Sarah Winchester
Contents |
Biography
The grieving Sarah felt that her family was cursed, and sought out spiritualists to determine what she should do. A medium, believed to be a psychic, allegedly told her that the Winchester family was cursed by the spirits of all the people who had been killed by the Winchester rifle, and she should move west to build a house for herself and the spirits. The Medium is claimed to have told Sarah that if construction on the house ever stopped, she would die.In 1884, Sarah moved west to California and purchased an eight-room farmhouse under construction from Dr. Robert Caldwell. It stood on 161 acres of land in what is now San Jose, California. Immediately, she began spending her $20 million inheritance by renovating and adding more rooms to the house, with work continuing 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for the next 38 years. She was fascinated with the number 13 and worked the number into the house in many places. (There are thirteen bathrooms, windows have thirteen panes, thirteen chandeliers, and so forth.)
After the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, Sarah was trapped in her bedroom for a short time, no more than a few hours. However, when she got out, she told the construction crews to stop working on the nearly completed front part of the house and had her carpenters board it up, leaving most of the extensive earthquake damage unrepaired. She thought the spirits were angry with her because she was spending too much time working on the front rooms. Construction resumed on new additions and remodeling the other parts of the structure.
Due to the lack of a master plan and constant construction, the house became very large and quite complex; many of the serving staff needed a map to navigate the house. The house also features doors that open into walls, staircases that lead nowhere, the recurring number thirteen, and windows that look into other walls. There are two theories as to why Mrs. Winchester built such an unusual house. The first is by far the most popular and states that she built the house to confuse the ghosts of those killed by Winchester rifles. The second, much less popular, is that while Mrs. Winchester was an exceedingly wealthy woman and could build her house any way she wanted, she had no architectural training at all, so some of the oddities could be simple design error. The Winchester Mystery House is a National Historic Monument, a San Jose CA historic landmark, and California historic landmark number 868.
In the 1920s Sarah also maintained a houseboat on the Bay at Burlingame, California, which became known as "Sarah's Ark" as it was reputedly kept here as insurance against her fear of a second great flood, such as the Biblical one experienced by Noah and his family. The "Ark" was located near the eucalyptus grove at Winchester Drive, south of what was to become the intersection of Anza Drive and Hwy 101. The ark was destroyed by fire in 1929.[2]
Sarah's death
Construction stopped on the Winchester Mystery House when Sarah died on September 5, 1922 at the age of 83 from heart failure. She was buried next to her husband and infant child in Evergreen Cemetery, New Haven, Connecticut. Sarah Winchester left a will written in 13 sections, which she signed thirteen times. The belongings in Winchester Mystery House were left to her niece, Mrs. Marian Merriman Marriot, who took what she wanted and auctioned the rest off. It took movers eight truckloads a day for six and a half weeks to empty the entire house of furniture. The home was then auctioned to the highest bidder who then turned it into an attraction for the public, the first tours walked through the house in February 1923, 5 months after Sarah died.[3]
Legacy
- The Santa Clara-Los Gatos Boulevard in front of the house was later renamed Winchester Boulevard, after Sarah's House. Today, the House is open to the public every day except for Christmas. Tours are conducted of both the House and the grounds on those days.
- Sarah Winchester appears as a character in the 2009 film Haunting of Winchester House, based on the hauntings in Winchester Mystery House. She is played by Kimberly Ables Jindra.
References
- ↑ She had six siblings: Sarah E. Pardee, who died as an infant; Mary A. Pardee, who married William Converse; Antoinette E. Pardee; Leonard M. Pardee; Isabelle C. Pardee, who married Lewis Merriman; and Estelle L. Pardee.
- ↑ Burlingame Centennial 1908-2008, Joanne Garrison ISBN 978-0-615-17894-3
- ↑ http://travel.discovery.com/tv/most-haunted/live-US/winchester-house/slideshow.html
- New York Times; June 12, 1911, Monday; Winchester's Widow Dying. Work on Her House in San Jose, California, ceased immediately following her death. Nails can be found half pounded into the walls.
- New York Times; May 31, 1970, Sunday; San Jose, California. A stairway that leads nowhere, a window that opens to reveal only a wall, a doorway that leads to nothing. These are parts of a disjointed, 160 room Victorian mansion that Mrs. Sarah Winchester built on the northern outskirts of San Jose after the sudden loss of both her husband, the son of Oliver Fisher Winchester, the rifle magnate, and her daughter. After her daughters death Sarah Winchester never tried to have kids again. Also after the death of her husband William Winchester,Sarah never married again.
