RALEIGH — There's more than one governor who lives at the executive mansion, if you believe the present occupant.
Do you believe it? Have your own ghost stories? Join the discussion at the Debatables blog.
"Every year, that Christmas tree in the gentlemen's parlor falls," Gov. Mike Easley told reporters Wednesday. "I don't care what happens, it falls. And I think Gov. Fowle does not want that thing in here, and he's made it pretty clear."
Fowle is Gov. Daniel G. Fowle, the first chief executive to live in the mansion, who died there at age 60 in April 1891, four months after moving in.
Pretty much every room on the first story of the century-old mansion is decked out for the holidays, more than one with a tree. But there's something about that location with which Fowle takes umbrage, Easley said.
Both Fowle and Easley are Democrats, so the annual tipping of Christmas trappings can't be chalked up to party differences.
Easley said Fowle might be responsible for the unexplained closing of draperies in the ballroom as well.
"I don't believe in ghosts but Gov. Fowle is hanging around here," Easley said.
He said his wife and Fowle have a cordial relationship.
"He helps Mary (Easley) find a lot of her files and stuff for teaching her classes," Easley said. "You'll hear her running around here talking to Gov. Fowle.If she says something sweet, she's talking to him. If she says something not so sweet, its generally a conversation she's having with me."
Whether his specter is hanging out at the mansion or not, Fowle's earthly remains are interred at Raleigh's historic Oakwood Cemetery.
