Winchester Mystery House and the Whaley House

This website was made for kids and families everywhere by the people at Dorp Express, the children's
publications division of Moon-Star Unlimited Inc. The materials on this website are copyright protected, and
may not be reproduced in whole or in part without express written consent from Dorp Express. Inquiries may
be directed to Britt Brundige, editor in chief. You may contact her at editor @ dorpexpress.com.

Events: The first death actually in the house was
that of baby Thomas. Later, after a disatrous and
embarrasing divorce, Violet comitted suicide
(1885). In the house, Mrs. Whaley died (1913),
and Francis died (1914), leaving Corrinne (also
known as Lillian) to live in the house alone until her
death in 1953. There is also the legend of "The
Washburn Girl" She was supposedly a playmate of
some of the Whaley children, who died after
running into a low lying clothesline in the backyard.
She may or may not have actually existed.

Original Owners: Thomas Whaley designed the
house and it was completed in 1957. He and his
wife Anna were married in 1853, and moved to San
Diego. The couple had three children, Francis,
Thomas (who died at 1 and a half) and Anna. After
the death of his child, and the loss of his business
which was destroyed by fire, Mr. Whaley moved his
family to San Francisco. There, they had three
more children, George, Violet and Corrinne. The
Whaley Family moved back to their San Diego
house in 1868.

History: Two story $10,000 Greek Revival brick
house was completed in 1857. It was built on the
site of the town gallows, of which one of the
hanged is said to haunt the house. During its
heyday, the Whaley House was used as the county
courthouse, and a theatre troupe used the front
upstairs bedroom. The last Whaley descendant
died in the 1950's and the house was bought by
the County of San Diego, and is now in the hands
of the Save Our Heritage Organization.

Hauntings: Over the past several decades, many
things are said to have happened in the house.
They don't happen everyday, but sightings and
other oddities are frequent enough for it to be
considered an activly haunted house. No less than
three seperate entities may haunt the Whaley
House, and there may be as many as six or seven.

Mrs. Whaley is one of the most often reported.
People say that they can hear her playing the
piano for guests, and her strong perfume
occasionally drifts through the house. Another
smell often reported is pipe smoke, possibly of Mr.
Whaley, whom is also repotedly seen from time to
time wearing a frock coat and top hat. Mentioned
above, a man hanged on the gallows which stood
in the place of the house before it was built, may
also haunt the Whaley House. His name was
"Yankee Jim," and he may be the one responcible
for the heavy footsteps coming from the stairs and
other locations. In a diary, even Mr. Whaley
commented on the mysterious footfalls. An
undentified spirit haunts the kitchen. It is
described as a young girl around nine years of age.
She has been tentatively identified as the
Washburn Girl mention above, but as far as I
know, nobody really knows who she is.
Regardless, she plays with, and moves items aroud
in the kitchen.

Other supernatural activies in the house have been
reported. Strange lights, mists, laughter, crying,
moving objects, and even a phantom dog seen
running down a hallway is said to occur.

History: Sarah Winchester, widow of the heir to the
Winchester Gun fortune, began building onto an
already existing six-room house 24 hours a day for
more than 30 years. The 160 room Victorian
Mansion reached seven stories tall in 1906, when
part of it was ravaged by a major earthquake. The
top three floors fell into the gardens, and were
never rebuilt. She took the earthquake as a sign
that she was not building enough, so work increased
until 1922 when she died at the age of 83. There
are still some nails visible that the workers had
stopped hammering upon news of her death.

Original Owners: Sarah Winchester was a window,
and lived in the house alone. She had lost a
daughter to illness while she was still a baby, and
soon after her husband died. He left her a 20
million dollar fortune. Sarah, after visiting a
medium, became convinced that her family had died
because the spirits of those who had been killed by
Winchester rifles were after revenge, and the only
way to appease them would be to build them a
house. If at any time she ever quit construction on
the house, she would die. So Sarah moved from
her Connecticut home to California and purchased a
six room house that sat on 162 acres of land. And
there she began to build! Sarah claimed that the
spirits told her what to build, and she designed it all
for them. She didn't trust all spirits though, and
she made the house a maze so that the bad spirits
would get lost.

Events: In 1906, an earthquake destroyed parts of
the house, and even trapped Sarah in her bedroom.
It took the staff nearly an hour to find her since she
slept in a different bedroom every night. After that,
Sarah stayed to the same bedroom that she
eventually died in. Upon her death, all of her
furniture was auctioned off according to her will.
She left all of her money, which after 38 years of
building turned out to be not so much, to her niece,
who had been handling all her business affairs.
Since the house had been torn down and rebuilt so
many times, people were sure that Sarah had hid
valubles somewhere, but none were ever found.
There is even the rumour that there may be one or
more rooms that have been completely hidden in the
house. It would be next to impossible to find it
though since Sarah Winchester never used a master
blueprint to design her house.

Hauntings: The house alone is enough to creep
anyone out, but reports of the supernatural are
common. Whispering, Sarah's organ music,
hammering, footsteps and slamming doors have all
been heard at one time or another. The smell of
chicken soup has drifted out of one of the kitchens.
As for Sarah herself, she is said to appear from time
to time in several different places. She is still the
head of her house! Also, a phantom workman has
been sighted, yellow and red balls of light dart
about, door knobs turn, lights go on and off and an
office was once completely soaked with water.
Burst pipe?

Rose Red - Stephen King. Mr. King was inspired by the
Winchester Mystery House, and based his story of Ellen
Rimbauer and her unusual house on it. The movie was a six
hour miniseries made for ABC, and aired in 2002. The
prequel, "My Life at Rose Red," which was not written by
Stephen King aired in 2003 on ABC.