Omni Parker House Hotel

The oldest continuously operating hotel in the United States, founded in 1855. Charles Dickens lived on the third floor and performed readings here. Stephen King based his short story "1408" on the hotel's haunted Room 303.

The Omni Parker House has been welcoming guests at 60 School Street since 1855, making it the longest continuously operating hotel in the United States. Founded by Harvey D. Parker, the hotel quickly became Boston's premier gathering place for politicians, power brokers, and the literary elite. The famous Saturday Club met here on the last Saturday of every month, its members including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau. The hotel also gave America the Boston cream pie and the Parker House roll. Among its most notable guests was John Wilkes Booth, who stayed here April 5-6, 1865—just eight days before assassinating Abraham Lincoln—ostensibly to visit his actor brother Edwin who was performing in Boston.

Charles Dickens made the Parker House his American home during his second U.S. tour, residing in Suites 138-139 on the third floor for six months between 1867 and 1868. In these rooms, Dickens spent endless hours practicing his famous readings—including A Christmas Carol and scenes from The Pickwick Papers—before a large arched mirror in a walnut frame. He performed for sold-out audiences at nearby Tremont Temple. The hotel preserved both Dickens' door and his rehearsal mirror, which now hangs on the mezzanine level. Guests report seeing Dickens' reflection in the glass, dressed in his performance attire. One staff member witnessed something inexplicable while cleaning: "condensation kept appearing on the glass right next to him, as if someone was breathing on it. He hasn't cleaned the glass since." Some say that uttering "Charles Dickens" three times before the mirror will cause the nearby elevator bells to chime.

The third floor is the hotel's most haunted region. On February 18, 1876, celebrated actress Charlotte Cushman—the most famous American actress of the nineteenth century—died of pneumonia in her room while battling breast cancer. She was 59. Since then, elevator number one has repeatedly stopped at the third floor when no one has called it and no one is waiting. Staff estimate this happens hundreds of times annually. Guests report the sound of rocking chairs creaking late at night in rooms that contain no rocking chairs, and some claim to see Charlotte's apparition wandering the hallways.

Room 303, also on the third floor, harbors an even darker presence. According to hotel lore, a liquor salesman committed suicide there in 1949 by mixing whisky with barbiturates. Guests in the room afterward reported the persistent smell of whisky and cigar smoke, disembodied male voices, raucous laughter, and loud banging on the door in the middle of the night. Some experienced the bathtub water turning on by itself. The complaints grew so frequent that management eventually converted Room 303 into a storage closet. The legend inspired rumors that Stephen King based his horror story "1408" on this room—though King's representatives have denied any connection.

The spirit of founder Harvey D. Parker is the hotel's most active ghost. "I first heard about the ghost of Harvey Parker when I began working here in 1941," longtime bellman John Brehm told the Boston Globe in 1992. "They used to say he roamed the halls on the tenth floor annex." An elderly woman staying in Room 1078 reported seeing "a heavy-set older man with a black moustache" who "just looked at her, then faded away." The description matched Parker exactly. In Room 1012—now the most requested room for ghost hunters—a daughter awoke at sunrise to see a gentleman in an 1800s suit standing at the foot of her bed wearing a large grin. She smiled back, and he vanished. Later, passing through the lobby, she gasped upon recognizing his portrait: Harvey D. Parker himself.

Guests throughout the hotel report encounters with bearded figures in colonial dress, unexplained orbs of light, and a gruff disembodied voice emanating from storage closets on the mezzanine level. The Omni Parker House embraces its haunted reputation, offering ghost tours and welcoming paranormal investigators who wish to spend the night where Boston's history refuses to check out.