One the one hand, she was rather generous with her seemingly limitless resources, paying her employees handsomely while donating to charities and orphanages on a regular basis. Winchester was quite the eccentric person.
For the next thirty-eight years, she proceeded to build the wonder that is the Winchester Mystery House. Winchester heeded the advice, and settled on an unfinished farmhouse isn the Santa Clara Valley in 1884. As long as construction on the house never ceased, her life would be spared. Legend has it that the spiritualist told Winchester to move west and build a great house for the spirits that haunted her. But what could she do to appease the spirits? Via Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, 571113 The spiritualist warned that if Winchester didn’t act soon, she could be next. Allegedly, the spiritualist told Winchester that her family was haunted by spirits - those killed by Winchester rifles - and that these spirits were responsible for the untimely deaths of her daughter and husband. Winchester sought the help of a spiritualist. To deal with her distress, it’s said that Mrs. Just fifteen years later, her husband died an early death from tuberculosis, adding to the grief and pain that Sarah was already dealing with. As you can imagine, her death sent Sarah into a deep depression. Life was good until the couple lost their infant daughter in 1866 to the mysterious childhood disease marasmus. Born around 1840, Sarah married William Winchester in 1862.
#Winchester mystery house story full
If you’re unfamiliar with Sarah Winchester’s story, it’s one full of mystery and intrigue. There are also several secret passageways throughout the twisting hallways of the mansion. For example, one staircase descends seven steps before suddenly rising eleven. The house, which is now a California state landmark, boasts 10,000 windows, 2,000 doors, 47 fireplaces, 40 staircases, 13 bathrooms, nine kitchens, and several architectural oddities. The room is now open to the public, and brings the total number of rooms found in the mansion up to 161. The home’s preservation team found numerous items in the room, including a Victorian couch, a pump organ, dress form, and a sewing machine. Winchester, the widow of gun magnate William Wirt Winchester and heir to the Winchester rifle fortune, was trapped in the room after the 1906 earthquake she boarded it up as a result, blaming the earthquake (and her subsequent entrapment) on evil spirits. The room is an attic space that has been boarded up since Winchester died in 1922. A new room was recently discovered at San Jose’s Winchester Mystery House, the Victorian mansion that was once home to Sarah Winchester.