As a young lady, Sarah Pardee was the Belle of New Haven, Connecticut.  Born in the heart of unsurpassing wild and romantic scenery and old legendary castles, she was highly cultured, a finished musician, an avid reader and spoke four languages. Long ago she learned of the existence of some papers which set out doctrines of witchcraft that might well have been the remnants of pagan rituals, hidden away and secretly practised since the conversion of Rome to Christianity in the fourth A.D. Sarah often muttered spells known in old Roman times; she astonish the learned by their legends of Latin gods. In 1862, Sarah married William Wirt Winchester, son of the famous rifle magnate. The son, although in ill health, carried on most ably with the newly named Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Cessation of the Civil War failed to hinder the prosperity of the progress of his company because migration to the West was in full swing. Invention of a practical repeating rifle accelerated success. The Famous Winchester Rifle, “The Gun that Won the West,” attained the dubious fate of “killing more game, more Indians, and more U.S. soldiers than any other weapon in this nation’s history.” Sarah was terribly shocked by the death of her month-old baby girl; in fact, it can be well believed she never fully recovered and this surely influenced some of her eccentricities. Added to this loss was the death of her husband 15 years later from Tuberculosis. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10

On arrival in San Jose, she immediately started remodeling the newly purchased, unfinished, eighteen room farm house. She found the planning kept her grief-disturbed mind occupied and she became thoroughly enthused. Financial problems were certainly no deterrent; allegedly she brought with her a fortune of $20,000,000 with her and had an average income of $1,000 a day. That is a great some, especially considering one could build a grand home for $5,000. Nonetheless, just how such precise amounts came to be public knowledge is unknown. However, these have been the commonly accepted figures for years and they do roll off the tongue (or pen) with a satisfying clink. Her lack of architectural training gave her little concern. Every morning she made the rounds with her ever patient foreman inspecting the latest progress. Some days she sketched plans on spot using a saw-horse drawing table and any handy material, often brown wrapping paper (and used both sides). From the foreman came no argument; he had only the problem of interpretation. However, glaring unusual features failed to discourage her and time was fleeting. Sarah simply ordered the error torn out, sealed up, built over, or around, or more likely, totally ignored. Hence came support for the conjecture that for her, this was a gigantic game of building-blocks! Mrs. Winchester communicated with the spirits to get many of the architectural details. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10

With the ceremonies and invocations or incantations addressed to Diana, a goddess, the female came down to Earth, established witches and witchcraft and then returned to Heaven. She was also involved in the planning of the Winchester Mansion. Some may think this is eccentric, but theosophy was all the rage among those interested in things in mystical late Victorian London and New York. Humanity was the study of comparative religion and philosophy and many investigated the mystic powers of life and matter. Mrs. Winchester rode in regal splendor in conveyances fitting to the era. First it was a Victoria with Liveried coachman. In later years came a French Renault, a Buick “Town-Car” and finally two Pierce-Arrows, on done in stunning blue and gold. Sarah L. Winchester’s presence was so sensational and the building of her mansion was so fast and massive that there was talk of a new secret society like the Order of the Golden Dawn. Some of these rumors were fueled by the highly publicized occult personal who were involved in activities at the mansion. Mrs. Winchester believed that the theory that witchcraft was identified with satanism and devil-worship was obscured. It was just the starting point for superbly colourful fictional writings. She was personally convinced that it was basically a pre-Christian Dianic cult and she had found the name Diana in writings about witchcraft all throughout history. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10

Unlike witches, who had no publc support because they were deemed to exist no longer, the phenomenon of spiritualism and clairvoyance had grown immensely in the Victorian era and had many prominent people among its belivers. There was also a strong lobby movement called the Spiritualists’ National Union which immediately began a vociferous campaign over the injustice which some witches faced, to which they enlisted the support of antrhopologists, lawyers and even some police officers. Many may not be aware, but at one time the laws allowed for witches to be prosecuted. However, there was no place for this type of discrimination in a new free society. Eventually the ancient Witch Act was repealed. Also replealed was Section Four of the Vagrancy Act of 1824 so far as it extended “to persons purporting to act as spiritualistic mediums or to exercise any powers of telepathy, clairvoyance or other similar power.” The two Acts were replaced by the Fradulent Medium Act, 1951 which, as the title explains, finally gave spiritualists and mediums the freedom to operate legally–unless they could be show to be obtaining money or kind by fraud. Any payment for the demonstration of psychic powers for the purposes of entertainment was also freed from the dangers of the law. The lawmakers had prised open the floodgates to allow easy passage for a new movement of witchcraft, paganism, satanism, occultism, spiritualism, mediums, clairvoyance, fortune-tellers, tarot card readers and newspaper astrologers. Authors on occule subjects were going to get a new lease of life too and, whether anyone knew it or not, this was the rebirth of witchcraft. Many reports on witch craft, often include the description of a “black man.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 10

Mrs. Winchester believed that “the man in black” described at meeting of witches’ covens was a priest dressed variously in dark clothing, or in skins, and wearing horns or antler. It was a ritual disguise, originally intended to represent the Incarnate God, that not merely existed in the practice of ancient ritual, and was copied by the witches of the Middle Ages, but still existed in contemporary witch covens she had experienced in Glastonbury, one of the most “witch-pressed” areas of the British Isles. What began to emerge through study of Mrs. Winchester is that witches possessed diabolic powers given to them by the devil. Sabbatic meetings were able to convince others that they were all able to drawn down the diabolic powers and the hordes of demons swirling through the air, in the Winchester Mansion, waiting to be summoned, by selling their souls to the devil. Many of the executed witches undoubtedly did indeed believe themselves to be servants of the devil, and acted out their magical rituals for that purpose and there were ample descendants employed in the Winchester Mansion. Mrs. Winchester’s auto science engineer, Fred Larsen, believed that she possessed incredible powers, including the fatal power of the evil eye and had the ability to fly, and he said he often saw werewolves and vampires around the estate, and other desperate evils of black magic—all of which he associated with witchcraft. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10

People truly believed that witches could fly through the air and were capable of transforming themselves into animals. Mrs. Winchester studied various ancient recipes for the preparation of witch ointments for these purposes, containing such ingredients as the fat of a deceased unchristened baby, mixed with wolfsbane, poplar leaves and other potent herbs. By this means, said the old textbooks, the witch could be carried through the air in a moonlight night “to feasting, singing, dancing, kissing, and other acts of venery with such youths as they love and desire mostly.” However, instead of child’s fat, Mrs. Winchester, because it was so horrific, Mrs. Winchester would use hog’s lard. She once carried out a test, using one of these recipes. Mrs. Winchester rubbed the ointment all over her body. She fell into a deep sleep for twenty hours. When she awoke, she suffered a sever hangover and made immediate notes of her experiences. She recorded wild dreams of flying through the air, and of monsters and demons. This dovetailed with the claim that witches were able to fly off to these exotic meetings at the Winchester Mansion, leave their bodies apparently asleep so that their husbands suspected nothing. This may explain why at night, passers-by heard ghostly music wafting from the dark mansion, as the bell in the belfry high in the gables would toll regularly at midnight to summon the incoming flights of spirits. It was also reported that it tolled again to warn these visitors to return to their sepulchres. However, once a week these spirits and witches and demons relaxed and danced in the Great Ball Room. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10

The devil was easy meat for the popular newspapers whose upsurge coincided with Mrs. Winchester’s arrival. The headlines soon began to appear whenever there was the discovery of the remnants of “black magic” rites in some secluded wood, a set of chicken bones arranged in the sign of a cross, a desecrated gravestone or some other outbreak of witchcraft. Any hint of witchcraft in Santa Clara County was sufficient to arouse immediate press attention and whip of a frenzy of interest, even as time progressed through the nineteenth century. The reaction was generally the opposite in areas of the country where witchcraft had been prevalent; they preferred not to speak of it. There was no better example of this than the murder of an old farmhand at the Winchester Mansion, in December 1899. It later became known as the “witchcraft murder” when the maid Victorian Venison discovered links with the occult. The victim, Stanislas De Duaita, farmhand and suspected witch, was found lying on his back under a willow tree, with a pitchfork driven through his throat and into the ground. A cross had been carved on his chest  and the billhook which had been used was left lodged between his ribs, at the base of the cross. The Winchester mansion was surrounded by relics where spirits from the old gods were said to linger. There was even a Stonehenge where Duaita’s body was found, witches were said to hold their sabbats there. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10

Local villagers did not want to talk about the murder; they had convinced themselves that Stanislas De Duaita was a witch. He was said to have bred toads and sometimes harnessed them to a miniature plough and allowed them to run in the fields. This was known to be one of the methods of an infamous and malicious witch of the nineteenth century and was said to make the fields sterile and the harvests fail. The previous year, the harvests had been poor round the Winchester Mansion. And, so the story goes, the finger was pointed at Stanislas De Duaita. Then another coincidence was discovered, which later investigators saw as a precedent to Duaita’a murder—and which demonstrated the traditional methods of disposing of witches’ parts, that of blooding them so that as they bled their power vanished. Thirteen years earlier and just 80 acres away, a woman named Helena Petrovna Blavatsky died in exactly the same manner—speared and pinned to the ground by a pitchfork and with a cross carved on her chest by a billhook. On the occasion, a local peasant named Guido von List confessed to the crime; he said the woman had bewitched him. Hundreds of statements were taken in writing, and dozens of samples of clothing, hair and blood for forensic testing, but the investigation came to naught. Stanislas De Duaita had the dubious distinction of being the last known witch—if he was one—to die a brutal death on the Winchester Estate. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10

As the mansion continued to grow into this impressive Queen Anne mansion, the spirits requested more Gothic lines of the classical English Victorian. Constructed of the finest materials available, the house reflected essential Queen Anne elements—rounded tower, steep gabled roof and varied textures—at their loveliest. The fourth story had imported Italian wood shingles over redwood sheeting and the prominent corner turret had a wood shingle roof and curved windows. Stained glass windows were another prominent feature. All the trim in the house was redwood, with exception of some of the areas with handcarved oak. The details and quality of materials make modern architectural duplication virtually impossible. The staff complained to Mrs. Winchester that the house was haunted. The butler was awakened by sounds of footsteps approaching his bedroom door. As the foot steps stopped, the door was opened, and he was confronted by darkness. There were other sounds too: laughter and old-fashioned music. After the death of Mrs. Winchester, the mansion was an easy target for looters and vandals who used chain saws to remove staircases, fireplaces and light fixtures. Jackles of the night were literally tearing the house to pieces. Once more the mansion radiates Victorian splendor—though many of the remaining 161 rooms are off limits, but 110 are open to guests. Laughter is anything but eerie, cheerful voices echo through the halls, brisk footsteps are heard. But at night…well no one ever really likes to work too late. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10

After the mansion was opened for tours, one woman was prosecuted after police raided a séance she was conducted as a spiritual medium. Her clients included numerous well-to-do people, often anxious to make contact with the “other side” after wartime tragedies. However, it was well documented that during one of these séances of Victorian Venison’s, a young sailor who was aboard the Abigail, which wrecked on Wangerooge Hanover, manifested himself and told how his ship had been sunk with considerable loss of life. The sailor’s mother refused to believe it, saying that if this had happened, she would have been informed. “You will be, mother, three weeks from now,” came the reply from the dead son through the medium. And according to Mrs. Cohen, the confirmation came through exactly as predicted. At her trial, Mrs. Venison was offered to give a séance to prove her abilities. Witnessed also came forward in her defense, but their testimonies were unheeded. She was found guilty and sentences to thirteen months imprisonment. I do invocate, conjure, and command thee, O thou Spirit Vassago, to appear and to show thyself visibly unto me before this Circle in fair and comely shape, without any deformity or tortuosity; by the name and in the name IAH and VAU, which Adam heard and spake; and by the name of God, AGLA, which Lot heard and was saved with his family; and by the name IOTH, which Jacob heard from the angel wrestling with him, and was delivered from the hand of Esau his brother; and by the name ANAPHAXETON which Aaron heard and spake and was made wise. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10

Winchester Mystery House

Did you know that the floor in the North Conservatory could be pulled up so the water could drain easier without damaging the wood floor? Sarah really did think of everything🌿 Explore this room and more on tour this weekend! https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

And while in the Bay Area, be sure to check out some other Victorian Homes open for tour.

Cohen-Bray House

Some of our team had the absolute joy of visiting the Cohen-Bray House in Oakland yesterday. This Victorian style 3-story home built in 1883 filled with the original contents and interiors is a sight to see + has a wonderful story (we won’t give too much away as you will have to go and tour for yourself 😉). Tours offered every 4th Sunday of the month. See link in their bio for more details! https://www.cohenbrayhouse.org/

#victorianhouse #victorianhomes #cohenbrayhouse