While this political season may be the most frightening in memory, elected officials are not the only things that strike fear in the hearts of Washingtonians. The industry of anxiety is alive and well in local companies that provide local history along with eerie tales that will make your hair stand on end.
Since 2000, Greenbelt native Natalie Zanin has led theatrical walking tours around Lafayette Square and other neighborhoods with a rotating team of actors playing a variety of historical figures. (No, Eleanor Roosevelt won’t jump out at you in the middle of the night—at least not before introducing herself.) I first wrote about Historic Strolls in 2010 and have taken several of their tours. While some ghost stories are perennial favorites, Zanin is always researching new stories to tell (naturally, Alexander Hamilton is behind some of this year’s tales). Your tour will most likely cover hauntings at the Dolly Madison House, the Decatur House, and that most haunted of Washington area landmarks, the White House.
Ghosts of Lafayette Square tours take place on Friday, October 28 and on Halloween night. Tours meet at 16th and H Streets NW next to St. John’s Church at 7:30 p.m. $15. Buy tickets here.
Summer blockbusters like The Beach and Icebergs brought new crowds to the former Pension Building, but off-season, visitors have the chance to experience the National Building Museum in its gorgeous (super)natural habitat with a popular ghost tour of its own. (DCist previewed their 2013 ghost tour here). After the tour, you can walk to Chinatownblock to check out Wok’ n’ Roll, which at one time was Mary Surrat’s boarding house.
National Building Museum (401 F Street NW) ghost tours will be held on October 29 and 31. Get tickets here.
WASHINGTON WALKS TOUR OF THE OCTAGON HOUSE
Washington Walks hosts tours around the city, including a ghost tour of the U.S. Capitol. As the tour description explains, “no one who has ever lived or worked in the historic Octagon House—the Tayloe family, their slaves, 19th century ghost hunters, museum staff—has escaped being cast in its haunted drama.” Will you become part of that drama?
Monday, October 31 at 7 p.m. $25. Buy tickets here. (Update: we originally wrote that the Octagon House is normally not open to the public. It is open as a museum from 1-4pm Thursday through Saturday.)
A house built in 1765 has a lot of stories to tell. According to some people, some of the former residents of Georgetown’s Old Stone House may still be around to tell them. This walking tour covers the cobblestone streets of one of the area’s oldest neighborhoods, and includes stops at the Exorcist steps, of course, as well as the Halcyon House, once owned by Mark Twain’s nephew Albert Clemons. The mustachioed eccentric believed that as long as he kept adding to the house, he would never die, so he ordered rooms built as well as stairways that led to nowhere.
Ghosts of Georgetown tours run Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday evenings at 8 p.m., with more tours scheduled during this haunted season. Tours meet at the Old Stone House (3051 M St NW). $20. Check their schedule and buy tickets here.
Brewmaster Christian Heurich had this mansion built near the end of the 19th century, and it’s one of the few traces left of what Dupont Circle looked like in the Victorian era. Heurich and his wife Amelia were spiritualists and regularly attended seances. Friday night, after a screening of the Fritz Lang film M, the Heurich House opens its doors after dark for a tour. While Heurich staff “hopes no spirits come out,” Historic Strolls founder Natalie Zanin experienced strange things while working events at the house:
One Sunday I was alone on the fourth floor when I heard something behind me. When I turned around, there was nothing there. I heard something walk to the door at the end of a hall that led to the tiny, unheated old servants rooms. I walked to the doorway and watched the shelves vibrate as something walked past them. The sound of steps stopped down the hall. I panicked and rushed for the elevator, which was the only way back downstairs if I didn’t want to go down the hall after the “visitor”. I must have pushed that creaky old elevator button a hundred times until finally it arrived. I landed on the main floor, rushed to the pantry and told my supervisor that there was something on the fourth floor. She told me the house was haunted.
Read more about the Heurich House here.
Heurich Halloween, presented in partnership with the Goethe-Institut, takes place Friday, October 28 at 6 p.m. with a film screening at 6:30 p.m. and a tour to follow. $20. Buy tickets here.
