Winchester Mystery House
I recently watched an episode of Dead Famous where Gail and Chris were trying to find and contact the spirit of Alfred Hitchcock. It really was an amazing episode as they visited some really atmospheric & spooky locations. On this particular journey one of the places that they visited in their search for Alfred Hitchcock's ghost was a place called The Winchester Mystery House in San Jose California, which was a place that Alfred liked to visit. It is reportedly very haunted and it is one of the most unusual homes you are ever likely to hear about. I was so fascinated by it I thought you would appreciate an article on it - enjoy!
The house was designed and built by a lady named Sarah Winchester and she was the wife of the heir to the Winchester Rifle fortune, William Wirt Winchester.
An Oliver Winchester was William's father and William was named as the vice president of the Winchester Co. around 1871. When his father passed away in 1880, it was then that William became the owner of 48% of the Winchester Co.
It is said that the "Winchester Repeating Rifle" was infact one of the main reasons that the American-West could have been taken from the native population who had been there on the land for years and years.
The "Lever Action Rifle" was not a new rifle and had been in use for a number of years previous, however it was Oliver Winchester (William's father) who had developed a way to mass produce the rifle. Subsequently the company grew prosperous as the gun became popular. Fans of the gun, it was said, were General George Custer and even President Theodore Roosevelt to name a few.
Sarah Winchester (then Pardee) and William were married in 1862 and subsequently had a daughter Annie (their only child) who sadly died but a month after she was born. The couple were suffering with their grief (understandably) and this was when they first consulted the services and guidance of a medium. This then marks the start of Sarah's dealings with the paranormal. Sarah's husband William died of Tuberculosis in 1881 which left a grieving Sarah in mourning for the rest of her life.
A young Sarah An older Sarah
The house was bought in 1884 by Sarah Winchester and her $20,000,000 inheritance was used to transform the house to her specifications. The work was non-stop on the house until the day Sarah died which would have been 38 years after work first started on the house.
Winchester House has a staggering 160 rooms which can only be described as a mixture of hidden places, twists and turns, staircases that lead to nowhere, dead ends, doors that do not lead to anywhere and a door that opens out to an 8 foot drop!! And that just scratches the surface! Sarah Winchester had a team of builders build the house to her orders and it was said that she didn't even have proper blue-prints - instead she would often sketch her ideas on the table cloth or scraps of paper!
There are many alleged reasons why Sarah built her house the way she did and the one which is widely beleived is that she built it that way so as to confuse the spirits and ghosts which were in her home so that they would leave her alone.
If we go back to the medium that Sarah became involved with after the death of her young daughter, it is said that it was this person who told Sarah that her home and family were infact cursed by the spirits of the people who had been killed by Winchester Rifles and furthermore that this was why her husband and daughter had died - the spirits getting their revenge. It seemed that the medium took advantage of Sarah's traumatised state by apparently advising her to buy a house and continually construct it the way the spirits wanted her to, telling her that this was the only way she could escape the spirits and that if she stopped work on the house her own life would end.
So the porported information that Sarah used to hold seances practically every night to contact spirits to help guide her into making her house the way she constructed it seem to fit.
One of the stairways which lead nowhere!!
Personally I think that because she dabbled in the paranormal by holding nightly seances that its possible that she herself unwittingly conjured up spirits into her home, who knows? She certainly seemed like a woman set on a mission who was so intent on keeping herself safe from bad spirits and ghosts that she became totally overtaken by her home...its also possible that because of the immense grief she suffered at the loss of her husband and child, that the only way of coping with it was to throw herself into constructing such a fantastical house, a way of losing herself in it and not having to deal with the loss of her beloved family. Maybe neither theories are correct, maybe she just had a brilliant sense of humour and fun and constructed the house based on that?
Whatever the truth is behind The Winchester Mystery House it is certainly intriguing and there are definate numerous reports of poltergeist activity and sightings in that house - so if you ever visit it - dont forget to tell us what you think!
I really recommend that you try and get to see the Dead Famous episode this house features in as you really need to see the strange stuff that happened to them.
In the meantime I have found some really good links which give further information and pictures (inside and out) of The Winchester Mystery House.
LINKS
This site has a feature on The Winchester House, pictures of some of the rooms inside and also pictures taken of orbs etc which were taken during an investigation
http://www.ghostinmysuitcase.com/places/winchester/
This is the ghoststudy.com's page which features a members story and pictures from a visit to the house.
http://www.ghoststudy.com/monthly/mar02/wmh.html
NEw Winchester House Links 10.02.08
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