Restless Souls

Many people know Abraham Lincoln as one of the greatest presidents that our country has ever seen.

What few know is that Abraham Lincoln was a devout believer in the spirit world. Perhaps one of the strangest events that occurred surrounding his assasination was a dream that the president had.

In his dream he was wandering through the White House. Black was hung everywhere and he could hear people sobbing. He finally came upon a room full of mourners surrounding a guarded casket. When he asked one of the soldiers who had died the man’s response was “The President.”

Just days later he was assassinated.

But he would find no rest. His ghost has been seen repeatedly in several locations including the White House, Ford’s Theater where he was shot and around his tomb in Illinois. On the anniversary of his death some claim to have seen the spectral image of the president’s funeral train chugging it’s way down the tracks, taking the president to his final resting place.



Anne Boleyn was the second wife of King Henry the 8th. She held the fickle King’s favor for just three years before his eyes found someone else to admire. On the 19th of May, 1536, Anne was beheaded at 8 o’clock in the morning on charges of incest and treason. Henry gave her the dignity of a private execution, switched her sentence from burning to beheading and borrowed a fine swordsman from Calais so that the blow would be quick and neat. You can read Anne’s sad final words here.

Unfortunately for Anne, though the execution was quick and, one can only hope, relatively painless, the peaceful slumber of the dead was not granted to her. Each year on the anniversary of her death she is reported to be seen at Blickling Hall, a manor that was built over a home often frequented by the Queen.

It is said that a carriage led by headless horses and driven by a headless driver delivers the spectral form of the Queen to the front door, where she enters the house and then disappears.



Julia Buccola Petta, known now as The Italian Bride, was a young woman who died during childbirth in 1921 at the age of 29. She was buried in her wedding gown and a life-sized statue was erected, mirroring a photo of the woman on her wedding day. Though tragic, the events of her death, in those times, were relatively commonplace. It is what happened after her death that makes this woman so remarkable.

Shortly after her death her mother, Filomena, began to have strange and upsetting dreams. In these dreams her daughter was calling out to her, begging to be dug up. “You’ve buried me alive!” Her child would cry out in the dreams.

The dreams were so persistent and real that Filomena, six years after her daughter’s death, got permission from the Catholic church to exhume her daughter’s body. What they found when they opened the casket is still unexplained.


Lying there, looking exactly the same as she had when she’d been buried, was Julia. In six years neither she, nor the clothes she was wearing showed any sign of decomposition. Her cheeks were still flush, her skin still creamy, she looked to be merely sleeping.

The young woman’s body was returned to her grave, the photo you see was taken upon exhumation and added to her headstone. Unfortunately for Filomena the dreams did not stop and plagued her until her death.

More recently the spectral image of a young woman in a wedding gown have been reportedly seen inside the gates of the cemetery where Julia was buried. One can only wonder why this young woman can find no rest.