Sarah Winchester
| Sarah Winchester | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Sarah Lockwood Pardee around 1840 New Haven, Connecticut |
| Died | September 5, 1922 (aged 81–82) San Jose, California |
| Resting place | Evergreen Cemetery New Haven, Connecticut |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Winchester Mystery House |
| Spouse(s) | William Wirt Winchester (1862–81) |
| Children | Annie, died in infancy 1866 |
| Parent(s) | Leonard Pardee, Sarah W. Burns |
| Relatives | Sarah E. Pardee, Mary A. Pardee, Antoinette E. Pardee; Leonard M. Pardee; Isabelle C. Pardee, Estelle L. Pardee |
Sarah L. Winchester (c. 1840 – September 5, 1922) was the wife of William Wirt Winchester and heiress to his estate and a 50% holding in the Winchester Repeating Arms Company following his death from tuberculosis in 1881. She is best known for using her vast fortune to continue construction on the San Jose mansion for 38 consecutive years. Popular legends, which began during her lifetime, held that she was convinced she was cursed, and the only way to alleviate it was to add on to her California home. Since her death, the sprawling Winchester Mystery House has become a popular tourist attraction, known for its many staircases and its corridors leading nowhere.
She was born Sarah Lockwood Pardee, the daughter of Leonard Pardee and his wife Sarah W. Burns, around 1840 in New Haven, Connecticut. On September 30, 1862 in New Haven, Connecticut, Sarah married William Wirt Winchester, the only son of Oliver Winchester, the owner of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company.
The couple was married in 1862, had one daughter, Annie Pardee Winchester, who was born on June 15, 1866 but died after a few weeks, on July 25, 1866 from the childhood disease marasmus. The couple had no more children.
Her father-in-law, Oliver Winchester, died in 1880, quickly followed in March 1881 by husband William, who died of tuberculosis, giving her approximately 50 percent ownership in the Winchester company and an income of $1,000 a day. (That was equivalent to roughly $23,400 a day in 2013.)
According to the legends surrounding her, she felt that her family was cursed, and sought out spiritualists to determine what she should do. A Boston medium, Adam Coons, believed to be a psychic, allegedly told her that the Winchester family was cursed by the spirits of all the people who had been killed by the Winchester rifle and that she should move west to build a house for herself and the spirits. The medium is claimed to have told her that if construction on the house ever stopped, she would join her husband and infant daughter. However, Sarah's biographer found no evidence to support these claims and Sarah likely did not move west because a medium told her to do so. In 1884, Mrs Winchester moved west to California with her sister and her niece, and in 1884, she purchased an eight-room farmhouse from John Hamm. It stood on 161 acres (0.65 km2) of land in what is now San Jose, California. Immediately, she began spending her $20 million inheritance by renovating and adding more rooms to the house, with work continuing 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for the next 38 years. According to proprietors of the house, she was fascinated with the number 13 and worked the number into the house in many places. (There are 13 bathrooms, many windows have 13 panes, chandeliers have 13 candles, and so forth.) Her biographer casts doubt on this story, however, and offers up an account from a carpenter who worked on the property for many years who claimed that architectural elements, such as chandeliers and windows, were altered after Winchester's death. Contemporary scholars dispute the veracity of the claim that construction work continued, except for brief periods, after the 1906 earthquake.
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