Mary Todd Lincoln and the Photograph That Captured a President's "Ghost"

Mary Todd Lincoln's interest in Spiritualism led the widowed former first lady to the parlor of a controversial Boston "spirit photographer."

Picture of Mary Todd Lincoln with the “ghost” of her husband, President Abraham Lincoln behind her. The image was taken by William H. Mumler in 1872. (Photo: The Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection, Fort Wayne, Indiana)

In the last photograph of her life, Mary Todd Lincoln is not alone. She sits serenely with her hands folded over each other, most of her body hidden under a black cloak, as an apparition hovers above her. The “ghost” looks just as calm, his hands resting on her shoulders in an apparent gesture of comfort. Though the outline of the tall, bearded man behind her is faint, it’s unmistakably an image of president Abraham Lincoln, who had been assassinated seven years earlier as Mary sat by his side.

When Mary Todd Lincoln sat for the photograph around 1872 in the Boston studio of controversial “spirit photographer” William Mumler, she was a woman haunted not only by her husband’s violent death, but by the deaths of three of her four sons. As the former first lady of the c…