Sarah Winchester

[dawna]

She was born Sarah Lockwood Pardee about 1837. In the early 1860s, she met a man by the name of William Wirt Winchester, who was the son of Oliver Winchester, the famed gun manufacturer, and heir to his considerable fortune valued in the millions of dollars.

The rifle that would start the creation of this fortune was the Winchester Rifle -that famous Henry Rifle which was a total revolution in gun design and became known as the "rifle that won the West. With the beginning of the Civil War on the horizon, his company, the Winchester Repeating Arms Company began to produce thousands of rifles and obtained a fortune from government contracts. While the Civil War was going in earnest, Sarah married William in September 1862. The Winchester family hosted their wedding, held in New Haven, Connecticut, which was quite an elaborate affair. Upon marrying William, Sarah became the belle of New Haven, and was on top of the city's social scene.

What would follow in the life of Sarah, was the beginning of what many believe to be a family curse that led to the most bizarre house architecturally in the world!

Their union went well, and was typical of the society marriages of this time. In July 1866, Sarah and William had a daughter that they named Annie. However, when Annie was only six months old, tragedy struck when she died of a children's disease. This began what Sarah believed was a curse on her family, and so traumatized was she over her daughter's death, she nearly slipped into madness, and shunned society. William and Sarah had no other children.

Having recovered somewhat, Sarah and William tried to maintain a normal life, but again Sarah's life would meet with another tragedy. In March 1881, William, having been stricken with tuberculosis, died.

Upon William's death, she inherited $20 million, and about one half ownership in the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, which brought her an additional $1000 a day in royalties. And incredible amount of money then and now, it was little comfort to her, after having lost the two people she loved the most in the world.

Now in an inconsolable state, a friend suggested to Sarah that she should seek the advice of a medium, as this was a popular recourse at this time. Sarah took her friends advice, but the experience did not help her, but only reinforced the curse she believed was on the Winchester family. The medium told Sarah that the family was cursed by the spirits of all those who had been killed by Winchester rifles. The medium further told her that the spirits had taken her daughter and husband in revenge, and the only thing she could do is acquire a house and build on it continually. As the story goes, it appears that the medium advised Sarah that should the construction end, Sarah would die as well.

So Sarah set out to fulfill the medium's advice, and purchased a house in San Jose in 1884, and immediately started using her $20 million fortune making various additions twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, for the next 38 years, only ending the day she died at the age of 85.

Sarah was not a good designer, however, she still designed all the various construction.

The house turned into a mass of staircases that went nowhere, and much more. It has been said that Sarah did the construction in this twisted manner so as to confuse the spirts, or to make the house so confusing the spirits would never be able to find her. Probably the more truthful theories as to why she designed as she did is that she was not an architect and had no clue what she was doing, or that she was put plainly out of her mind.