Tennessee State Capitol

William Strickland and Samuel Morgan are buried in opposite walls of the Tennessee State Capitol. Around 9 p.m., staff hear them arguing.

The Tennessee State Capitol is the only American capitol that doubles as a mausoleum, and the two men buried in its walls hated each other in life. William Strickland, the architect, lies entombed in the north wall. Samuel Morgan, who chaired the Capitol Building Commission and fought Strickland over every expense for years, lies in the south wall. Their feud was bitter and well-documented while they were alive. According to staff and security guards who have worked the building after hours, it has continued without interruption since 1854. Around 9 p.m. is when it usually starts: a clearly audible argument between two men, voices raised, that some night-shift workers say is loud enough to hear from the steps outside.

Strickland, the man behind a long list of important Greek Revival buildings, including the Second Bank of the United States, was hired in 1844 to design Tennessee's capitol. He died in 1854 with the building unfinished. He had asked to be buried inside it, and the Tennessee legislature agreed. Morgan died in 1880. He had also asked. The legislature placed him at the opposite end of the building. Whether the symmetry was intentional or someone's idea of a final joke, the result is two enemies sealed permanently into a single structure.

A third president, James K. Polk, lies buried with his wife Sarah in a tomb on the Capitol's east lawn. He was reinterred there in 1893, the third grave he had been moved into since his death in 1849. A move to Polk's home in Columbia is currently in legal dispute. Witnesses have described a figure pacing the cupola at the top of the building, looking out over the lawn, and identify the figure as Polk watching his own gravesite. The cupola is normally locked. The figure is normally not seen by daylight.

Sarah Childress Polk haunts a different part of the building. Several state employees over the years have described a woman in fancy antebellum dress walking the second floor hallway. She moves slowly, doesn't speak, and turns the corner near the old Senate chamber before she vanishes. Some accounts identify her as Sarah Polk, who outlived her husband by 42 years and was a fixture in Nashville society until her death in 1891. A few witnesses have suggested it might be Rachel Jackson, Andrew Jackson's wife. Either fits.

The fourth burial inside the Capitol is the architect Strickland's son, Francis, who took over the project after his father died. He's interred near his father in the north wall. He doesn't seem to be part of the haunting. The two enemies do all the talking, or shouting, and Francis stays out of it.

Other reports include doors opening and closing on the second floor, footsteps in the marble corridors when the building has been locked down, and lights cycling on the third floor where the legislative offices are. A few security guards have described feeling watched while doing rounds in the lower-level chambers. None of them have asked for transfers, and most have a story they will tell once and then refuse to tell again.

The Tennessee State Capitol is one of the strangest haunting cases in the country because the historical antagonism is so well-documented. Strickland and Morgan really did fight constantly. They really are buried 200 feet apart in the same building. If a ghost story were ever going to write itself out of the architecture, this would be the one. Around 9 p.m., it apparently does.