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This is part of an article I took from:

http://www.prairieghosts.com/winchester.html

Questions will be at the bottom of the forum.


" The story of the Winchester House began in September 1839 with the birth of a baby girl to Leonard and Sarah Pardee of New Haven, Connecticut. The baby’s name was also Sarah and as she reached maturity, she became the belle of the city. She was well-received at all social events, thanks to her musical skills, her fluency in various foreign languages and her sparkling charm. Her beauty was also well-known by the young men about town, despite her diminutive size. Although she was petite and stood only four feet, ten inches, she made up for this in personality and loveliness.

At the same time that Sarah was growing up, a young man was also maturing in another prominent New Haven family. The young man’s name was William Wirt Winchester and he was the son of Oliver Winchester, a shirt manufacturer and businessman. In 1857, he took over the assets of a firm which made the Volcanic Repeater, a rifle that used a lever mechanism to load bullets into the breech.


Obviously, this type of gun was a vast improvement over the muzzle-loading rifles of recent times, but Winchester still saw room for advance. In 1860, the company developed the Henry Rifle, which had a tubular magazine located under the barrel. Because it was easy to reload and could fire rapidly, the Henry was said to average one shot every three seconds. It became the first true repeating rifle and a favorite among the Northern troops at the outbreak of the Civil War.

Money began to pour in and Oliver Winchester soon amassed a large fortune from government contracts and private sales. He re-organized the company and changed the name to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. The family prospered and on September 30, 1862, at the height of the Civil War, William Wirt Winchester and Sarah Pardee were married in an elaborate ceremony in New Haven.

Four years later, on July 15, 1866, Sarah gave birth to a daughter named Annie Pardee Winchester. Just a short time later, the first disaster struck for Sarah, as her daughter contracted an illness known as "marasmus", a children’s disease in which the body wastes away. The infant died on July 24. Sarah was so shattered by this event that she withdrew into herself and teetered on the edge of madness for some time. In the end, it would be nearly a decade before she returned to her normal self but she and William would never have a another child.

Not long after Sarah returned to her family and home, another tragedy struck. William, now heir to the Winchester empire, was struck down with pulmonary tuberculosis. He died on March 7, 1881. As a result of his death, Sarah inherited over $20 million dollars, an incredible sum, especially in those days. She also received 48.9 percent of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company and an income of about $1000 per day, which was not taxable until 1913.

But her new-found wealth could do nothing to ease her pain. Sarah grieved deeply, not only for her husband, but also for her lost child. A short time later, a friend suggested that Sarah might speak to a Spiritualist medium about her loss. "Your husband is here," the medium told her and then went on to provide a description of William Winchester. "He says for me to tell you that there is a curse on your family, which took the life of he and your child. It will soon take you too. It is a curse that has resulted from the terrible weapon created by the Winchester family. Thousands of persons have died because of it and their spirits are now seeking vengeance."

Sarah was then told that she must sell her property in New Haven and head towards the setting sun. She would be guided by her husband and when she found her new home in the west, she would recognize it. "You must start a new life," said the medium, "and build a home for yourself and for the spirits who have fallen from this terrible weapon too. You can never stop building the house. If you continue building, you will live. Stop and you will die."


question

What could this house be?

What has happened to the missing people, what is your theory on this?

Do you believe the legends on this house and why?

Do you believe there are such things as evil houses?

What is your theory on this mystery?

This story reminds me somewhat of ROSE RED. The Ellen Rembraurer(sp) story.

An interesting twist, not to go off of the forum topic itself, but in Chi-town, there lay a place called Potters Grove...I believe the place is called anywho.

There used to be a mansion there, but it had burned down. At times, certain individuals would see that mansion and calmy walk up to its abandoned workings and look around. After, they would step away from the house and take another look back at it. Only to find just a bare field there.

The significan other was witness to this phenomenon.

So more then likely the Phenomenon of the Winchester House, could be one of those...Paradox's.

She was swindled, by a network of thieves, as far as the attracttion if the house it is very historical, just to go on the tour is entertaining, the tales have changed stlightly over time, some rooms said to be off limits, are offered in limited tours. It is a place to see, whether or not you believe it is haunted. It is indeed an example of how convinced a person can be by a
Medium/psychic, and the extremes they can be led to. Charities could have used the money much better. She still died miserible.

i have said this every time the mystery house come up here.

i live about a 10 min walk from it. it is just a house. nothing more than that. it's very cool to see and it has a great story to go with it. but it's just a story that is used to get people in the door. (i know a lot of people that work there.)


it's not haunted. there's nothing out of the mystical about it. it's just a big, cool house.


if you don't believe me, ask someone that works there.

The guides do guile the guest, yet most of the haunting tales are from outside sources. The truth about what was responsible for the houses
development to me is more fasinating then any of the ghost stories.

Imagine a person so convincing that she created a project for crooked carpenters. Wincesters Widow was led to obbession, spending a fortune on
the "guidance" of a known charleton.

The last I remember from the true story of the ROSE RED tale, is that the mansion was located in Washington State. After the movie was made for it, with the original mansion used as its prop...The place was destroyed. Demolition teams rolled in and bulldozed it since it was in the process of being condemned in the first place. I could have sworn it was on the Discovery Channel or something to that extent when the movie did come out.

Paradox is a good theory - By replicating a story you attract attention to a certain place which can bring in visitors and revenue?

But as dabbler said the theory she got swindled much more likely. I mean, the fact that she inherited that much without a man seems to good to be true. Its more then likely theives preyed on her insecurities and took her for everything she had.
Perhaps because so little was known about medicine back then its beleiveable.

Well she did continue building on the house around the clock until her death. it was a very warped and strange house as she was the architect. There have been numerous tv shows that go into her history and the history of the house. It made her feel better but I think she was a bit mad.

I'm thinking, Soulshroude, that the house that was torn down may have been just the prop for the movie, and not the original house. Though I'm just trying to make sense of that situation. I actually know nothing about this "mystery house."

the house is really there and has been there the whole time. it's no prop. i've gone, my mother has gone when she was a teen and my greatgrandmother went when she was a teen.

all the locals feel that she got conned. and big time.

like i said, i do live right near it.

Like the Batt, I'm familiar with the house too. I don't think that it's haunted, but it is still creepy, in a funhouse sort of way.
Doors leading to nowhere, or out to a drop 2 stories down, etc...just makes me wonder on the rather twisted mind that came up with the architecture...sad that the woman thought that she had to keep building to keep spirits under control.

Oh I want to go there so badly. I have wanted to for some time now. It's such a neat place and rich with ghost stories. I don't believe that the ghosts of the gun are there, necessarily, but a house being that old, has to have something there. I believe it was on ghost hunters, but I don't recall what they found.

in reply to thebatt, ghost hunters went there and did a show...they caught absolutly nothing...not an evp, not a sighting, nothing at all. the woman that worked there and called them in the first place was full of stories about the house tho. she seemed to think it was creepy, but she might have just wanted to stir up tourism.
~W~

i think the house is a manisfestation of the spirits who were killed by the rifles, as the clairvoyant said. i think the house was to be atonement.

The house does indeed have a fascinating tale behind it, and an intriguing architecture, but I really don't think it's haunted - certainly not by the 'spirits of those killed by the rifles'. If that were the case, there'd be thousands of spirits haunting the families of other firearm inventors, yet you never hear of the Beretta family building weird houses!

The spiritualist medium sounds to me like a charlatan- preying on a young woman's grief. Describing Sarah's husband wouldn't have been difficult as the article says he was a prominent man in the area. And no doubt details of the fortune he felt would have been common knowledge, enough for the 'medium' to want to cash in...

As to the structure of the house, Sarah had to employ people to do it...who's to say some of those employed weren't friends or relatives of the medium, and this was all just an elaborate ploy to glean as much out of her as possible by an unscrupulous woman? Stranger things have happened after all...

So even though the house fascinates me, I don't buy into the whole haunted idea. Any ghosts that may be there are probably psychic remnants of Sarah's madness.

Maledicta, you are correct there was ties to the contractors, and laborers to the "Medium". That company had changed its name, and been found to sly prices regularly, any bid from out side sources where discouraged, the material to build the house was also found to be from other houses in the area. Many local charities lost alloted money because of the actions of a swindler, a very popular practice in those days. One would think such a prominent "Medium" would be fond of the Promotional Perks of such a house.. not so she ditched as soon as the coffers where ran dry.

my self i think it is a large house lol, with possibly a spirt or 2, but it is just to hard to belive people have come up missing never to be seen agin