The Winchester Mystery House

 Emily Ginas

Sarah Winchester crazy or truthful? A house built by spirits is a slogan for The Winchester Mystery House. Located in the Santa Clara Valley current day San Jose California, the building commenced in 1884 and continued for over 38 years. Owner Sarah Winchester had an eye for design when it came to this marvelous mansion. As said in the article “The Truth About Sarah Winchester” by Richard Allen Wagner, Sarah hired over 20 carpenters to work for her 24 hours a day 365 days a week. You’re probably asking why. Why Sarah had created this incredible house, why she had so many carpenters. Well, let us go back to September 30, 1862. On this day Sarah married her husband William, a very well off man who owned a gun company used in the Civil War and Western Wars. They later on brought a daughter named Annie into the world on July 12, 1866. Annie sadly passed 40 days after birth due to a rare birth defect known as Marasmus. A few years later in 1880, William fell deathly ill with Tuberculosis. Leaving Sarah with $20,000,000 dollars, and a pay without taxes taken out of $1000 a week, but this still wasn’t good enough. Sarah had officially gone mad and into a depression. The mourning of her daughter and husband was too much for her, she sought out to a spiritualist. According to the published text on the website Winchester Mystery House “Sarah Winchester: Woman of Mystery” the spiritualist told her that her family was being haunted by spirits. Spirits of American Indians, Civil War Soldiers and others who were killed by the Winchester Rifle. Apparently they’re the reason why her husband and child passed and she would be the next in line. The spiritualist gave another option; move out west and start to build a house, but she must never stop building, once she stops the spirits will take her life.

Continuing on with the house for 38 years Sarah has created a labyrinth. Doors that lead to no where, hallways that lead to no where, the style of the house is quite interesting. The house was made in this way to confuse the ghost so they couldn’t find her. The use of the number 13 throughout the house is very interesting also Sarah Winchester seemed to be very superstitious. As we see on the website The Winchester Mystery House “The Number 13” within the house Sarah has the number 13 use quite frequently. 13 steps on many stair cases, 13 holes in the sink drain covers, 13 ceiling panels in some rooms, even 13 hooks in her Séance room, and many more. Including her will, she had 13 parts within and signed it 13 times! She believes the number 13 will ward off evil spirits. Now, fast forward past Miss Winchester’s natural caused death to present day. The house to this day still has the eerie feel to it. As if she never left…
It is difficult to say if Miss Winchester is ludicrous or if this is her way of mourning. What do you think?

Works Cited:
Tam Communications. “Winchester Mystery House-Secrets of the Mansion part 1.” YouTube. YouTube. 15 Jun 2013. Web. 14 Oct 2015.

Wagner, Richard Allen. “The Truth About Sarah Winchester.” thetruthaboutaarahwinchester.com. 2015. Web. 12 Oct. 2015

“Sarah Winchester: Woman of Mystery.” WinchesterMysteryHouse.com. Winchester Mystery House. 2015. Web. 14 Oct. 2015.

“The Number 13.” WinchesterMysteryHouse.com. Winchester Mystery House. 2015. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.

Kristina, Greetings from Winchester Mystery House. San Jose, CA. Print. 20 Oct 2015.

For even more leads than this article provides visit:
Other References for Research:

How Stuff Works Sciencehttp://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/afterlife/winchester-mystery-house1.htm
This website has further detail of the house and reasons behind each aspect of the house.

Yahoo Images: Sarah Winchester Pictureshttps://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBwKV5X7N7bFyGpVRaXeot4MWiCXad6d0YWU-7e1ZdiXth-BWCRkAj5457yCgv5NHkbI7aUHTpS85nqwOiD54evKDTh6wVvaXH5EHZMFdbCsZTk1RfKTubMoi6y2zFcN8O4IdjFGupC2s/s1600/sarah.jpg
This is a picture of a young Sarah Winchester.

Wikipedia Sources: Sarah Winchester Death
This is an article from 1918 NY Times talking about Sarah Winchesters death.

The Winchester Mystery House

Author Kaitlynn Burkett

This extravagant Victorian house built in San Jose, California by Sarah Winchester in still a mystery to millions of people. It is know as The Winchester Mystery House. The house is known as the “house built by spirits”. It is explained on the website to be marvelous, baffling, and eerily eccentric, The Winchester Mystery House . In this mystery house, there are many different architectural differences than a normal house of mansion. It includes many mile long twisting hallways with secret passages in the walls. Mrs. Winchester built a house like this to protect herself from “bad spirits.” Her house was constantly changing day by day and being added on to. This house is estimated to have about 500 to 600 rooms through remodeling constantly, now left is about 160 remaining. Her furnishes included gold and sliver plated chandeliers, and Tiffany art glass that valued up to $1,500 each. Over thirty-three years, a man built and repaired the Winchester Mystery House parquet floors. They are made of mahogany, rosewood, teak, maple, oak and white ash. Sarah actually died in this room with the parquet floors. Supposedly her favorite room. The mansion also consists of the finest cabinets, forty-seven fireplaces, seventeen chimneys, and a grand ballroom that cost over $9,000. 

Mrs. Sarah Winchester was born around 1840. Her parents were Leonard Pardee and Sarah Burns. She was from New Haven, Connecticut. In 1862, she married William Wirt Winchester. His parents were Oliver Fisher Winchester. Soon after they were married, they moved to New England. In 1866, an awful tragedy occurred when they daughter Annie died of a rare disease. Both in very deep depression after loosing their infant. Fifteen years later, Mrs. Sarah was all alone. Her husband died from tuberculosis. From some sources, it is explained that spirits haunted her family, as Sarah believed. As instructed by the spirits, she packed up her things and headed west to start building this mansion. She had no intentions of this before, but to go see her niece who lived in Menlo Park, California. But of course she had 777 shares of stocker in the Winchester Repeating Arms Company and 2,000 more shares from her mother in law passing to build this house. Well back in the 1800’s with no income tax, she had $1,ooo a day. After living in this house and building it for the spirits, she passed away in 1922 because of heart failure.
As of today, this mansion is somewhat smaller because of remodeling. It now contains 160 rooms, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 stairways, 47 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, and 6 kitchens.   

Works Cited:

Cunningham, Bill. “Inside the Winchester Mystery House.” ABC News. ABC News. 27 October 2008.
Web. 10 October 2013.

Edmonds, Molly. “Why does the Winchester Mystery House have stairs leading nowhere?” How Stuff Works. How Stuff Works. n.d. Web. 10 October 2013. 

“Shaking Chandelier Spooks Staff at Winchester Mystery House.” CBS Local News. N.p. 25 July 2013. Web. 10 October 2013.

Taylor, Troy. “The Winchester Mystery House.” Prairie Ghosts.” Haunted Places. 2013. Web. 10 October 2013.

The Winchester Mystery House, eds. Winchester Mystery House. N.p. 2013. Web. 9 October. 2013.

Grant, Kay. "Winchester Mystery House." Travel Lady Magazine. March 2005. (March 26, 2008) 


For Further Research:
http://travellady.com/Issues/March05/1300WinchesterMysteryHouse.htm. This article explains the architecture of the house and the reason it was built.

NBC Bay Area Staff. “Winchester Mystery House Observes Friday the 13^th.” (September, 13, 2013)

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Winchester-Mystery-House-Observing-Friday-the-13th-223652621.html. This article explains what NBC observed on Friday the 13^th with the spirits in the Mystery House.

Strangetastic.com. "Mystery House Commentary." (March 26, 2008)

. This article is commentary on the house.