the coachee with his wife, child, and servant; also a feather bed lashed on behind the coachee, which was all the furniture saved, except part of the silver and the portrait of Washington (of which I will tell you by-and-by) .

I will here mention that although the British were expected every minute, they did not arrive for some hours ; in the mean time, a rabble, taking 2

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advantage of the confusion, ran all over the White House, and stole lots of silver and whatever they could lay their hands on.

About sundown I walked over to the Georgetown ferry, and found the President and all hands (the gentlemen named before, who acted as a sort of body-guard for him) waiting for the boat. It soon returned, and we all crossed over, and passed up the road about a mile ; they then left us servants to wander about. In a short time several wagons from Bladensburg, drawn by Barney’s artillery horses, passed up the road, having crossed the Long Bridge before it was set on fire. As we were cutting up some pranks a white wagoner ordered us away, and told his boy Tommy to reach out his gun, and he would shoot us. I told him ” he had better have used it at Bladensburg.” Just then we came up with Mr. Madison and his friends, who had been wandering about for some hours, consulting what to do. I walked on to a Methodist minister’s, and in the evening, while he was at prayer, I heard a tremendous explosion, and, rushing out, saw that the public buildings, navy yard, ropewalks, &c, were on fire.

Mrs. Madison slept that night at Mrs. Love’s, two or three miles over the river. After leaving that place she called in at a house, and went up stairs. The lady of the house learning who she was, became furious, and went to the stairs and screamed out, ” Miss Madison ! if that’s you, come down and go out! Your husband has got mine out fighting, and d — you, you shan’t stay in my house ; so get out !” Mrs. Madison complied, and went to Mrs. Minor’s, a few miles further, where she stayed a day or two, and then returned to Washington, where she found Mr. Madison at her brother-in-law’s, Richard Cutts, on F street. All the facts about Mrs. M. I learned from her servant Sukey. We moved into the house of Colonel John B. Taylor, corner of 18th street and New York Avenue, where we lived till the news of peace arrived.

In two or three weeks after we returned, Con-

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gress met in extra session, at Blodgett’s old shell of a house on 7th street (where the General Postoffice now stands) . It was three stories high, and had been used for a theatre, a tavern, an Irish boarding house, &c; but both Houses of Congress managed to get along in it very well, notwith standing it had to accommodate the Patent-office, City and General Post-office, committee-rooms, and what was left of the Congressional Library, at the same time. Things are very different now.

The next summer, Mr. John Law, a large property-holder about the Capitol, fearing it would not be rebuilt, got up a subscription and built a large brick building (now called the Old Capitol, where the secesh prisoners are confined), and offered it to Congress for their use, till the Capitol could be rebuilt. This coaxed them back, though strong efforts were made to remove the seat of government north ; but the southern members kept it here.

It has often been stated in print, that when Mrs. Madison escaped from the White House,

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she cut out from the frame the large portrait of Washington (now in one of the parlors there), and carried it off. This is totally false.

She had no time for doing it. It would have required a ladder to get it down. All she carried off was the silver in her reticule, as the British were thought to be but a few squares off, and were expected every moment. John Suse (a Frenchman, then door-keeper, and still living) and Magraw, the President’s gardener, took it down and sent it off on a wagon, with some large silver urns and such other valuables as could be hastily got hold of. When the British did arrive, they ate up the very dinner, and drank the wines, &c, that I had prepared for the President’s party. When the news of peace arrived, we were crazy with joy. Miss Sally Coles, a cousin of Mrs. Madison, and afterwards wife of Andrew Stevenson, since minister to England, came to the head of the stairs, crying out, ” Peace ! peace !”

and told John Freeman (the butler) to serve out wine liberally to the servants and others. I played

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the President’s March on the violin, John Suse” and some others were drunk for two days, and such another joyful time was never seen in Washington. Mr. Madison and all his Cabinet were as pleased as any,

but did not show their joy in this manner.

Mrs. Madison was a remarkably fine woman. She was beloved by every body in “Washington, white and colored. Whenever soldiers marched by, during the war, she always sent out and invited them in to take wine and ref

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reshments, giving them liberally of the best in the house. Madeira wine was better in those davs than now, and more freely drank. In the ‘ last days of her life, before Congress purchased her husband’s papers, she was in a state of absolute poverty, and I think sometimes suffered for the necessaries of life. While I was a servant to Mr. Webster, he often sent me to her with a market-basket full of provisions, and told me whenever I saw anything in the house that I thought she was in need of, to take it to her. I often did this, and occa-

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sionally gave her small sums from my own pocket, though I had years before bought my freedom of her.

|Mr. Madison, I think, was one of the best men that ever lived. I never saw him in a passion, and never knew him to strike a slave, although he had over one hundred; neither would he allow an overseer to do it. Whenever any slaves were reported to him as stealing or “cutting up” badly, he would send for them and admonish them privately, and never mortify them by doing it before others. They generally served him very faithfully. He was temperate in his habits. I don’t think he drank a quart of brandy in his whole life. He ate light breakfasts and no suppers, but rather a hearty dinner, with which he took invariably but one glass of wine. When he had hard drinkers at his table, who had put away his choice Madeira pretty freely, in response to their numerous toasts, he would just touch the glass to his lips, or dilute it with water, as they pushed

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about the decanters. For the last fifteen years of his life he drank no wine at all.

After he retired from the presidency, he amused himself chiefly on his farm. At the election for members of the Virginia Legislature, in 1829 or ’30, just after General Jackson’s accession, he voted for James Barbour, who had been a strong Adams man. He also presided, I think, over the Convention for amending the Constitution, in 1832.

After the news of peace, and of General Jackson’s victory at New Orleans, which reached here about the same time, there were great illuminations. We moved into the Seven Buildings, Gorner of 1 9th-street and Pennsylvania Avenue, and while there, General Jackson came on with his wife, to whom numerous dinner-parties and levees were given. Mr. Madison also held levees every Wednesday evening, at which wine, punch, coffee, ice-cream, &c, were liberally served,

unlike the present custom.

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While Mr. Jefferson was President, he and Mr. Madison (then his Secretary of State) were extremely intimate ; in fact, two brothers could not have been more so. Mr. Jefferson always stopped over night at Mr. Madison’s, in going and returning from “Washington.

I have heard Mr. Madison say, that when he went to school, he cut his own wood for exercise. He often did it also when at his farm in Virginia. He was very neat, but never extravagant, in his clothes. He always dressed wholly in black — • coat, breeches, and silk stockings, with buckles in his shoes and breeches. He never had but one suit at a time. He had some poor relatives that he had to help, and wished to set them an example of economy in the matter of dress. He was very fond of horses, and an excellent -judge of them, and no jockey ever cheated him. He never had less than seven horses in his Washington stables while President.

He often told the story, that one day riding home from court with old Tom Barbour (father of Governor Barbour), they met a colored man, who

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took off his hat. Mr. M. raised his, to the surprise of old Tom; to whom Mr. M. replied, “I never allow a negro to excel me in politeness.” Though a similar story is told of General Washington, I have often heard this, as above, from from Mr. Madison’s own lips.

After Mr. Madison retired from the presidency, in 1817, he invariably made a visit twice a year to Mr. Jefferson — sometimes stopping two or three weeks — till Mr. Jefferson’s death, in 1826.

I was always with Mr. Madison till he died, and shaved him every other day for sixteen years. For six months before his death, he was unable to walk, and spent most of his time reclined on a couch; but his mind was bright, and with his numerous visitors he talked with as much animation and strength of voice as I ever heard him in his best days. I was present when he died. That morning Sukey brought him his breakfast, as usual. He could not swallow. His niece, Mrs. “Willis, said, “What is the matter, Uncle Jeames?” ” Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear.”

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His head instantly dropped, and he ceased breathing as quietly as the snuff of a candle goes out. He was about eighty-four years old, and was followed to the grave by an immense procession of white and colored people. The pall-bearers were Governor Barbour, Philip P. Barbour, Charles P. Howard, and Reuben Conway ; the two last were neighboring farmers.