The Mary Todd Lincoln House sits alone downtown, holding darkness within. The historical home is one of Lexington’s spookiest attractions. Born in Lexington, Mary’s life began with a happy childhood, but would end as a reclusive widow. “After her husband died they put her in an asylum. She claimed that assassins had conspired to kill him,” tour guide Lucille Dupree said while wearing a bonnet and the make up of a broken, rotting jaw.

Dupree goes on to tell the tale. “While in the asylum she said she was visited often by a thin man. The man was 6 and a half feet tall, dressed all in black, and wore a stovepipe hat. Doctors and other patients never saw her gloomy acquaintance. The doctors prescribed her laudanum and an unspiced diet, writing off these encounters as ‘symptoms of womanhood’.”

The tour begins with local meteorologist Bill Meck’s nasally impersonation of Vincent Price’s reading of “The Raven” as you enter the house’s squeaky front door. Tourists are then lead down the hall as the tour guide recalls the story of Mary Todd to all in attendance. “Once back at her home the thin man returned with her. She would wake up with messages from him.” Tourists then are shown a bathroom mirror with ‘Emancipation’ written backwards on it.

The house has been gaining in popularity and the impressive tour keeps fans coming back year after year.

“I bring all my Tinder dates here,” said one college student we spoke to as he was leaving the house. “They get a real kick when Henry Clay comes out with a chainsaw at the end.”

While house and cemetery tours are available year round, the haunted tours only last for a few more days and the world famous Mary Todd Lincoln Zipline tours won’t open again till spring.