Who was the first US President to live in the White House?

While George Washington was the first president, he never had the chance to live in the executive mansion. He selected the site for the White House in 1791, and the cornerstone was laid the following year. However, construction took eight years, and Washington's presidency was served in the temporary national capitals of New York City and Philadelphia. During his time in Philadelphia, he resided in a home that served as the executive mansion before the capital was moved to Washington, D.C.

The second president, John Adams, holds the distinction of being the first to occupy the new President's House. He and his wife, Abigail, moved into the residence on November 1, 1800. At the time, the building was still largely unfinished and unfurnished. The grand stairway was not yet started, the roof leaked, and Abigail Adams famously hung the presidential laundry in the unfinished East Room.

Adams's time in the new mansion was brief. He had arrived just before the election, which he lost to Thomas Jefferson. In total, President Adams lived in the White House for only about four months before his term ended on March 4, 1801. On his second night in the damp, cavernous house, he wrote a letter to his wife, including a prayer that has since become famous: "I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise Men ever rule under this roof."