If you live in or near San Jose, CA, do check out “The Haunting of Winchester” at the San Jose Repertory Theatre before October 3. The story will add to the mis-information many in the public have about the Winchester House and its "mystery, but it is a first-rate production, and I am in love with it’s star. (Well, I think she’s pretty okay!)
If you’ve already seen it, let me know what you think. I loved it.
I happen to be a guide at the Winchester House.
This has to be the worst OP ever, at least for me. Maybe I’m the only one who saw it. Bye!
I’d be extremely interested in talking about poor 'ole crazy Mrs. Winchester but you didn’t really say anything about the movie. What kind of misinformation do people have? What did the filmakers have to say and what new light did they shed upon her life? Who was the star you appear to be so infatuated with? I need information!!!
Marc
The main thing I “know” about Mrs. Winchester is that she lost her husband and daughter, went a bit cuckoo for cocoa puffs, became obsessed with spiritualism and the notion that the ghosts of men killed with Winchester rifles were out to get her, and she spent most of the rest of the life building an intentionally confusing bizarre mansion for the ghosts. When the Earthquake of 1906 struck she thought it was because the ghosts had finally arrived, and she spent the rest of her life living on a houseboat. She turned away Teddy Roosevelt but let Harry Houdini spend the night in the everchanging mansion.
How much of this is correct or incorrect? Regardless, I really want to see the place.
I must say, the play looks intriguing (models of the house, flying child ghosts, etc.). I hope it will be done in the rest of the country soon.
It does look like a great play. I grew up in San Jose (from 2-15 yo) and have been to the WMH numerous times. I’m a curious about the “misinformation” the play will add to. What did you mean by that?
BTW, do you think the play is Ok for a 7 year old boy who (thinks he) fears nothing? San Jose is not that far away and we might just go down and see the House and play if we get a chance.
First, it’s not a movie, it’s a play. Sorry if I didn’t state that. The play has Mrs. Winchester falling in love with the ghost of one of the rifle’s victims, a gunfighter, no less. I just saw the play last Tuesday night and really enjoyed it. The story is complete fantasy, but the music, the stars and the production are outstanding IMHO. Didn’t mean to mislead anyone. It’s only showing at the San Jose Repertory Theatre.
Well, fist off, I don’t think Sarah Winchester was crazy. She was involved in spiritualism, but so were many upper class women (and men) in the late nineteenth century. You might call it a fad, although, if you ever saw John Edward on TV, you know that it’s still around. Are all his viewers crazy . . . or just misguided? A Boston psychic (according to the legend) did tell her that the spirits of the Winchester victims had taken her husband and child, and that to appease them she needed to build on a house perpetually, according to plans the spirits provided.
The Teddy Roosevelt story doesn’t have Mrs. Winchester turning him away. Rather a servant is said to have intercepted Mr. Roosevelt at the front doors, and failing to recognize him, sent him to the back door where all tradesmen would go. The Prez apparently was not in the mood to argue with a servant, so turned around and left.
I never heard the story about Houdini, but I doubt it. Houdini may have stayed in the mansion some time after Sarah’s death, but as far as I know, she never had guests while she lived there.
The houseboat story is correct . . . sort of. She owned a housebout, which she may have gone to after the 1906 quake for a while. She owned, I think, three other houses in the bay area as well. But she lived (and died) in the mansion after the great quake.
As far as the play goes, all of the characters other than Mrs. Winchester and her neice Marion (and, I suppose, the ghost of her husband William) are completely fictional. Well, there was a Juaquin Murietta, but I doubt that he was haunting Mrs. Winchester.
Do come to the mansion if you are in San Jose (do you know the way?). It is a fascinating place, and if I do say so, I give good tour! Actually all our guides do. 
I think I answered the first part of your question above. As for the 7-year-old, there is some mild profanity in the play. Otherwise a “fearless” kid might like it. . . or be bored. The little girl in the play is 12 years old. She’s the one who flies (pretty impressive at that).
True, but most of them didn’t spend decades continually rebuilding houses to include staircases that went to nowhere or had doors opening onto 8 foot dropoffs and the like. I think it’s fair to say she was just a bit… well, eccentric plus a little interest.
One of my favorite stories of the very rich and spiritualism in the 19th century is that of Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt. The short version: Vanderbilt was a generally despicable human being: he bullied everybody, particularly his first wife (who was also his first cousin) and their children, was notoriously stingy, thought his oldest son (William Henry) was a weak loser (he was constantly ill), absolutely hated his second son (Cornelius Jeremiah, an epileptic) and whose only real love seemed to be for his third son (George Washington Vanderbilt), who was killed in the Civil War.
The first Mrs. Vanderbilt (Sophia) died in the late 1860s, by which time her husband had switched from shipping to railroads and become the richest man in America (and obviously on the short list of richest in the world). His second wife (who was also his second cousin, a Bama gal named Frankie) and his second son (who was also his second cousin) William Henry seem to have begun to use a bit of “spiritual persuasion” on the old man.
Vanderbilt bought into spiritualism at full price. The old man was so superstitious he slept with salt and water under his bed to keep away spirits and had little voodoo like amulets made for him to wear and the like. He used mediums to talk to his mother, his first wife, his dead son, etc., all of whom seemed to have the same message: “You know, Corny, that William Henry just absolutely adores you and he’s really a lot smarter and more ingenious than you think, you really ought to leave him everything”. The two mediums he used the most were Tennessee Claflin (who may have been his mistress as well) and her sister, the notorious Victoria Woodhull (first woman to run for president [the FREE LOVE PARTY]), who he set up in business as stock brokers and paid a small fortune to over the years.
When he died (January 1877) he left a fortune of more than $100 million (almost incomprehensible in today’s terms, though the easiest thing to say is he would have been a multibillionaire in today’s currency). He left his younger surviving son the interest from a $200,000 trust fund (which still would have put him into the very comfortable upper middle class), five of his daughters $250,000 each, and the other 3 $300,000, $400,000 and $500,000 each. He left his wife $500K and their house, and he had recently given $1 million to found Vanderbilt University. The rest (over $100 million) he left to William Henry.
Now, even though the nine “slighted” children were left the equivalent of more than modestly wealthy by today’s standards (the interest on that $200K trust fund, for example, would still have been several times the average income) they were pissed at how much more William Henry had gotten and they sued, for years. It was alleged that the Psychic Sisters were working both sides of the street, relaying the “pro-William Henry” messages in exchange for a substantial payoff when he got his inheritance, and the much younger second wife was in on it too. The newspaper accounts of the trial (which was a sensation coast to coast in the newspapers) describe the testimonies of the psychics and of bankrupted old business enemies of the Commodore and the various kids and all. Eventually William Henry got sick of it and settled it out of court, basically doubling the inheritances his sisters and brother got, and got on with his life. (He only lived 8 years after his father, in which time he doubled the fortune; the Commodore had been notoriously frugal while William Henry started building palaces on 5th Avenue and his children built everything from the Biltmore estate to the marble monstrosities in Newport to Hudson River palaces and the like.)
Was there any evidence of collusion between Mrs. Wincester’s mediums & the local contractors?
I’ve always wanted to check out the Winchester house; by all accounts it sounds like a fascinating pile of Victorian architecture. From what I’ve read about the place, though, I’d gotten the impression that the whole Spiritualist/vengeful ghost angle was so much hoo-hah, a collection of secondhand stories about the place that eventually reached the level of folklore. Supposedly, behind all the embellishments, the legend ultimately boils down to two verifiable facts: there was a woman named Sarah Winchester, and she built a really big house. I understand that there’s not even any hard evidence Mrs. Winchester was particularly interested in Spiritualism, although I certainly welcome correction on this point. She did seem to enjoy adding onto her house, though, and many of the place’s weird features (windows on the inside, stairways to nowhere, etc.) are left-over remnants from the frequent renovations, rather than any intentional attempts to pacify or confuse spirits. I’m mildly surprised that the **Straight Dope ** has apparently never published a column about the place over the years.
I don’t know what you would call “hard evidence.” Most of what is known (or at least believed) about Mrs. Winchester was derived from interviews with relatives, servants and neighbors after her death. The Seance room is clearly exactly that, and that would seem to be pretty “hard” evidence that she tried regularly to contact the spirit world. That, plus the fact that people in San Jose claimed to have heard the bell in the Winchester bell tower rung at midnight and again at 2 a.m. most nights. It was believed that that was to call and release the spirits from the seances.
Other “hard” evidence might be the stained glass window Mrs. Winchester designed with the now famous spider web motif and the thirteen blue and amber stones.
Then again, maybe she was just a very rich and peculiar old lady who built a really big house. 
Why dont you come to the mansion, take the tour and decide for yourself?
What happened to her money (and other property) when she died?
Sarah had a will (I know, I know, she thought she was gonna live forever!). She left trust funds and cash for various relatives and a few favorite employees, plus a large amount to found the William Wirt Winchester annex to the General Hospital Society of Connecticut for the care and treatment of tuberculosis patients (her husband had died of TB). The house was sold by her trustees, since it wasn’t in the will. The furniture all went to her favorite niece, Marion. More exact details are known. . .but not by me.
I was thinking more along the lines of personal papers, correspondences with famous mediums, a library full of Spiritualist literature, compromising photos of Arthur Conan Doyle, or something along those lines. I understand that Mrs. Winchester was evidently a very private person, but it seems peculiar that she left behind no written clues to link the house’s eccentric design to Spiritualist philosophy.
I did track down an article by Joe Nickell, Winchester House: Fact vs. Fancy? , in which he relates that the Seance Room “was also used as a bedroom at various times by her foreman, the chauffeur, the head Japanese gardener and his wife.” This seems kind of odd if Mrs. Winchester was as obsessed with contacting the spirit world as legend claims. How do you explain to the restless dead that the hired help is going to be sharing their room?
I sincerely hope to, one of these days. I seriously enjoy touring old houses, and although there may be older houses, there are few with *so much * house to explore.
There was a segment on the Winchester House on the show Weird U.S. the other night, btw. The tour guide was a cheerful lady named Cheryl, I believe.
As far as our research has shown, there was no diary or journal. She did have some correspondence with her lawyer, but I don’t think it sheds much light, except on details of her will (which I haven’t committed to memory and probably won’t). Neighbors tended to point and make fhurtful remarks about her “odd” behavior, so Sarah did tend to keep to herself. She did visit people away from the mansion, though.
Many people have written articles about the Winchester House that contain legends and downright made-up stories. As far as John Hanson is concerned, Mrs. Winchester built a home for him and his wife and two sons on the grounds. That’s seen by the public in the self-guided Garden Tour. She also built homes for other long-term retainers either on the property (which was once very much larger than it is now) or nearby. Those homes don’t exist today. Her house servants mostly lived in the mansion (third floor). They lived rent free, by the way, even though they already received at least double the normal wage of the day. That seance room is way too small to put up one person comfortably overnight, much less a man and his wife. I think that story is just another fanciful tale spun by a writer who wants to be “interesting.”
In the story we tell, we always separate legends from verified facts. We say “according to legend” when there is no verification. Many of the writers probably do that also. They just heard different legends. We try to present Mrs. Winchester’s story in as interesting a fashion as possible without offering legend as verified fact. It is too bad she didn’t write a diary, so we could know the lady from her own words.
Oops! Hit the “submit” button when I meant to hit “review.” John Hanson was the foreman you mentioned. He worked for Mrs. Winchester for most of the years she was in California. I think if she were as crazy as some people say, most people of her time would have shied away from her.