Unfortunately, throughout history, there have been unscrupulous people who take advantage of grieving people and fake mediumship for financial gain. The Lincolns were not an exception, and had a medium, who turned out to be fraudulent, conduct seances for them. The “medium’s” name was Charles Colchester.

“Charles Colchester, a red-faced, blue-eyed Englishman with a large mustache. Alleged to be the illegitimate son of a duke, this seer professed remarkable powers: He could read sealed letters, cry out the names of visitors’ deceased friends, cause apparitions to appear, and produce words on his forearm in blood-red letters.”[1]

Elizabeth Keckley, a Spiritualist and seamstress employed in the White House, introduced Charles Colchester to Mrs. Lincoln.[2]

“The poor lady [Mrs. Lincoln] at that time was well-nigh distraught with grief at the death of her son Willie. By playing on her motherly sorrows, Colchester actually succeeded in inducing Mrs. Lincoln to receive him in the family residence at the Soldiers' Home, where, in a darkened room, he pretended to produce messages from the dead boy by means of scratches on the wainscoting and taps on the walls and furniture.”[3]

Colchester became a regular visitor to the White House to hold seances for Mary Todd Lincoln.[4]

Lincoln was particularly intrigued with Colchester’s eerie ability to summon noises in different parts of a room. Like any rational person, the president wanted to understand what was happening, so he asked Colchester to submit to an examination by Joseph Henry, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. The medium agreed, and a chagrined Henry reported back to the president that he had no immediate explanation for the phenomenon. (He later learned that Colchester wore a specially designed electrical noisemaker strapped to his biceps. The discovery came quite by chance, after Henry struck up a conversation with a stranger on a train who happened to be the man who had made the device and sold it to Colchester.)[5]

“President Lincoln may have employed mediums and psychics, but he wasn’t naïve. When he had concerns about Lord Colchester, a man claiming to be the illegitimate son of an English duke, Lincoln asked some of his staff to investigate.   One of the investigators, Noah Brooks, discovered that Colchester cheated during his seances by untying his hands to play music. When Colchester later tried to blackmail Mary, Brooks intervened again.[6]

At a Colchester seance, Mary Todd, while holding hands with others gathered around the table in a darkened room, heard tapping sounds and noises she believed were from Willie in the spirit world. Colchester, however, was of dubious reputation and ability and was subsequently exposed to be a fraud after it was discovered that he, not spirits, produced the rapping sounds.[7]

He conducted seances for Mrs. Lincoln – including at least one at the Soldier’s Home. His shenanigans were exposed by journalist Noah Brooks, who was one Mrs. Lincoln’s benign male favorites. Brooks not only exposed Colchester; he also broke up Colchester’s attempt to blackmail Mrs. Lincoln.[8]