A Son of a Gun Mystery!!!!

By: Sam Little

When one thinks of amazing houses that are filled with mystery and general strangeness the list is usually the same. Amityville, Whaley, Villisca, and of course Lizzie Borden's house. But in most cases one home tops the list. That home is the Winchester Mystery House.

The house built to keep ghost away may have failed that goal and in turn trapped them in. Let's explore the home owned by Sarah Winchester, the wife of William Winchester, and the home that to this day calls out to those who seek oddities.

As some of you may know Henry Winchester inherited the Winchester Repeating Arms company. Until the modifications done to the Volcanic Repeater rifles were effective but slow to load and this made it difficult to fight with them. The Winchester rifle known as the Henry made loading much faster and thus in a sense more shots at a much faster pace meant more kills. The rifle quickly grew in popularity, namely among civil war troops who were hoping to stay alive.

Money poured in and the Winchester Rifle became the most profitable company of the 1800s. After an elaborate and much pronounced ceremony on Sept. 30th 1862 William was married to Sarah Pardee.

Four years later they brought a daughter into the world. Annie Pardee Winchester was born July 15th 1866. She was the greatest thing in Sarah's life and she loved her dearly. Mournfully, on July 24th of the same year young Annie would lose a bout with marasmus, a childhood disease that acts almost like tuberculosis wasting the body away. Annie's short time here was more than enough for Sarah to fall in love, and the loss sent her into a depression that would have rivaled Romeo's when he realized his love was of enemy blood.

The event kick started a motor of disaster that would see Sarah teeter on the very edge of madness. She became a hermit of sorts and rarely made appearances. She secluded herself from the outside world for some time. In fact it was almost a decade before she would return to the routines she had made for herself prior to the loss of her daughter.

While her returned marked a triumphant moment in her life and a gleam of hope that many thought was lost forever it would not last. Tragedy struck again. On March 7th of 1881 William would lose his battle with pulmonary tuberculosis. Once again Sarah sought refuge in the dark and loneliness. Her life began to seem more and more pointless. Sarah would come to inherit 20 million dollars, a sum of money that was completely unheard of at that time. She was making $1,000 dollars a day, but money meant nothing to her. She cared only for her family.

It was this depression that prompted one of Sarah's friends to speak with a spiritualist medium. Spiritualism was very popular at the time. The medium made contact with Sarah's dead husband. (most mediums of this period were frauds and it is still questionable as to the authenticity of the medium.) William told Sarah that a curse was placed on the Winchester name. The rifle that so many people had grown to love and the tool of the Winchester wealth had sent many a man to an early grave and those spirits were angry with that. They wanted revenge and sought it by attacking the family who designed and sold the gun.

William told her she needed to start a new life by moving out west. He along with the good spirits would guide her to the right location. Sarah was very blinded by the mediums next comments. She said that William wanted Sarah to continue to build on the house. As long as the building continued she would escape the Winchester curse. Sarah would heed those words in a fashion that would make her one of the most talked about people of that time period.

Shortly after the meeting with the medium Sarah sold her New Haven home and with a tremendous amount of money at her disposal headed west as she was instructed. She reached California's San Clara Valley in 1884. Soon she felt she was guided to a house. It was a 6 room home under construction. The home was owned by a Dr. Caldwell. It took some negotiations but Sarah eventually wore down her new friend and the house became hers, along with a track of land 162 acres large.

The building plans made by the very logical and rational Dr. Caldwell were thrown out the door and Sarah began the new design that would make the house history. In fact for the next 36 years the house continued to grow and take shape, though what shape it was taking was merely speculation.

Workers toiled 24 hours a day on the house. Sarah had a team of 22 craftsmen and they were always at her disposal. Despite the large amount of timeless work the house would never be finished. Each morning Sarah would give her foreman the new blueprints she herself had hand written and directions for the day's build. While lacking the distinction of architectural blueprints, Sarah's designs were testaments to a created mind and an inner drive to do as she was instructed by her loving husband.

When a plan would not suffice, Sarah was quick to give a working solution to the problem. The building continued to grow, reaching a height of 7 stories. 3 elevators were added to the hulking complex as well as countless staircases and window panes. In fact some of the oddities installed made sense only to Sarah and the spirits that guided her. Some of these were:

1. Staircases that lead nowhere
2. closets that opened into brick walls
3. doors that opened into 4 story drops
4. a staircase containing 42 steps that only rose 7 feet
5. the reoccurring of the number 13
6. and a séance room that had several doors that would not allow you to leave

As I mentioned the number 13 was Sarah's lucky number and appears very frequently in the home. Most of the windows contain 13 panes of glass. Most of the staircases have 13 steps, and the number appears through the house. The general thought was Sarah, fearing for her life from attack of spirits seeking retribution for their untimely deaths at the end of a Winchester rifle, built a house to confuse the spirits. Night after night she would retire to her séance room and communicate for hours with spirits. Each night they would give her more ideas and concepts for the amazing house she was building. Sarah spared no expense on her endeavor, always wanting to stay one step ahead of the evil spirits. The sounds of hammers and workers rung through the night, echoing Sarah's passion or fear depending on how you look at it. The people who once admired Sarah now questioned her sanity and with good reason as work continued on the house. Others however thought she had succeeded in avoiding the curse with her labyrinth of a home. Sarah could navigate the place like it was a normal residence while others, including the workers who built it would sometimes find themselves lost for hours.