Winchester: The Sad Widow

Sarah had lost her one-month old baby daughter and then her husband to tuberculosis in the same year. As if this grief was not enough, Sarah also carried a burden that she rarely spoke about. 

She approached a Boston friend, anxious and not sure what to do next. This friend knowing she had the financial means suggested that a fresh start and a new home might help ease part of Sarah’s burden. 

Taking this advice, Sarah left her home in New Haven, Connecticut, and headed west.

Wealthy, she bought a home that was already under construction and made plans to change it according to her Boston friend’s advice. 

It wasn’t long before she was able to host dinner parties at her table that seated twelve. She took pleasure in picking out only the finest wines from her cellar. 

She spent most evenings in the home’s grand ballroom. This area was her pride and joy. Despite arthritis in both hands, she played her piano or organ regularly.

She hired the best carpenters in the area to build her home with care. Sarah retained these carpenters, so they were always ready to change something to her liking. 

As time passed her home became larger. Sarah slowly became a recluse. She lived in this home for forty years until she died at the age of eighty-two in 1922. 

She left her home to her beloved niece.

This widow’s story could apply to many except for the unspoken burden I mentioned. 

Sarah was a firm believer in the Victorian Spiritualism movement. Her Boston friend was a Medium whose advice was to build a house large enough to contain the “spirits” that plagued Sarah. 

These spirits were the ones who wanted her to move west. Once in San Jose, California Sarah hired twenty carpenters to work around the clock on her home for forty years. 

This was done to confuse these spirits so they could not find her.

When Sarah entertained in her dining room, it was these spirits that were her guests. 

She picked out the finest wines for these dinners until she saw a black handprint on the wine cellar door and had it walled up forever. 

The guests Sarah played her music for were these spirits. 

She became obsessed with the number thirteen. She had thirteen steps built that led to nowhere. In her sewing room, she had thirteen windows and doors built. She had thirteen bathrooms built. 

The will she left for her niece had thirteen sections, and Sarah signed it thirteen times. By the time Sarah died her Victorian-style mansion, it had one-hundred and sixty rooms.

So was Sarah insane? Or was she driven by guilt? Did these spirits force her to keep changing her home for forty years? 

What did she do in her life to have such a burden? 

It was not Sarah but her father-in-law’s doing for he manufactured and sold the Winchester rifle that bore his name. This rifle killed countless people. He made a fortune in the process, and this wealth was passed on to Sarah Winchester. 

She felt part of her penance was to lose her baby and husband. 

Because of these spirits who haunted her--she spent most of her life in fear. She believed they all were the victims shot by the Winchester rifle.

In Sarah’s will, she requested that these spirits should always be welcomed and provided for. 

In 1923 the Winchester House was opened to the public. Many employees who have worked at the mansion can attest to the fact that these spirits are still around. 

Winchester House is considered one of America’s most haunted. Witnesses state that the “ghosts” that reside at the mansion are mischievous in nature.

A caretaker late one night heard footsteps then breathing. He listened to a screw slowly turning then he heard it drop to the ground. When he turned on the lights, he didn’t find this screw. 

One longtime employee felt that one ghost was targeting him. One night just after he locked the heavy gates that enclose the Mansion’s courtyard and set the alarm, he turned to find them unlocked. 

What puzzled him was the alarm had not gone off.

Yet another night as he shut off all the lights and left, he noticed as he walked to his car all the lights on the third floor where on. He felt that he might have forgotten to turn off one light but an entire floor? 

One morning as he entered his office in the mansion, he found all the papers on his desk where soaked. His pencil cup was filled with water. It had lightly rained the night before, but when his office was checked it was found, there were no leaks.

Several tour guides have had their own unique experiences. Part of their duties includes cleaning and maintaining the mansion. 

In the late 1980s, one guide was in one of six kitchens in the home cleaning. She smelled what she thought was chicken soup cooking. This was odd because this kitchen had not been used for years.

 She saw what she thought was steam coming off the stove, so she walked over and placed her hand above this area. She drew back as she felt something hot on her hand. She checked, and the stove wasn’t on.

Another tour guide leading the last group of the day around the second floor was going through her script when she heard her named called. 

When no one chimed in, she asked if someone had a question. They replied, no. As she continued her presentation, she heard her name called once more. This time when she questioned the group, they all looked confused. 

After this every time she began to speak, she was interrupted. She asked the visitors if they had heard her name being called. No one had. Frustrated she left her group to check the rest of the floor and the stairs --no one else was on the second floor.

For eighty years the mansion had areas that were off-limits to visitors, but in more recent years this changed when the Winchester House began hosting what they call “Behind The Scenes” tours. 

In preparation for this tour, guides started clearing out and cleaning the basements. During this time, several of them encountered the same ghost. 

They all saw a man they didn’t recognize with dark hair, a mustache, and wearing white overalls. He was seen pushing a wheelbarrow.

When these guides approached their supervisors to report this man they were told no one of that description was working on the property. 

This caused a lot of confusion because security is tight at the mansion. 

The mystery was solved as the gardener’s tool shed was cleared out for one of these new tours. An old photograph was found that showed several of the carpenters that worked for Sarah for many years. 

When this photo was passed around several of the tour guides who had seen the man with the wheelbarrow identified him as one of the men in this old photo.

The Ghost of Sarah Henry

“I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.”

                                                Patrick Henry

When Patrick Henry gave this his most famous speech on March 23, 1775, * he was still grief-stricken because his beloved wife Sarah Henry had died the month before. 

Sarah and Patrick were childhood sweethearts. They married when Patrick was eighteen and Sarah was sixteen. It was this connection that would bring Patrick the most joy and most sorrow in his life. 

The tragedy that surrounded Sarah’s last few years has resulted in a haunting that has lasted over two centuries.

When Patrick married he was already a “failed merchant,” but Sarah’s dowry included a 600-acre farm, a house, and six slaves. So the two young newlyweds became planters. But in three years a fire destroyed Henry’s plantation. 

Patrick again became a merchant, but for a second time, he failed as a businessman. 

He then studied law in 1766 and this time he succeeded. His legal career took off, and the now prosperous lawyer bought one of the most imposing of the mansions in colonial America, Scotchtown, a 10,000-acre plantation located in Ashland, Virginia for his family.  **

Just months after the Henrys moved in Sarah gave birth to their sixth child, a son. Shortly after this, she started to exhibit signs of mental illness, her condition worsened steadily and resulted in her death in 1775 just four years later. 

Few records of Sarah’s condition survived, but some believe she suffered from “puerperal psychosis.” Which is a mental illness that often occurs after childbirth. It was during this time that Patrick had to make a difficult decision.

He viewed a public hospital in Williamsburg and was so horrified at what he saw he decided to keep his wife at Scotchtown where he could make sure Sarah received the attention she needed. 

In the last year of her life, Sarah’s condition worsened to the point where the family decided to keep her confined in two of the basement rooms at Scotchtown. It is said during this period she exhibited a “strange antipathy” toward her family. 

A servant was first assigned to monitor her behavior but when she started to inflict bodily harm upon herself a special “straight-dress” similar to today’s straightjacket was used to restrain her.

Patrick remained loyal to his wife to the end. He made attempts to keep his wife’s condition secret. He even used a secret stairway in the back hall of Scotchtown when visiting his wife in the basement. 

But despite his discretion word spread quickly around the large plantation about the mistress’s condition. In colonial American people who suffered from mental illnesses where misunderstood. People didn't view it as an illness but instead being possessed by “evil spirits.” 

This is probably the main reason Patrick tried to keep Sarah’s illness secret. But as word spread across the plantation many servants, slaves, and workers refused to come near the mansion let alone enter it.

When Sarah died in February of 1775, she was buried in an unmarked grave on the plantation. It was a custom at the time to bury people with mental illness in secret. This again was connected to the belief that the mentally ill where possessed by demons. 

To this day the location of Sarah’s final resting place is not known. In 1777 when Patrick Henry was elected the first governor *** of Virginia he sold Scotchtown because it held too many bad memories for him. But it seems Sarah’s ghost remained.

A lot of strange things have occurred at Scotchtown over the years. The house itself for many years was abandoned and allowed to slowly deteriorate. During this time many neighbors saw lights at the windows, which looked like candlelight. 

A female ghost was seen by a group of children and adults wearing a long flowing white dress floating along the back of the house. This same spirit was seen making its way from the basement of the house to one of the outer buildings that housed the servants.

Patrick Henry’s great-great-great granddaughter felt the house was haunted and would not stay overnight. Mary Adams as a child lived at Scotchtown from 1933 to 1940 she heard unusual noises frequently. 

She and a group of her young friends saw a woman in a long, white gown inside the house, the figure disappeared in front of them. She and others heard chains being dragged across the attic floor.

In 1958 the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities purchased and restored Scotchtown.

Since a cradle used by the Henrys that is kept on the first floor has moved on its own. A tea caddy and the top of a teapot were moved while the house was empty. A candle that dates from the Henrys time in the home was moved during the night when the house was closed. 

The door to the basement is never locked, but sometimes it will not open. Witnesses state it is like someone is holding it on the other side.

In recent times more strange activity has been witnessed. 

On Halloween night in 1990, a policeman took a report from a neighbor who witnessed candlelight in the window after the mansion had been closed for the day. This female witness reported that as she entered the grounds, the candlelight disappeared but that she then saw a transparent figure of a woman walk past one window holding a candle. 

The police are often called to the estate because the alarm system and motion detectors are set off without explanation.

During tours of the house, visitors have also experienced strange activity. One docent took her group into the room directly above the basement rooms where Sarah was confined. As she told the visitors about Sarah’s last tragic years, they all heard a loud shrill scream coming from the rooms below. The group scattered quickly. 

Visitors have also reported feeling as if someone is watching them or standing behind them while they are in the basement.

A portrait of Joseph Shelton, Shelton was Sarah’s maiden name, hangs at Scotchtown. Many people have reported that the eyes of this man seem to follow them while they are in the room. In the attic, strange swarms of wasps and flies have collected at one window.

Another odd phenomenon at Scotchtown is connected to the two basement rooms were Sarah died. 

Ever since the mansion was renovated there have been attempts made to paint the walls in this area. Professional painters have been hired, top quality paint has been used, but regardless the color will not adhere to the walls. It is stated the paint literally “burns” off the walls, and there is no scientific reason for why this occurs. So even today the walls in these two rooms are dreary and in need of fresh paint.

*  Patrick Henry’s speech helped move America toward American independence.

**  Scotchtown was initially built in 1719 and is a one-story house that is 80 feet long and 40 feet wide. It has eight rooms on the main floor and eight rooms in the basement. It also has a large attic.

***  Patrick Henry served 5 terms as governor of Virginia. He remarried in 1776 to Dorothea Dandridge. Between his two marriages, he had seventeen children. Large families were ordinary because many children died of illness. Six of Patrick Henry’s children died before him.