Episode 4: The Winchester House

Laurens

WINCHESTER RIFLE COMPANY

Context is everything to me, especially in a vast historic story like this. Imagine 1865, Battle of Allatoona Pass, an entire confederate battalion, consisting 400 to 800 men were crushed by one company of the 7th Illinois, made up of just 52 men. In Montana 2 prospectors protected themself against 40 Blackfoot Indians. These feats were extraordinary at the time and could only be done with the Winchester rifle. Before and during the American Civil War soldiers and frontiersmen used muskets. Muskets and flintlock rifles needed a long time to reload. First powder needed to be poured into the pan, the rest of the powder and the musket ball down the barrel of the musket. Using the ramming rod everything was packed tightly in the barrel. This process took about 15 seconds. A competent musketeer could reload 5 times a minute. So when Oliver Winchester and his company New Haven Arms created the Henry rifle, that was revolutionary. Oliver Winchester modified and improved that basic design and eventually created the Winchester Rifle. But what made it so special compared to a musket? Well a Winchester Rifle was a lever operated rifle. This means that after firing you pulled the lever under the rifle, ejecting the spent cartridge and simultaneously reloading the gun. Winchester rifles could hold between 7 to 15 cartridges. This progression in fire power, accuracy and recoil was groundbreaking. The gun got the nickname the gun that won the west, because a lot of frontiersmen used this rifle with great success on the open frontier. The rifle could be used as a defence but also was a quite capable hunting rifle. The rifles were made in New Haven, Connecticut, by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. The company was created by Oliver Winchester, who had 3 children with his wife Jane Ellen Hope. Ann Rebecca Winchester, William Wirt Winchester and Hannah Jane Winchester. When Oliver passed away ownership of his company passed to his son William. However William died one year later from tuberculosis, so he left a big inheritance to his wife Sarah. Her inheritance included 20 million dollars, which would be 536 million dollar today, as well as 50% holding in the company, which is about 1 thousand dollars, or about 27000 dollars today, per day in royalties for the rest of her life. She was one of the wealthiest women in the world at the time.

SARAH WINCHESTER

Sarah Winchester was born Sarah Lockwood Pardee in the summer of 1839 in New Haven, Connecticut. She was the fifth of seven children born to Leonard Pardee and Sarah Burns. The Pardee’s were a respectable, upper middle class family. Leonard was a successful carriage manufacturer. He made a fortune during the Civil War supplying ambulances to the Union Army. In the New Haven Society Sarah would be dubbed The Belle of New Haven. This was because she was considered very beautiful, she was fluent in Latin, French, Spanish and Italian and she had a talent for music. At an early age, she attended Yale’s only female scholastic institution. The Young Ladies Collegiate Institute. She was coincidentally classmates with Ann Rebecca Winchester. However I didn't find out if that played a part in Sarah and William’s marriage. Sarah and William were married on September 30, 1862 and they had one child, Annie Pardee Winchester, who was born on July 12, 1866. But sadly Annie passed away 40 days later, due to an infantile disease known as Marasmus.

Rei

THE WINCHESTER HOUSE

The Death of her husband

In 1881 Sarah’s husband, William Wirt Winchester, sadly passed away after a long battle from tuberculosis. Sarah inherited 50% of the company and around $20 million (which would now be equal to $550 million). In the same year she also lost her mother and father-in-law. After these tragic events Sarah contacted a medium so she could communicate with her dead husband and daughter, instead the medium told her that she was cursed and haunted by the ghosts of the people who died from a Winchester rifle. The medium told her that if she didn’t want to lose her own life she would have to build a house for herself and the ghosts and she could never stop building.

Building the house

In 1886 Sarah Winchester bought an unfinished eight-room farmhouse in San Jose, California. The house was surrounded by 40 acres of land (some sources say 160 acres) which was perfect for Sarah to start building her mansion. She hired carpenters and other workers who started working on the house day-in-day-out. She didn’t hire an architect and came up with every design herself and with the help of the ghosts (more info later). This led to a 7-story high building which has windows that look out to rooms instead of outside, rooms within rooms, a ton of fireplaces, stairways and even 6 kitchens. And much more of course.

The house is almost completely made out of (many different types of) wood but Sarah apparently disliked the look of wood so ordered for most of the walls to be covered in faux grain or many layers of paint. Sarah was also a big fan of (then-)modern technology and you can see that in the house as well.

Earthquake and Sarah’s Death

Then in 1906 an earthquake struck the coast of Northern California and with many other destructions and sadly even many deaths, part of the Winchester House was also destroyed. The house was left with 4 stories which is how we know the Winchester house today. This was proof for Sarah that she could never stop building the house.

On September 5, 1922 Sarah Winchester passed away from congestive heart failure. She was 82 or 83 years old at the time of her death. The moment news spread out about her death, construction of the house stopped. It is said that workers just dropped their tools, stopped what they were doing and went home. The now already famous mansion was sold and soon after reopened as a tourist attraction. In 1974 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places and it became a Historical Landmark.

Details

To sum up a few details of the house: the house in total is 24.000 square feet, it has 10.000 windows, 2000 doors, 160 rooms, 52 skylights, 47 stairways, 17 chimneys, 13 bathrooms, 6 kitchens, 3 elevators and it was built at a price tag of $5 million, which would be $71 million today.

Sarah also seemed to be a fan of the number 13 and you can see this coming back in the house. Besides the 13 bathrooms, there are also 13 bedrooms, several stairs have 13 steps, some ceilings have 13 tiles and one of her precious Tiffany glass pieces was made by 13 different precious stones.

According to Mary Jo Ignoffo, who wrote the first full-length biography of Sarah Winchester (Captive of the Labyrinth: Sarah L. Winchester, Heiress to the Rifle Fortune), there were periods where construction on the house did stop so they weren’t building around the clock for 38 years (This was confirmed by letters that Sarah wrote). Ignoffo also wrote that after the earthquake in 1906, instead of rebuilding, Sarah decided to block off some passageways, resulting in doors and stairways that went nowhere.

Hauntings

The house is said to be haunted. Sarah Winchester believed this herself as said before, it is said she believed the ghosts of the people who fell victim by a Winchester rifle were haunting her. Sarah herself used to communicate with spirits in the house, in the so-called “Séance Room”, the ghosts gave her instructions on how to design the house. At the same time it is also said that she built the house in the way it is to confuse and distract the ghosts.

It is also said, I guess by visitors later on, that the spirit of a former caretaker named Clyde is roaming the halls.

With that, many more hauntings have been reported by people who visited the house. Of course I watched a few YouTube videos and I wanted to share this particular scene from Buzzfeed Unsolved Network’s video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM31fgkxn2I (18:53)

Secret Room

Sarah apparently believed that the earthquake in 1906 was caused by the ghosts that lived in her house. During the earthquake she found shelter in one of the many rooms, but after the earthquake was over, she became superstitious about the room and decided to have it permanently closed. This room wasn’t discovered again until only a few years ago, in 2016, when workers were doing restorations of the house. In the room itself, they found a mannequin, sewing machines, art pieces, an organ, a Victorian sofa, a weird doll and other objects. The items are now on display for visitors to watch.

This wasn’t the first time a secret room was discovered. Back in 1975 another room was opened for the first time since Sarah’s death. In that room there were a few chairs and a speaker from around the 1900’s.

Movie

In 2018 a movie was made about the house. The movie was named Winchester and was badly received by the public. I really like horror movies myself, as in psychological thrillers, not so much slasher movies, so I decided to give it a try even with the bad reviews. So, spoiler alert here! Skip a few minutes if you don’t want to get spoiled. I have to say I thought it was interesting at first that the perspective of the movie was from the Doctor/ Psychologist that was supposed to analyse Sarah to see if she was still fit to run the company. It also started with a few jumpscares, which initially scared me, as in literally jumpscared me but it didn’t scare me as in I was afraid to watch. I have to admit I didn’t even finish watching it, because I got bored. I was very disappointed in the way they made the movie. To me, it seems they wanted to focus on the ghost part of the story and not so much on Sarah herself. Which is really sad because her story is so fascinating to me, I feel like they could’ve done so much more. I feel like it would’ve been interesting to start the movie in a light way, as in Sarah with her husband and child, then after a while tragedy befalls her, like it did in real life. Then they could’ve shown how she got in contact with the medium and started building her house, and they could’ve added a lot of ghosts and creepy things to it as well. I feel like they really missed a big chance here. Like I said, it seems to me that they just wanted to scare people and they didn’t do the real and tragic parts of the story justice. We already have enough bad horror movies, I feel like they could’ve done so much better with this one. But don’t let this hold you back from watching it, I would love to hear other people’s opinions, who knows I might still watch the end of the movie after all.