William Wirt Winchester

Born - June 22, 1837

Married Sarah Lockwood Pardee – September 30, 1862

Had one child Annie Pardee Winchester Born July 15, 1866 Died July 24, 1866, of marasmus

Father – Oliver Fisher Winchester Manufactured and marketed the

Winchester repeating rifle Died on December 11, 1880 Ownership of company given to

William Winchester

Died March 7, 1881 of tuberculosis

Sarah Lockwood Pardee

Born in 1839

Death of only child Became deeply depressed Never had any more children

Father-in-law and husband died within 3 months of each other

50% ownership of Winchester Company upon husband’s death

Income $1,000 a day (equal to $22,000 a day in 2008)

Died September 5, 1922 – 83 years old

Winchester Mystery House

Sarah - convinced Winchester family was cursed

Went to a psychic Family cursed by spirits killed

by Winchester rifle Should move west Build house for herself and

spirits Construction should not stop or

Sarah would die

Moved to San Jose, California from Connecticut

Bought eight-room farmhouse on 162 acres

How did Sarah keep building constantly according to the psychic’s directions?

How big is the house?

What are some unique features of the house?

Why did Sarah build the house the way she did?

What happened after the earthquake?

What happened to the house after Sarah died?

Is the Winchester House haunted?

Plenty of money ($20 million dollar inheritance)

Hired workers to build

13 full-time workers 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year For the next 38 years!

Workers caught not working immediately fired

Covers 4 acres

Had 7 stories (earthquake brought it down to 4 stories)

2 functional basements

160 rooms

40 bedrooms 13 bathrooms 5 kitchens

To paint entire house 20,000 gallons

3 elevators

47 fireplaces

@1,257 window frames

@10,000 window panes

467 doorways

950 doors

40 staircases

Repeating number 13 theme

13 Chandeliers 13 panes in many

windows 13 bathrooms 13 steps on most

staircases (one has 39)

Doors that open into walls

Stairs that lead nowhere

Windows that look into walls

Following psychic’s instructions

Held seances (spirits “told” her how to build the next day)

Strange design

Wanted to confuse spirits Wasn’t a trained architect

Slept in a different room every night

Believed if she stopped building, she would die

Earthquake in 1906

Top 3 stories collapsed

Sarah trapped in her room

Convinced spirits were angry because house almost complete

Boarded up front 30 rooms of house Ensure house would

never be complete Trap spirits that fell

through the floors

All building stopped

Left possessions to niece, Frances Marriot

Took 6 weeks to remove furniture

House auctioned to investors

Turned into a tourist attraction

Many visiting psychics claim to see spirits

Numerous claims of ghost sightings

Employees/Visitors

Footsteps

Banging doors

Mysterious voices

Windows bang so hard they shatter

Cold spots

Strange moving lights

Doorknobs that move by themselves

Light orbs in pictures

Sarah was mentally unstable.

Suffered severe depression from the loss of her husband and daughter

Was not in a good mental state when she went to a psychic

Lived as a recluse for 38 years Lack of communication with people did not help her

sanity.

Bizarre events can be explained:

Light orbs are reflections of flash off of dust particles. Cold spots are normal in a huge house with

inconsistent heating. Strange noises in a house where tours are given could

be explained by other tourists making them. People want to see ghosts so badly, they interpret

normal events as ghosts. There are so many windows, some are bound to break.