The Story of the Winchester Mansion
38 years. 160 rooms. The mystery that still fascinates people today.
One woman, Sarah Winchester, was pained by the death of her daughter and husband William
Wirt Winchester. William was the son of the manufacturer of the famous Winchester Repaeting Rifle.
Her husbad William dies in 1881 because of tuberculosis fifteen years after their only daughter died at the age of one month.
Because of Sarah's loss of both her husband and only child she eventualy went and visited the medium.
The medium had told her that the spirits of those who's lives were taken from the rifles their family made where taking
the lives of people in her family. Their family was cursed. Sarah Winchester knew she was next, and to prevent her death she
followed the medium's advice down to the last letter. She had to build a house and continue building and reconstructing it forever.
So she moved to San Jose, California and bought an eighty-room barn house. Construction started in 1884 and consumed the
next 38 years of her life. Being moved by the spirits to build this house that is beleived to be created by the spirits for the spriits.
Sarah worked around the clock on the spirits will not even stopping for holidays or Sundays. In the end she had a total of
160 rooms, 47 fireplaces, 10,000 windows, 2 basements, 17 chimineys, and 3 elevators. It is said and beleived that she made
this labyrinth to confuse and thus lose the spirits. There are doors that open to brickwalls, staircases that lead to nowhere,
doors that open to midair, steps that lead to the ceiling and much more in this maze of a building.
It is also beleived that spirits still haunt this house to this very day. In 1903 Theodore Roosevelt who was the president
at the time passed through San Jose and asked to visit the Winchester Mansion but was turned away. The servents' tale
is that the only visitors of the house was the spirits who came when called by a bell at midnight and left when the bell
rang again at two am. The servants say that through these two hours organs could be heard from down the streets.
There were organs in house because Sarh used to play this insturment amazingly thought over the years was over
taken by arthitis. The spirits were the ones who played this instrument through the night.
Sarah also had a wine cellars that contained the best vintage wines. To this cellar only she possed a key.
One night she went to grab a bottle of wine to enjoy but noticed a black hand print on the wall. That very night
she was confided in by the spirits that it was the print of a demon's hand. She found this to be a sign that alcohol
was not allowed or appreciated by the spirts and had the cellar sealed off so well taht is has still never been found by
anyone. In 1981 on two different occasions, two tour gides could smell the aroama of chicken noodle soup in a kitchen
that was never used. A former care taker named Brent Miller experienced foot falls in Mrs.Winchesters bedroom.
Sarah died on Septemember 5 in 1922 at the age of 82. It is still reported that strange phenominons occure in the house
such as chains rattling, cold spots, and hearing whispers. Psychics today still claim that there are spirits that wander the
corrodors of the mansion.
-tabie
my_lips_made_a_sugar Community Member 
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