Haunted Georgetown

13. Halcyon House

Washington, DC

Book Now

This 30,000 foot mansion was built by Benjamin Stoddert in 1787. Stoddert was the nation's first Secretary of the Navy. Later, this house was said to be a safe house on the Underground Railroad, giving escaped slaves shelter as they made the perilous journey to the North. In the year 1900, Albert Clemens, a nephew of Mark Twain, bought this house and began a process of adding alterations that would last the rest of his life. Clemmens believed that continuing to renovate the structure would extend his life. He died in 1938, leaving a larger house, but also one full of bizarre rooms which seemed to have no entrance and hallways leading nowhere. There is even a crypt located beneath the basement. Halcyon house is said to be haunted by runaway slaves who were apprehended in their escape and tortured and killed. Their voices begging for mercy have been heard in the basement. There are also reports of Benjamin Stoddard himself walking the halls, siting in the oldest parts of the house, and whispering. Another spirit, a woman, has been seen by passers by standing in an upstairs window. Guests at Halcyon house have been disturbed in the night by poltergeists reversing the orientation of their bodies on their beds and a six-year-old boy reported a figure of a woman waking him and moving his bed covers.