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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm editor Candice Kainer, joined by fellow editor Katie Lambert.

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Speaker 1: Hello Candice, Katie. I'm so glad you're here today because

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Speaker 1: I've got a topic that's just a little bit creepy

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Speaker 1: and I need a good friend to help guide me

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Speaker 1: through the scary parts. I think I know where you're

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Speaker 1: going with this. That's because today is the Winchester Mystery House.

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Speaker 1: It is, and what a fabulous topic. And I must

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Speaker 1: say that all of you who write to you as

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Speaker 1: your questing scary history stories and stories about ghosts, your

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Speaker 1: emails and messages have not gone unheard, and today they

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Speaker 1: shall be heated because we're beginning a multi part series

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Speaker 1: on the ghosts of history, and I'm thrilled to start

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Speaker 1: with the Winchester Mystery House. So tell us a little

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Speaker 1: bit about Sarah Winchester. Sarah Winchester, to whom most guides

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Speaker 1: at the Winchester Mystery House today referred to as Mrs

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Speaker 1: Winchester to show deference, was born Sarah Party in eighteen

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Speaker 1: thirty nine in New Haven, Connecticut, and she was vacious.

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Speaker 1: She was beautiful. Everyone wanted to be around her, and

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Speaker 1: she was pursued by many men in New Haven. And

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Speaker 1: also I should note, because this will be important later,

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Speaker 1: she was a very petite woman and she reached a

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Speaker 1: height of four ft ten inches. She's a tiny little

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Speaker 1: thing then a tiny little thing. But she married a

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Speaker 1: very well to do or soon well to do man

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Speaker 1: named William Word Winchester. And when I hear Winchester, because

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Speaker 1: I am a Georgia girl, I think of guns. Winchester

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Speaker 1: Arms became very famous during the time of the Civil

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Speaker 1: War and William Winchester bought into the company fairly early on,

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Speaker 1: and he actually perfected a type of rifle that could

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Speaker 1: be loaded and uh fired very quickly. And of course,

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Speaker 1: during the time of the Civil War here the troops

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Speaker 1: needed a gun that could do this on the battlefield,

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Speaker 1: and so the government actually put in several orders for

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Speaker 1: this repeating rifle, and private citizens wanted the gun to

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Speaker 1: so it really took off, and the company became known

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Speaker 1: as the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, and William Winchester became

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Speaker 1: quite wealthy off of this venture. He really did, he

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Speaker 1: really really did. But as we all know, money can't

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Speaker 1: buy happiness and they actually met their share of tragedy

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Speaker 1: as a young couple. They had a daughter named Annie,

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Speaker 1: who was born in eighteen sixty six, but she died

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Speaker 1: just a few months later, and Sarah Winchester understandably was

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Speaker 1: heartbroken over the death of her daughter, and when her

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Speaker 1: husband died in one that was sort of the final

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Speaker 1: blow to her psyche. I think it really was. And

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Speaker 1: as you can well imagine, the death of an infant

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Speaker 1: would be hard enough to cope with, and then the

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Speaker 1: death of her husband, who understandably was helping her cope

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Speaker 1: with the death of her daughter, it was just the

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Speaker 1: final blow for her and she wasn't quite sure where

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Speaker 1: to turn. During the Victorian era, it wasn't unusual for

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Speaker 1: people to seek the guidance of a spiritualist, even Mary

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Speaker 1: Todd Lincoln, as we've mentioned before and another podcast, what

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Speaker 1: hold Seances in the White House, some of which Lincoln

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Speaker 1: reportedly attended after her son died, and she saught the

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Speaker 1: help of the spiritualist, and she got a very direct

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Speaker 1: and pointed message, and the message was that there were

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Speaker 1: spirits who were very angry at the Winchester family and

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Speaker 1: in fact may have taken the life of Sarah Winchester's

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Speaker 1: husband and child, and in order to appease these spirits,

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Speaker 1: she needed to go and do a little construction project

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Speaker 1: of her own. And that's putting it mildly, because what

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Speaker 1: she engaged in was a thirty eight year long, never ending,

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Speaker 1: twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, construction project.

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Speaker 1: And there's pretty different versions of the legend, and I

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Speaker 1: think anytime you talk about ghost story, it's understood that

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Speaker 1: people have different ways of telling the tale. And the

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Speaker 1: version I'm going with that I've seen most commonly is

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Speaker 1: that her husband's spirit led her out west as far

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Speaker 1: as she could go, leaving behind the East coast and

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Speaker 1: going to the west coast in San Jose, where she

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Speaker 1: encountered a farmer who had a six room farmhouse that

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Speaker 1: he was willing to sell her on many many many

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Speaker 1: acres of land, plenty of room to build, and with

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Speaker 1: her husband's guidance, she settled on this place and she

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Speaker 1: began this project that um like I said, spanned thirty

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Speaker 1: eight years and almost outlasted an earthquake, and really continued

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Speaker 1: up until the day that she died. And actually it

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Speaker 1: was said that Sarah believed when the construction of the

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Speaker 1: house finished, she would die that she thought once everything

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Speaker 1: was done, then she was done as well. And if

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Speaker 1: you're wondering how she paid for all of this, it

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Speaker 1: was with the Winchester money. I think rumor has it

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Speaker 1: that she got what twenty million, and in addition to

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Speaker 1: that amount, she had shares in the company, and her

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Speaker 1: budget boiled down to something like a thousand dollars a

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Speaker 1: day to live on. And if you want to account

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Speaker 1: for inflation, you can multiply that number roughly by twenty

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Speaker 1: to get an idea of how much that would event

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Speaker 1: live on per day. So clearly she had a lot

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Speaker 1: of financial means at her disposal to work with. And

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Speaker 1: again getting into the nitty gritty details of the legend,

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Speaker 1: some sources say that she was under the impression that

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Speaker 1: if she stopped building, she would die because the spirits

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Speaker 1: would get her, and other sources say she was under

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Speaker 1: the impression that if she continued to build, she could

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Speaker 1: have everlasting life, essentially as long as you build and

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Speaker 1: you live. But she died, obviously, irregardless of of the

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Speaker 1: building project. And you may be wondering, how on earth

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Speaker 1: could someone find enough home construction projects to last them

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Speaker 1: thirty eight years. Well, we're not talking about just building

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Speaker 1: some giant mansion on all of the as acres. Her

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Speaker 1: house is called the Mystery House for reason. And if

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Speaker 1: you go on a tour, you will see things like

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Speaker 1: doors that open into walls, staircases that are nearly vertical,

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Speaker 1: staircases that go straight up to the ceiling, and then

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Speaker 1: just stop. Some doors when you open them, it's an

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Speaker 1: immediate drop into the launch stories below. One closet door

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Speaker 1: opens into a drop that falls into a kitchen sink

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Speaker 1: several stories below. Um there's cupboards that have only an

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Speaker 1: inch of room behind them. There's skylights that look up

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Speaker 1: into skylights that look up into skylights. There's a back

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Speaker 1: porch that's completely walled in, and it's just absurd really

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Speaker 1: upon first glance to to take in this house. But

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Speaker 1: you know, to put it in perspective, to think about

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Speaker 1: this woman and the messages that she was getting, you know,

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Speaker 1: from the spiritualists help that she saw it, an also

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Speaker 1: from you know, her own stages of morning. Well, I

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Speaker 1: think when you are grieving over someone, people tend to

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Speaker 1: to do something like to take a physical action, and

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Speaker 1: Sarah Winchester took that to the extreme, she did get

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Speaker 1: a little bit eccentric, but she just kept building and

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Speaker 1: building and building, and sometimes would just tear down a

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Speaker 1: room that they had just built and start all over again.

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Speaker 1: Like there wasn't a big plan, right, there was. There

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Speaker 1: was no uniformity to what she was doing, and there

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Speaker 1: are no blueprints or records that exist today. And according

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Speaker 1: to some legends, she would tear off a she had

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Speaker 1: a butcher paper from the kitchen, and she would go

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Speaker 1: into her special science room and she would consult with

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Speaker 1: the spirits about what she was supposed to do the

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Speaker 1: next day. And then that morning she would go and

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Speaker 1: meet with her contractor and they would sit down together

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Speaker 1: and go over her plans. People aren't even entirely sure

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Speaker 1: which rooms she actually lived in necessarily, although there are

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Speaker 1: teeny teeny tiny stairs all throughout the house in the

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Speaker 1: places she frequented most often, because she had horrible arthritis

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Speaker 1: and she could only take these little, like inch long steps. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think they're they're two inches tall. And there's a

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Speaker 1: blog essentially that's written by a former guide who worked

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Speaker 1: at the Mystery House. I think it's called Mystery House

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Speaker 1: guide dot com, and the former guide recounts experiences working there,

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Speaker 1: and according to a guide Lingo, they're called easy risers,

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Speaker 1: and apparently they're a little bit difficult to walk up

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Speaker 1: and down. And I know, for me, I have really

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Speaker 1: long legs, it is harder to take a shorter step

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Speaker 1: sineas to take really big steps onto big stairs and

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Speaker 1: the big, substantial, well really normal stairs that you see

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Speaker 1: in the Winchester Mystery House or remnants from the old

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Speaker 1: farmhouse that was there. And that's an explanation that some

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Speaker 1: give to the staircase that leads to the ceiling, that

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Speaker 1: that's the original part of the farmhouse and she just

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Speaker 1: built stuff right on top of it. I think that's

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Speaker 1: the explanation from people who are trying to say, you know,

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Speaker 1: she's not nuts. She had there was some sort of

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Speaker 1: rhyme and reason in her head, even if it wasn't

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Speaker 1: something that makes sense to us anymore. And the contractor

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Speaker 1: who worked with her, I don't know his name. I

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Speaker 1: don't know that any records really exist about who well

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Speaker 1: did labor there, but it was it was told that

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Speaker 1: she was a generous woman who had lots of money

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Speaker 1: and she wanted to help employ people. She wanted people

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Speaker 1: to work for her and have a good place to

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Speaker 1: work in. And so the servants who worked there are

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Speaker 1: pretty content and what they did. But it was well

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Speaker 1: understood that you didn't contradict her or you didn't ask

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Speaker 1: questions why. For instance, she bought beautiful tiffany glass and

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Speaker 1: I was going to have a stained glass window put in,

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Speaker 1: but then she wanted a wall built directly behind it,

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Speaker 1: obviously defeating the purpose of stained glass and the idea

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Speaker 1: of sunlight coming streaming through. And for someone to talk

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Speaker 1: back to her and say, you know what, no, I

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Speaker 1: don't really see the vision you're going for, like a

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Speaker 1: good contractor might would be instantly squelch. You didn't talk

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Speaker 1: back to Mrs Winchester. She was paying you the big bucks,

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Speaker 1: and in fact she was giving people such good business

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Speaker 1: that one rail line was even diverted to run closer

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Speaker 1: to where she lived to bring in timber and other

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Speaker 1: materials for projects. I think her employees were pretty devoted

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Speaker 1: to There's a legend of the basement ghost at the

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Speaker 1: Winchester house, and guides and other people visiting would say

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Speaker 1: that they met this man in the basement. He had

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Speaker 1: on overalls, he had a wheelbarrow, what was he doing

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Speaker 1: in the basement, And the people would always say, no,

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Speaker 1: one's supposed to be in the basement, it's closed off.

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Speaker 1: I don't know who that is. And finally someone saw

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Speaker 1: a picture, a very old picture of Mrs Winchester and

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Speaker 1: her employees, and said, oh, that's him and pointed to it,

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Speaker 1: and of course it was a man who had been

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Speaker 1: dead for quite a long time who now supposedly haunts

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Speaker 1: the house that was built to keep ghosts from haunting

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Speaker 1: Mrs Winchester. And that's the really scary and creepy facet

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Speaker 1: of this ghost story is that here's a woman who

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Speaker 1: was working to a peace ghosts, but was also likely

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Speaker 1: very terrified of them, and so by building a labyrinth

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Speaker 1: of a home, she thought she would trick them, trick

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Speaker 1: them into not finding her, tricked them into leaving her alone.

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Speaker 1: And she thought that ghost were afraid of mirrors too,

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Speaker 1: so supposedly she only had two mirrors hanging in the

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Speaker 1: whole sixty room house. So it's a strange case of

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Speaker 1: wanting to appease the spirit by saying not hanging up mirrors,

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Speaker 1: and wanting to trick them. Some legends say that she

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Speaker 1: slept in a different room in the house every night

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Speaker 1: to keep the ghosts at bay. Other sources say, well, no,

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Speaker 1: that's not really true, because most of the rooms were

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Speaker 1: so small they wouldn't have been substantial enough for a

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Speaker 1: master bedroom. Well, and that may have come back to

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Speaker 1: haunt her pun intended during the San Jose earthquake, which

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Speaker 1: actually trapped her in what's called the Daisy Bedroom for

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Speaker 1: hours and hours and hours, and I'm not sure anyone

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Speaker 1: knew where she was, and they didn't know how to

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Speaker 1: get her out. So when you think of this eccentric,

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Speaker 1: frightened woman in the middle of an earthquake who's also

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Speaker 1: trapped in her labyrinthine house, I think you can see

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Speaker 1: a little bit more about Sarah Winchester's life, right, And

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Speaker 1: the reason for some of the strange things that occur

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Speaker 1: in this house could be easily explained by an elderly

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Speaker 1: woman's fear like clear glass bathroom doors. Perhaps she was

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Speaker 1: so afraid of being caught in another room she wanted

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Speaker 1: to make sure people could see through and see her

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Speaker 1: where she was. And for instance, the fact that one

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Speaker 1: room has four fireplaces, what room needs for fireplaces? It

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Speaker 1: was the only room in the house that could really

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Speaker 1: get hot enough to help soothe her arthritis pains. And

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Speaker 1: these are just some of the dangers that come along

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Speaker 1: with being a recluse and building a very mysterious house.

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Speaker 1: I think that even in her time as well as today,

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Speaker 1: people had trouble getting from room to room and Florida floor.

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Speaker 1: Before the earthquake that you mentioned, Katie, there were actually

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Speaker 1: seven stories to this house, towers, flying buttresses. It was

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Speaker 1: just a huge spectacle of Victorian access really, and after

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Speaker 1: the earthquake, she was she was convinced that the forces

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Speaker 1: were trying to tell her that something was at work.

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Speaker 1: They were really concerned she had almost finished the project.

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Speaker 1: They were out to get her. So she shut that

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Speaker 1: part of the house completely down, and part of it

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Speaker 1: had crumbled in the midst of the disaster, so it had,

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Speaker 1: you know, shut itself down to But she thought that

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Speaker 1: by completely closing out the ghosts, she could trap the men.

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Speaker 1: But another disadvantage to being a rec close is set

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Speaker 1: you don't get many visitors, and she missed a pretty

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Speaker 1: important visitor according to some sources, Teddy Roosevelt to be exact,

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Speaker 1: who supposedly wanted to pay her a call and made

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Speaker 1: it known to city officials that he would like to

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Speaker 1: visit Mrs Winchester, and she was having none of it.

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Speaker 1: He was on his grand tour of the West, and

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Speaker 1: he had heard things about this house, as many people had,

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Speaker 1: you know, contemporaries of Mrs Winchester and um. According to

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Speaker 1: one of our office colleagues, Molly Edmunds, who's been on

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Speaker 1: the tour not too long ago, one of the guides

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Speaker 1: told her that he came to the front door to

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Speaker 1: see her. And again, this may be the stuff of legend,

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Speaker 1: but it's fun, so I'll tell you anyway. And missus

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Speaker 1: Winchester didn't like people coming to our front door. And

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Speaker 1: apparently she she was thought to have exclaimed, who comes

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Speaker 1: to a front door? Well, you know, I guess Teddy

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Speaker 1: Roosevelt call them crazy. But he was turned away, and

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Speaker 1: he never got to see Mrs Winchester or her house.

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Speaker 1: And as much as people may the light and the

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Speaker 1: strangeness of the house, and as many people as may

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Speaker 1: poke fun at the strange things that this woman conceived of,

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Speaker 1: it's very poignant to think about two quotations that are

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Speaker 1: inscribed in a grand ballroom. And she kept no diary,

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Speaker 1: she kept no records. We have anecdotal evidence from people

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Speaker 1: who lived on the grounds or people who came into work,

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Speaker 1: but we don't really know what she was thinking. And

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Speaker 1: so uh. The guides website that I mentioned before offers

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Speaker 1: some analysis into these lines from Shakespeare. One of which

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Speaker 1: is from Toilets and Cressida, and it's the line, part

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Speaker 1: of a line really that says wide unclasped the tables

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Speaker 1: of their thoughts, and it comes from a part in

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Speaker 1: the play where Krista is being berated for being a

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Speaker 1: little bit coy. But in the Victorian era the play

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Speaker 1: was rewritten to reflect that she was chased and she

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Speaker 1: was meant to be a heroine for having that very

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Speaker 1: Victorian attribute, and this may have been a way that

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Speaker 1: Mrs Winchester conceived of herself as a chased heroine who

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Speaker 1: was doing right by her deceased husband and daughter and

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Speaker 1: was going to be rewarded eventually. And then the other

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Speaker 1: one is from Richard the Second and it says, these

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Speaker 1: same thoughts people this little world, and this comes from

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Speaker 1: a moment in the play where the king has been

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Speaker 1: dethroned and he shut off into his own little microcosm

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Speaker 1: of society, his own little world, and he's making it

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Speaker 1: work for him, what works for him, the things that

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Speaker 1: occupy his time in his mind, And that would have

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Speaker 1: been the same from Mrs Winchester. You know, if anyone

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Speaker 1: understood one's own little world, I think it would be

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Speaker 1: Sarah Winchester, right, I mean, left alone to grieve the

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Speaker 1: death of her daughter, the death of her husband, fearing

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Speaker 1: day in and day out that she was going to

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Speaker 1: be gotten by spirit who were killed by the rifle

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Speaker 1: that her husband manufactured and made his mint off of.

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Speaker 1: And people sometimes second guess the fact that she threw

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Speaker 1: so much money into this house that today would be

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Speaker 1: valued around five point five million, but with such a

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Speaker 1: disaster when she died that it was bought up for

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Speaker 1: only one thirty five thousand dollars. You know what was

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Speaker 1: she doing with the money? Well? Who was she to

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Speaker 1: hang on to it if it was got from a

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Speaker 1: weapon that killed people during Civil War? She didn't even

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Speaker 1: mention it. In her will. She mentioned the furniture, I think,

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Speaker 1: and said that her niece I believe, could take what

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Speaker 1: she wanted and sell the rest. But the house was

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Speaker 1: never even brought up at all, not at all, and

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Speaker 1: people knew it was sort of the strange house on

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Speaker 1: the block and business meant saw their opportunity to make

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Speaker 1: it into a tourist attraction. And in addition to being

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Speaker 1: a real tourist attraction, it was also pretty innovative. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it was no Bill Gate smart house, but it's supposedly

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Speaker 1: had one of the first water hot water heaters in

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Speaker 1: the state of California, so that was pretty cool, and

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Speaker 1: had a you know, an elevator system and all sorts

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Speaker 1: of interesting and novel ideas that she came up with

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Speaker 1: with her contractor. And so eventually, you know, evolved over

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Speaker 1: time from this strange tourist attraction that just had arrows

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Speaker 1: painted on the floor to guide people through to UM.

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Speaker 1: At one point it was a wax museum, and today

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Speaker 1: it's a veritable tourist attraction. It's a museum. You buy

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Speaker 1: your ticket, I think maybe around what twenty dollars is

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Speaker 1: that right? Sounds about it? It sounds about right, And

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Speaker 1: then you you walk through and you're taking on a

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Speaker 1: very detailed and guided tour and UM. Again, I keep

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Speaker 1: referring to this website because I just found it so helpful.

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Speaker 1: The guide was explaining that if you want a good

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Speaker 1: tour guide and a good tour guy can make or

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Speaker 1: break the tour. You need to go in the fall

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Speaker 1: of the winter because in the summertime there are so

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Speaker 1: many people who flocked to San Jose to the Mystery

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Speaker 1: House that they hire a lot of students. And Molly Edmunds,

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Speaker 1: our colleague, actually had a drama student who she said

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Speaker 1: was wonderful. You can imagine how much fun it would

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Speaker 1: be to have the drama kid from your high school

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Speaker 1: taking you through this creepy, haunted house. And that's the

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Speaker 1: experience she had. So when you go, no matter what

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Speaker 1: you marvel at, whether it's the stairs or the ghosts

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Speaker 1: that may be lurking around, be sure stop and really

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Speaker 1: think about the historical aspects of the house, how the

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Speaker 1: money was required to build it, what the Victorian era

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Speaker 1: did to influence Mrs Winchester and her ideals. And I

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Speaker 1: think you'll find that history will enrich any ghostly experience

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Speaker 1: you have. And that's our philosophy. A leis because we're,

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Speaker 1: you know, for history nerds, But that's that. If you

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Speaker 1: want to learn more about the Winchester Mystery House, you

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Speaker 1: can read why is the Winchester Mystery House? How Stairs

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Speaker 1: Leading to Nowhere? On how stuff works dot com for

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Speaker 1: moralns and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot Com And be sure to check out the

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Speaker 1: stuff you missed in history class blog on the house

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com home page. Do Do