Stephanie and my co-worker Susan are both fans of the TV show “Ghost Hunters” (see the April blog entry) and of haunted mansion tourism in general. They urged me to visit the Winchester Mystery House, while in San Jose, which I got in – going by bus – during my last few hours in San Jose.
Sarah Winchester was a New England high society woman who learned from a Boston psychic that her child, age 6 weeks, and her husband, age 44 years, had died at early ages because of the spirits of all of the people killed with rifles manufactured by her husband’s family’s company, the Winchester rifle company. At the psychic’s urging, Winchester took the $20 million she had gained when her husband died and moved – in 184? – to San Jose, then a very small agricultural community. Winchester bought a small house and was told by the psychic that, as long as she kept building onto the house, this would keep the spirits at bay and she would live forever.
Winchester consulted the spirits in a séance room in the house to figure out how to proceed with building. Over the course of 40 years plus, the house grew to 60 plus rooms, costing more than $5 million altogether. Winchester never employed an architect and reportedly had some doors and stairs in the house built to nowhere to confuse the spirits.
The fact that each room in the house was built a separate wooden foundation saved much of the house during the 1906 earthquake (that caused the San Francisco fire) but some of the top and front of the house was destroyed and Winchester nearly died. After this, Winchester had the entire front of the house closed up and built towards the back, with no back basement.
When Winchester died – as her will stipulated – all of the contents of the house were auctioned off and her fortune went to her niece, favorite servants, and mostly to what is now the Yale Medical Center. The house quickly an attraction – then –with more of its original fruit-orchard land around – called Winchester Park. Now the house is on a busy four-lane road and shares a parking lot with an aging late 1970s movie theater (with no high-density, mixed-use luxury building across the street).
I paid to go on a tour of about 120 of the house’s 160 rooms and a second tour of some of the grounds and the basement. The first tour – at 9:15 a.m. – had about eight people – all Anglo but me (in contrast with the bus, whose passengers were mainly Latino, African American, and Asian American). But later tours had more people – including some kids and international tourists. This is an old-timey attraction, much like those Florida attractions we've read about in "Dixie Before Disney" and I wrote about in "Back at the Capitol."
Sarah Winchester was a New England high society woman who learned from a Boston psychic that her child, age 6 weeks, and her husband, age 44 years, had died at early ages because of the spirits of all of the people killed with rifles manufactured by her husband’s family’s company, the Winchester rifle company. At the psychic’s urging, Winchester took the $20 million she had gained when her husband died and moved – in 184? – to San Jose, then a very small agricultural community. Winchester bought a small house and was told by the psychic that, as long as she kept building onto the house, this would keep the spirits at bay and she would live forever.
Winchester consulted the spirits in a séance room in the house to figure out how to proceed with building. Over the course of 40 years plus, the house grew to 60 plus rooms, costing more than $5 million altogether. Winchester never employed an architect and reportedly had some doors and stairs in the house built to nowhere to confuse the spirits.
The fact that each room in the house was built a separate wooden foundation saved much of the house during the 1906 earthquake (that caused the San Francisco fire) but some of the top and front of the house was destroyed and Winchester nearly died. After this, Winchester had the entire front of the house closed up and built towards the back, with no back basement.
When Winchester died – as her will stipulated – all of the contents of the house were auctioned off and her fortune went to her niece, favorite servants, and mostly to what is now the Yale Medical Center. The house quickly an attraction – then –with more of its original fruit-orchard land around – called Winchester Park. Now the house is on a busy four-lane road and shares a parking lot with an aging late 1970s movie theater (with no high-density, mixed-use luxury building across the street).
I paid to go on a tour of about 120 of the house’s 160 rooms and a second tour of some of the grounds and the basement. The first tour – at 9:15 a.m. – had about eight people – all Anglo but me (in contrast with the bus, whose passengers were mainly Latino, African American, and Asian American). But later tours had more people – including some kids and international tourists. This is an old-timey attraction, much like those Florida attractions we've read about in "Dixie Before Disney" and I wrote about in "Back at the Capitol."
1 comment:
I think it is rather ironic that Mr. Skeptic who doesn't really believe in ghosts or spirits and only tolerates my obsession with Ghost Hunters, Haunted Ameria, etc. actually seems to have captured two orbs in his pictures. I had to explain to him what they were when I saw them. There seems to be one orb in the lower corner of the picture with the stairway leading to the door and another over the organ in the ballroom. He didn't even notice them until I said something.
-- Stephanie
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