And the woman it touched.
Is the White House haunted?
According to several people who lived and worked there—including presidents and their family members—the answer is yes. And whatever the scientific explanation (or lack thereof) behind that answer, their belief that it’s haunted is a part of history and culture that I consider fascinating and worthy of exploration.
Of all the ghost stories set in the White House, perhaps the best-documented haunting happened from late 1910 through the summer of 1911, during the presidency of William Howard Taft. The servants there were terrified of a ghost—an entity they referred to as “The Thing.” The Thing was not usually seen. Or heard. What made it so unusual for a ghost is that it was felt.
In fact, only one person ever claimed to see it. Until now, she has only been identified as Mrs. Taft’s maid “Marsh.” I’m excited to report that I’ve uncovered some never-before-shared details about Miss Marsh’s identity, and her story.
I shared these details with Brandon Schexnayder in an episode of his excellent podcast Southern Gothic we produced together. You can listen here:
Butt and Marsh
Everything we know about “The Thing” comes from a single primary source written in July of 1911— a letter written by Major Archibald Willingham Butt to his sister-in-law, Clara. A letter that begins:
“My dear Clara, it seems that the White House is haunted.”
Archie Butt, as he was known, was a military aide to both President Theodore Roosevelt and President Taft. He was born in Augusta, Georgia, and worked for years as a journalist before embarking on a military career that landed him in the White House. One newspaper called Butt “the soul of things” in the White House, and in 1911 he was essentially Taft’s chief of staff. Everything that happened in Taft’s White House went through Archie Butt.
William Howard Taft and Archibald Butt
It was in July of 1911, in the midst of a deadly record-breaking heat wave sweeping the east coast, that Archie Butt first learned of The Thing from head housekeeper Elizabeth Jaffray. Butt described Jaffray as “a spooky little person herself.” She may have needed to assert some spookiness, as the first female housekeeper in charge of the White House, a role previously filled by a male steward.
When Jaffray shared her knowledge of The Thing with Butt, she said it had been “felt more often than he has been seen.” In Butt’s letter he recounted Jaffray’s description:
“It was this manifestation of The Thing which has caused such fright among the servants. They say that the first knowledge one has of the presence of the Thing is a slight pressure on the shoulder, as if someone were leaning over your shoulder to see what you might be doing. Several of those who live upstairs say they have felt this pressure, but when they turn around there is nothing to be seen.”
The one person to have actually seen the Thing was the “lady’s maid” of first lady Helen Taft: 33-year-old Florence I. Marsh, who had come to the United States from England when she was 21. A lady’s maid in America, Michelle Harper writes in the Readex Blog, had special privileges, reported directly to the lady of the house, and was “part seamstress, masseuse, hairdresser, beautician and secretary.” When Mrs. Taft had a stroke in 1909 and had to relearn how to speak over the next year, Marsh’s duties became even more involved.
Before working for the First Lady, Florence Marsh served as the lady’s maid to one of the most formidable women in Washington—Bamie Roosevelt Cowles, the sister of Theodore Roosevelt. Bamie was so influential in Washington politics and her brother spent so much time consulting with her and doing business at her home that it was called the “Little White House.” Theodore’s daughter Alice once said that if Bamie had been a man, she would be president.
Years of working in both the White House and the Little White House would have prepared Florence Marsh for anything. Except The Thing.
One winter evening Florence Marsh was found in a dead faint. Butt related the story as he heard it:
“When she came to she showed such fright that it was necessary to give her something to quiet her down before she could discuss the cause of her fainting at all. She had not heard the ghost stories which were known among some of the older servants, or so she said, and therefore her experience is not doubted by the rest. It coincided exactly with experiences which others have been said to have had from time to time – except that she not only felt the pressure on the shoulder, but saw the figure.”
Florence had described what she saw to Mrs. Jaffrey. The figure, she said, was “that of a young boy with light hair, not well combed, and with sad blue eyes.” Based on the description, Archie Butt guessed that the boy might have been around 15 years old.
Archie knew he had to tell the President what was going on, but he wasn’t sure what kind of reaction the temperamental Taft might have. When Archie related all he knew, Taft was livid. He wanted all talk of ghosts in the White House to stop immediately, and he threatened to fire any servants who spoke a word about it. His greatest fear was that this story would leak to the press who would have a field day with the story. Taft also didn’t want this story to reach Mrs. Taft, who had said on her very first night at the White House that she felt “surrounded by ghosts.”
After yelling at Butt and making his point clear, Taft’s attitude softened. He was concerned about the press, but he wasn’t skeptical. He didn’t seem to doubt what the servants had seen. In fact, he was just as fascinated with the idea of the ghost as Butt was.
That shared fascination with the supernatural was seen again a month later, when Butt and Taft visited the nearby Mount Airy Mansion. Taft wrote that for a full hour Butt pelted their hostess with questions about the ghosts in the old Southern home. You get the sense that Taft enjoyed listening in, as long as it was clear that he wasn’t the interested party.
In his letter to Clara about the White House haunting, Archie Butt declared it his mission to find the identify of The Thing, saying, “I am going to delve into the history of the White House and see if such a looking youngster ever lived here or, what is more important still, ever died here…”
We may never know what Butt uncovered in his investigation, due to his untimely death less than a year later, but we can make some guesses based on the White House’s tragic history.
The Suspects
What might Archie Butt have found if he had gone looking for the boy behind The Thing?
There are four young men he may have considered as the ghost seen by Florence Marsh. These are their stories.
If Archie Butt went looking for deadly tragedies involving boys at the White House, the earliest instance he might have found chronologically would be the story of Alexander Kerr.
We dug into his story in depth here: Thomas Jefferson’s Deadly Lust for Wool.
On a rainy February morning in 1808, 9-year-old Alexander Kerr was taking his usual shortcut home from school, which happened to be across the White House lawn. At that time there were no fences or guards, just grass and some of Thomas Jefferson’s sheep.
One of those sheep was a small Shetland ram, a gift given to the president. This particular ram was unusual for a Shetland, in that it had four horns instead of two. And two of those four horns pointed straight ahead.
The sheep had been a dangerous menace for months, but Jefferson was reluctant to do anything because he wanted to use the ram to breed generations of sheep with the finest Shetland wool in the world. Jefferson’s stablemaster warned him of the ram’s potential for violence, but Jefferson did nothing.
Then, an old Revolutionary War veteran named William Keough came to Washington seeking his pension when he was gored by Jefferson’s ram. And still, nothing was done to secure the ram until it was too late.
On his walk home from school, Jefferson’s four-horned ram charged young Alexander Kerr, and the boy died from his injuries days later.
Only after Jefferson sent his ram home to Monticello, where it proceeded to kill other sheep including its own son, was the animal finally put down. Thomas Jefferson sent his condolences to the family of Alexander Kerr, along with twenty-five dollars.
As far as we know Kerr was the first boy to die near the White House—a tragic, violent, and preventable death.
At only 9 years old and with no deep connection to the White House or its inhabitants, Alexander Kerr seems like an unlikely suspect for the ghost known as The Thing.
If Archie Butt focused his search on presidential families, he would have come across the heartbreaking story of Benny Pierce.
In January of 1853, Franklin Pierce had just been elected president—against the wishes of his wife and 11 year old son Benjamin. Benjamin, known as Benny, was the Pierce’s only living child. They had lost two sons in early childhood.
Benny wrote a note to his mother during the campaign saying, “I hope he won’t be elected for I should not like to be at Washington and I know you would not either.”
Benny never made it to Washington.
On a trip near Andover, Massachusetts, tragedy struck the Pierce family when the axle of their train car broke. The car derailed and rolled over an embankment. Approximately 70 people were in the train car when it happened. Dozens were injured, including Franklin and Jane, but only one person died. Benny was killed instantly, his skull crushed in the wreck.
The Pierces were obviously devastated, especially Jane who was nearly inconsolable in her grief and kept the White House adorned in black bunting all four years of Pierce’s presidency.
If the spirits of the dead haunt the places where they died, Benny would be an unlikely suspect, having never lived in the White House and having died 500 miles away from it. But First Lady Jane Pierce may have attempted to summon her son’s spirit there with the help of leading spiritualist Maggie Fox. One of the famous Fox sisters who literally invented spiritualism, Maggie used a “rapping” technique involving loud knocks to communicate with the spirit world.
According to letters between Ms. Fox and her lover, Elisha Kane, Fox said she had been contacted by Mrs. Pierce. Kane begged her not to rap for Mrs. Pierce and to stop “rapping” at all. We do not know if any seance or ceremony was ultimately performed by Fox, or if such an event is what resulted in Jane expressing temporary comfort after seeing Benny in her dreams.
Spiritualism was embraced by many because they saw it as an extension of Christianity—not a competitor or contradictory belief system. It was marketed as a harmless comfort to the grief-stricken. Not everyone saw it that way, though. Seventh Day Adventist preacher James White was strongly opposed to efforts to commune with the dead, and he wrote specifically about the Pierce’s belief that their son “liveth,” based on his gravestone being engraved with “Go thy way, thy son liveth,” from The Book of John.
Elder White wondered, if Franklin Pierce truly believed that Benny “liveth,” “then why may he not expect a visit now and then from his only son?” That belief in spiritualism, White said, “opened a wide door for Satan to come in and deceive the world.”
White asked:
“Suppose some accomplished demon should visit the abode of the Chief Magistrate of this nation and imitate the hand-writing of the deceased, and in a manner calculated to touch the finest feelings of the soul, freely communicate with those bereaved parents; move chairs, tables, play instruments of music; or even imitate the well-known voice of that only child. Would those parents be likely to resist that visitor, and drive him from them? Or would they believe him to be the spirit of their dear son?”
This speculation that spiritualism may have unwittingly invited a demon into the White House was the subject of the 2020 novel The Residence by Andrew Pyper, and the 2021 Shock Docs episode it inspired called “Demon in the White House.” Though the 1911 encounters with The Thing did cause quite a stir among the White House staff, it seems like quite a stretch, even by Elder White’s standards and certainly by Archie Butt’s, to call this presence demonic. This haunting seemed to be, at its heart, a young boy reaching out to people.
If Archie Butt had investigated the story of Benjamin Pierce’s death, perhaps the most interesting piece of evidence he might have come across is a photograph of young Benny with his mother. She is seated with him standing at her side. Their faces are turned toward each other, and the love between them is clear.
Benny’s hand is resting on his mother’s shoulder, in much the same way Florence Marsh described feeling a hand on her shoulder.
Benjamin Pierce and his mother Jane Pierce
Florence Marsh described the boy she saw as a teenager. The closest thing to a teenage boy who died around the White House might be John Burnes, the 20-year-old son of the man who originally owned the property the White House sits on.
When the location of the nation’s new capital was determined, David Burnes became quite wealthy selling his land to the government. It turns out that the land closest to his house—the land he was most reluctant to part with—was exactly where George Washington wanted to build White House.
Washington referred to the stiff negotiator as “the obstinate Mr. Burnes” in a private letter, and though he eventually parted with the land, Burnes kept a parcel for his family’s cottage close to the White House. The “Burnes Cottage” stood until 1894, and the ghost of David Burnes has been said to haunt the White House attic.
When David’s son John Burnes died at just 20 years old around 1792, that meant that all of the Burnes fortune went to John’s sister. Some say this made Miss Burnes the richest woman in the world at the time, with an inheritance of $1.5 million (nearly $40 million today.) She went on to marry Congressman and future Washington DC mayor John Peter Van Ness, and she served as one of the first directors of the Washington City Orphan Asylum established for homeless children following the War of 1812. The Van Nesses built what was called “the finest home in America” near the grounds of the old Burnes cottage.
The original Burnes cottage stood as a testament to their father, David Burnes, for more than a century before it was torn down in the 1894. The Van Ness Mansion, once one of the most expensive homes in the nation, was torn down in 1907, becoming the site of the Pan American Union Building.
Very little is known about John Burnes other than he was a promising young man studying law under a famous Maryland attorney and that he died of a “virulent Potomac fever.”
If Archibald Butt were looking into the story of John’s untimely death, searching for some connection between him and the ghost in the White House, he might have imagined the young displaced Burnes—his own home and the nearby home of his only sister, and even his gravesite—all destroyed.
Might not that lonely displaced ghost wander into the Executive Mansion and choose to reveal himself to a young woman that decorum dictated be called simply by her last name: Marsh? A name that would have sounded so similar to that of the girl John grew up with—the girl who would end up with everything that was meant for him. John’s sister, Marcia.
Marcia (Burnes) Van Ness, sister of John Burnes and daughter of “the obstinate” David Burnes.
If Archie Butt was determined to find a boy who actually died inside the White House, there is only one name he could have come up with.
That boy was Willie Lincoln, the son of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln. 11 years old with blond hair and blue eyes, Willie Lincoln was a favorite in the White House. By all accounts, a brilliant and loving young man. And the best match to the maid’s description of the boy who touched her.
Willie had come down with typhoid fever, an illness caused by the same contaminated water that likely killed President William Henry Harrison.
It was February of 1862 and the Civil War was raging, but Abraham was constantly with Mary at their son’s side. Abraham told the boy there were thousands of prayers going up for him every night, to which Willie responded, “I am glad of that.” A cousin called Willie “a noble and beautiful…counterpart of his father, save that he was handsome.”
Willie Lincoln, taken not long before his death, by Matthew Brady
After struggling for two weeks, Willie Lincoln died on February 20, 1862. Abraham called it “the hardest trial of his life.” Mary, who was already prone to depression and had already lost one young child years earlier, sunk even deeper into despair. And like Jane Pierce before her, Mary turned to spiritualism.
We don’t know whether Jane Pierce ever truly held a seance at the White House, but there is evidence that Mary held as many as eight in the White House’s Red Room, with at least one likely attended by her husband.
Mary believed the seances worked, and she was happy to see her son again. Mary’s half-sister Emilie wrote in her diary that Mary came into her room one night with the news:
“‘He lives Emily!’ [Mary] said with a thrill in her voice I can never forget. ‘He comes to me every night, and stands at the foot of my bed with the same sweet, adorable smile he always had’…Sister Mary’s eyes were wide and shining and I had the feeling of awe as if I were in the presence of the supernatural. It is unnatural and abnormal, it frightens me.”
Willie Lincoln’s presence at the foot of Mary’s bed appears to be the first account of a ghost in the White House, and Willie Lincoln is likely the closest Archie Butt may have gotten to identifying The Thing.
After The Thing
We may never know what exactly Archie Butt found in his investigation, or what conclusions he came to.
In March of 1912, just nine months after writing about The Thing, Archie booked a much-needed vacation at the urging of his doctor. He had been sick for months and losing so much weight he started to look gaunt. He’d been run ragged by his toiling schedule and the tension he felt as Roosevelt and Taft—the two presidents he served so closely and considered close friends—were now primed to compete against one another in the upcoming Election of 1912.
Archie had second thoughts about leaving Taft and canceled the trip, but Taft insisted he go for his health, saying he needed him well-rested for the coming election. Archie left for Rome with his close friend and roommate Frances Millet, a man Archie described as “my artist friend who lives with me.”
Before he left, Butt wrote to his sister-in-law Clara: “Don’t forget that all my papers are in the storage warehouse, and if the old ship goes down you will find my affairs in shipshape condition.”
Archie never made it home.
Major Butt spent a month in Europe, and on April 10th, 1912 he started his return voyage, aboard The Titanic.
He was one of the 1500 people to go down with the ship after it struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912. There are multiple reports of Butt spending his last moments helping women and children onto lifeboats. A memorial fountain was erected on the White House ellipse in 1913, dedicated to Archie Butt and Francis Millet.
Archibald Butt’s legacy is commemorated by that fountain and volumes of his letters written during his years serving Roosevelt and Taft. And thanks to one of those letters, The Thing lives on as well, popping up in articles and collections of White House ghost stories.
But Florence Marsh Riley, the sole eyewitness to this haunting, is barely a footnote in history. I’m happy to have found her full name and previous employment, through a deep dive into newspapers, census records, city directories, and a biography of Bamie Roosevelt Cowles. But the most interesting thing I found is that by the time Archie Butt told Taft about the ghost wreaking havoc amongst the White House staff, Florence Marsh was already gone.
Within months of her terrifying encounter with The Thing, Florence Marsh found a way out of the Executive Mansion, for good. One newspaper reported that another supernatural visitor was responsible for Marsh’s exit. Cupid.
In May 1911, Florence Marsh married the White House’s full-time electrician, George W. Riley. She promptly resigned her position as Mrs. Taft’s personal maid and moved out of the White House.
from the Evening Star, Washington DC, May 26, 1911
Very little is known about her life after the White House, except that she and George Riley lived the rest of their days in the District of Columbia. Florence had no children of her own, but when she married George she became the stepmother of a young man named Sylvan J. Riley, who was 14 years old, and very much alive.
Listen to the episode now:
A huge thank you to Brandon Schexnayder of Southern Gothic for producing this episode—please check out Southern Gothic and their exploration of the American South’s most infamous hauntings, legends, and folkore!
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Sources not embedded above:
A Ghost in the White House? Letter from Archie Butt to Clara, July 26, 1911, from The Intimate Letters of Archie Butt Volume 2
Seances in the Red Room: How Spiritualism Comforted the Nation during and after the Civil War by Alexandra Kommel
Employees and Staff: Rebecca R. Pomroy (1817-1884), Mr. Lincoln’s White House
“A White House Romance,” The Evening Star, Washington DC, page 7, May 26, 1911
Bamie: Theodore Roosevelt’s Remarkable Sister by Lilian Rexley, 1963
Nellie Taft : The Unconventional First Lady of the Ragtime Era by Carl Sferrazza Anthony
My Dearest Nellie: The Letters of William Howard Taft to Helen Herron Taft, 1909-1912
