Because of Sarah's small size, only 4'10", and her arthritis, several stair cases are built with very tiny steps, called risers by the tour guides. Also a lot of the columns in the house, railings, etc., are hung upside down. A variety of items are grouped in sets of 13 or appear only in numbers of 13, such as 13 panes of glass, closets with 13 hanger pegs, 13 lights in a chandelier, 13 palm trees, 13 steps in a staircase, or 13 bathrooms. Afterwards, she mostly stuck with the west wing of the mansion.Īdditionally, Sarah Winchester was obsessed with the number 13. Sarah Winchester never had the Daisy Bedroom fixed up, but instead of having it torn down, she made that portion of the house, the northern wing, safe and water tight, and then abandoned it. The house became four stories after that. In 1906 when the earthquake hit, she became trapped in the Daisy Bedroom for over an hour before finally being rescued by servants. She never slept in the same bedroom twice in a row, in order to avoid being found by the spirits that pursued her. The house was built pretty randomly by Sarah Winchester, and eventually it grew into a monstrous seven story tall mansion. Her sense of paranoia was further enhanced as a result of the deaths of her husband and infant daughter. There is even a door that opens up to thin air several feet off the ground, leading to a very risky first step to those who try and walk through it. As a result, the mansion is a convoluted maze of hallways and rooms with some staircases and doors leading quite literally to nowhere. Winchester believed that as long as construction kept up night and day, then the spirits of the people killed by the Winchester rifle would be appeased. The house was kept perpetually under construction while Sarah Winchester was alive. The Winchester Mystery House is legendary now. The spiritualist further informed her that she had to perpetually build this house and that she could never cease, otherwise the spirits would take her. The spiritualist either told her that she needed to build a house for those same spirits, or she needed to build a house to hide from those same spirits. I've heard two versions of what came next. Winchester that the spirits of those killed by the guns of her husband's company had come for her family members and taken them from her. Spiritualism was gaining in popularity in America at the time, and Sarah Winchester consulted with one. 1881 was a rough year for Sarah Winchester, as her mother, her father-in-law, and husband all passed away the same year. When he passed, Sarah Winchester inherited twenty million dollars, or the equivalent of more than 536 million in today's dollars, as well as fifty percent ownership of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Unfortunately, William Winchester passed away also soon after of tuberculosis. The Winchester Repeating Arms Company made several rifles and shotguns, many of which were extremely popular, leading to the company's guns being known as the "Gun That Won the West". William Winchester became the successor to his father Oliver Winchester as President of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. They had one child born June 15th, 1866, Annie, who unfortunately passed away on July 25th, 1866, only a few weeks after being born of marasmus. On September 30th, 1862 she married William Wirt Winchester, born 1837, and they lived in New Haven, Connecticut. Sarah Winchester was born one Sarah Lockwood Pardee in 1839 (possibly 1840).
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