The Winchester Mystery House – a Maze for Ghosts

When

1886–1922 date from records made at the time

Where

Winchester Mystery House, San Jose, California, United States

Verdict

Explained

The widow of a rifle magnate supposedly built nonstop to confuse the ghosts of those killed by Winchester guns – a legend that turned out to be greatly exaggerated.

What happened

Sarah Winchester, widow of William Wirt Winchester, heir to the famous rifle company, lost her infant daughter in 1866 and, in 1880–1881, her husband, mother and father-in-law. In 1886 she bought a farm near San Jose and began extending it according to her own ideas. When she died in 1922, the house had about 160 rooms, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows and 47 staircases. There are stairs that end in the ceiling, doors that open onto walls and windows set in floors. Legend says a Boston medium told the widow she was being pursued by the spirits of everyone killed by Winchester rifles and that she would die if building ever stopped. So she supposedly built day and night for 38 years to confuse the ghosts, held nightly séances in the blue room and obsessively repeated the number 13. Nine months after her death the house opened to visitors, and guests and guides speak of cold spots, footsteps and whispers.

Witnesses

Guides, staff and visitors; the legend was spread by the press of the 1890s and later by Susy Smith's book “Prominent American Ghosts” (1967).

Explanations and hypotheses

Biographer Mary Jo Ignoffo and investigator Joe Nickell have shown that most of the legend is invented. No medium called “Adam Coons” appears in any Boston directory of spiritualists. Construction was not continuous – Winchester took breaks lasting months, and many “oddities” are traces of remodelling and of damage from the 1906 earthquake. Her staff stated that she had no interest in séances, and the number-13 motif first appeared in a 1929 article and in alterations made after her death. The haunting became, above all, marketing for a tourist attraction.

Explained The phenomenon has a widely accepted, down-to-earth explanation.

Sources

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