The Winchester House is
Located in San Jose, California. Last year I was able to visit the
house while staying nearby.
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| Winchester House, San Jose, California |
The house is an amazing
conglomeration of Victorian architecture built by Sarah Winchester,
the widow of gun magnate William Winchester, of Repeating Rifle fame.
The couple had only one child and sadly the child died in infancy.
Mrs. Winchester was what could be described as filthy rich and
but put much of her fortune into building and remodeling the house.
She furnished it with custom made and expensive furnishings. The
house truly is a sight to be seen, inside and out, just for its
architecture and furnishings alone. It is a time capsule of the
Victorian era.
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| Winchester Rifles |
Rumor has it that the
house is haunted and that the bizarre building, remodeling and odd
things that were added into the residence were because Mrs.
Winchester believed she was haunted by the spirits of those who were
killed by her husband's repeating rifles. Therefore, she put secret
passages, stairways to nowhere, and used the mystical number 13
everywhere in the home to confuse the spirits. There are 13 cupolas
on the greenhouse, the sink drains have 13 holes, stairways have 13
steps, and she signed her will, which had 13 parts to it, a total of
13 times. Pretty unusual, to say the least.
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| A treasure trove of stained glass, custom made for the house. |
Some sources say she held
nightly seances and fed the spirits banquets of gourmet food. The
tale goes like this...after her husband and child died, a
spiritualist told Mrs. Winchester that the spirits of those killed by
Winchester rifles were angry and that she needed to move away from
the East Coast to get away from them. She moved across the country to
California and purchased a farm house in San Jose which was
continuously added to and remodeled for the next 30 some odd years
until her death.
Spiritualism, with
seances, table tilting, ghostly knocking, and other such phenomenon
was a popular pastime in the late 1800's, so if Mrs. Winchester
attended seances and such she was just like many other people of the
time period. She was very rich so she could do what she wanted and
spend as much as she liked, she was alone in the world, possibly with
a guilty conscience and put all her effort into creating the
interesting house that is left today.
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| One of the many rooms in the Winchester house. |
Was it to confuse ghosts
that were after her? There are several reports of haunting and
unusual manifestations from tour guides, caretakers, and paranormal
groups that have visited the house. It should not surprise anyone
that a house with such a history has some haunting or residual
spirits, especially those of the residents themselves.
The other side of the
story... Mrs. Winchester admired Francis Bacon, Shakespeare, and she
was also a Freemason. Throughout the house she used masonic
symbolism such as the pillars on the premises named Boaz and Joachim,
which are masonic symbols. She also had stained glass windows made
using words of Francis Bacon and Shakespeare. Mrs Winchester is also
reportedly known to be a Rosicrucian and symbolism from that creed is
also evident in the house.
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| The house, looking quite mysterious at night. |
Are all the ghost stories
about a crazed old rich lady true or are they just sensationalism
made up to attract tourists by the busload to this destination??? You
decide. The place is definitely worth a look, but it is also
shameless in its promotion as a tourist destination.
Sources:
