Monday, March 6, 2017

What's all the mystery at this house?

The Winchester House is Located in San Jose, California. Last year I was able to visit the house while staying nearby.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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