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People Do Not Like Old Graves Disturbed
It was one of those nights when the moon gives a faint glimmer of light through the thick black clouds of a lowering sky. Hope and native courage urged me to push forward, but at the length the increasing darkness and fatigue of body and mind was overcoming me. As the moon sank beneath a black cloud, the hallways were darker than ever. All was silent. All was still as death. My blood was chilled, Across the hall, upon the grand staircase, a pale bluish apparition cast a dismal gleam of light around. Summoning forth my courage, I quickly advanced toward it. Terror impelled me to make some hasty steps. I came to the foot of the stairs, and after a moment’s deliberation ascended. I went slowly up, the apparition retiring before me, until I came to a wide gallery. The apparition proceeded along it, and I followed in silent horror, treading lightly, for the echoes of my footsteps startled me. It led me to the foot of another staircase, and then vanished. At the same instant toll sounded from the belfry—I felt it strike upon my heart. I was now in total darkness, and with my arms extended, began to ascend the second staircase. A dead cold hand met my left hand and firmly grasped it, drawing me forcibly forwards—I endeavoured to disengage myself, but could not—I made a furious blow with my revolver, and instantly a loud shriek pierced my ears, and the dead hand was left powerless in mine. I dropped it, and rushed towards with a desperate valour. The stairs were narrow and winding, and interrupted by frequent breaches. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
The staircase grew narrower and narrower and at length terminated in to wall. I pushed the wall opened, its hinges creaked loudly-it led to an intricate winding passage, just large enough to admit myself. A faint glimmer of light served to show the nature of the place. I entered. A deep hollow groan resounded from a distance through the vault. I went forwards, and proceeding beyond the first turning, I discerned the same blue apparition. I flowed it. The vault, at length, suddenly opened into a lofty gallery, in which the midst of which a figure appeared, completely armed, thrusting forwards the bloody stump of an arm, with a terrible frown and menacing gesture, brandishing a pistol in his hand. I undauntedly sprang forwards and aimed a fierce blow at the figure; it vanished, letting fall a massy iron key. The apparition now rested upon a pair of ample wooden doors at the end of the gallery. I went up to it, and applied the key to a brazen lock—with difficulty I turned the bolt—instantly the doors flew open and discovered a large apartment. There was soft music playing, it was the most magnificent room I had ever seen, lighted with innumerable tapers in lustres of pure crystal. Then suddenly the piercing shrikes of a person in distress arrested my speed; I stopped and, listening attentively, heard shrill, melancholy cries repeated at interval through my mansion, which gradually became more distant, grew faint and died away. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
As I traversed further in this new section of the mansion, there was a chandelier of bronze, hung down from the middle of the ceiling. Then, at one end of the hall, was a great fireplace, as long as the size of a county house; and by it were heavy, old-fashioned sofas. At the opposite end of the hall, to the left as I went it—on the western side—was an organ built into the wall, and so large that it filled up the best part of that end. Beyond it, on the same side, was a door. As I went through the door, I froze in fear. There was a solider in one of the bedrooms. He was dark and had a noose around the neck; the rope of cut and his faced seemed almost luminous. I tried to collect my thoughts. My first sensation was like that of a very young child badly hurt, when it catches it breath before crying out. The emotional climate of Llanada Villa was uncanny, as if an unseen force was always present. From the blank darkness outside came in, through the aperture that served for a window, all the ever unfamiliar noises of night in the wilderness—the long, nameless note of a distant coyote; the stilly pulsing thrill of tireless insects in trees; strange cries of night birds, so different from those of the birds of the day; the drone of great blundering beetles, and all that mysterious chorus of small sounds that seem always to have been but half hard when they have suddenly ceased, as if conscious of an indiscretion. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
I crept to an open door; the organ broke out with a blare. A dazzling light filled the mansion, blotting the chandelier from my eyes. The soldier faded away, the arches, the vaulted roof vanished. I raised my seared eyes to the fathomless glare, and I saw the black stars hanging in the Heavens. I shivered. The air was suddenly cold. I told myself I was just scared, because I was. I sat there plunged in the profoundest grief that can come to the human soul, for in all other agony hope flickers, however forlornly. Then I saw something. I saw a little white face with eyes so scared and wishful that they seemed as if they might eat a hole in anybody’s heart. It was a dreadful little face, with something about it which made it different from any other face on Earth, but it was so pitiful that somehow it did away a good deal of dreadfulness. And there were two little hands spotted blue with the cold. And a darling little echo of a voice said, “I can’t find my mommy.” “For Heaven’s sake,” I said, “who are you?” Then the little voice said: “I can’t find my mommy.” All the time I could smell the cold that was clinging to her as if she had come out of some deadly cold place. She was dressed in a white nightgown, very long, quite covering her feet, and I could see dimly through her thin body mottled blue with the cold. Her face did not look so cold; that was a clear waxen white. Her hair was dark, but it looked as if she it might by dark only because it was so damp, almost wet, and might really be fair coloured hair. As the child descended further into the room, the ceiling returned and no longer visible were the stars. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
Well, I was so dumfounded that I did not know what to do, and I could not make sense at first that it was anything supernatural. Then I tried to catch hold of the child, for I thought in spite of what I saw that perhaps I was nervous and she was a real child. I went to put my shawl around her, but the minute I moved toward the child, there was no longer a child there; there was only that little voice seeming to come from nothing, saying, “I can’t find my mommy,” and presently that died away. That feeling I had, the current in my stomach, my temples, my fingertips—it remained with me for quite a while. It rose and fell with the memory of that girl’s words. The air was still. As I gazed out the window, the silvery vapour hung serenely on the far horizon, and the frosty stars blinked brightly. Everyone knows the effect of such a scene on a mind already saddened. Fancies and regrets floats delicately in the mind, and the scene affected me with a strange sense of memory and anticipation, like some sweet old air heard in the distance. There was something of the unearthly and spectral within these walls whose direct connection was with a necromancy even older than the Salem witchcraft could not be doubted. A hideous traffic was going on among nightmare ghouls. Sometimes, looking at the past can have consequences for the present. It is best graves should be left well alone. We do not need to pull all the pieces together of things that are better left to rest. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
The Winchester Mystery House
Of all the myths which have come down to us from ancient times and of all creations, the personality of evil has the strongest attraction for the mind of man. The Devil is the greatest enigma that has ever confronted the human intelligence. So large a place has Satan taken in our imagination, and we might also say in our heart, that his expulsion therefrom, no matter what philosophy may tech us, must forever remain an impossibility. The Devil advanced with the progress of civilization, because he is what men make him. I talked to caretakers of The Winchester Mystery House about apparitions they may have seen in Mrs. Winchester’s mansion. Some of them had never seen anything unusual. However, there was a man, who always liked to take tour of The Winchester Mystery House of Friday the 13th. When queried about his insistence on that day, the man freely admitted it was because on that day he could see “her”—the “her” being a female wraith who appeared at the mansion to listen to the guests, and then disappeared at midnight. On that day, he could always be next to her! I pressed more caretakers about any personal experienced. Finally, he thought that he had seen something like a figure in white out of the corner of one eye, a figure that passed, and quickly disappeared.
Come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Something Appalling Has Entered My Life!
Despite what the living think, ghosts do not know everything. They know almost everything, but not some things. It is strange how timorous we are when our affections are concerned. Often and often, I have trembled to think of William’s death, as I saw fever dim his eyes like an angel of mercy, him day by day grow weaker, while president of Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Must his eyes never more behold the beauty that was born to his soul? Oh, never more! As thought came to me, I shuddered in affright, for it seemed to me that I had been guilty of sacrilege. My bedroom was a large chamber—immense for a bedroom—with two windows. The furniture was old-fashioned, but not old enough to be curious, and on the walls hung many pictures—portraits—the house was full of portraits—and landscapes. I just glanced at these, and when to bed. There was a fire in the room, and I lay awake for some time looking dreamily at the shadows of the furniture flitting over the walls and ceiling as the flames of the wood fire leaped and fell, and the red ember dropped whitening on the hearth. I tried t give the rein to my thoughts, but they kept constantly to one subject—William. I heard a voice of strange, rich sweetness, yet wavering—the voice of one almost a king by nature. He calls my name. His voice floats on the wind, amid drowsy music of the harps and fountains. I see him and he sits down near me. As if it was winter and someone had opened a window, a cold wind blew though the room. A kind of awe stole over me. Oh, the melody of that voice! It vibrates more and more as it gives back the echo. I felt his weight on the edge of my bed, the weight of an actual body, but at the same time I could see through him. I could see the wall of my room through his red hair and through the golden aura around him. His spirit seems lost in a trance. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
Zip jumped when I called out to my late husband, then lied on the floor beside my bed. I watched him in silence. He seemed to be half-listening to the fitful music; and as the melody swelled and died away his chest rose and fell as he breathed in unison with the music. After a moment or two, William appeared to become conscious of a presence in the room. I could see by the working of his hands and the heaving of his chest that some violent emotion troubled him. Gradually, however, he grew more calm, but before I could collect my scattered thoughts, he eluded me, in unison with the silencing of the harps. William—William—William. I found myself half awakening, and repeating his name over and over and over again. At last, I fell asleep. I thought that I awoke suddenly to that peculiar feeling which we sometimes have on starting from sleep, as if someone had been speaking in the room, and the voice is still echoing through it. All was quite silent, and the fire had gone out. I looked out of the window that lay beside the bed, and observed a light outside, which gradually grew brighter till the room was almost as light as by day. The light in the room continued to grow even brighter, so I looked again out of the window to seek it source, and saw there a lovely sight. It seemed as if William and Annie were outside the window and floating in mid-air. The light seemed to spring from a point far behind them, and by their side was something dark and shadowy, which served to set off their radiance. My late husband and daughter seemed to be smiling upon me. I looked away for only a moment, but they had been replaced by some malignity. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
Something appalling has entered my life! Dark forebodings of a hideous, menacing fate are looming over me like the shadows of black clouds, impervious to any kindly ray of sunlight. The dark mass had grown. From a cloud, misty and undefined, it became sort of a shadow with a form. This gradually, as I looked, grew darker and fuller, till at length it made me shudder. There stood before me the phantom Fiend—a man who looked more dead than alive. The nature of his disease and the inherent evil of his character had combined to make him resemble on the outside the monster that he was within. His ravaged flesh was mottled purple and grey. His eyes were enormous, so cold and unblinking, with tiny pupils and a great expanse of white around them which gave him a look of insanity. His mouth drooped on one side where it was permanently open, revealing yellow teeth. His lips were lumpy, almost black. It was like the face of some atrocious criminal already hanging from the gibbet. There was a long period of dead silence, in which I could hear the beating of my own heart. It was distinguished by a fierce, diabolical laughter, which swelled louder and louder, till at last it grew so strong that in very horror, I cried. I was very much troubled by what I had seen and heard. I wiped the tears from my eyes and looked out of the window again, but saw nothing but the broad belt of moonlight glittering on the lawn moist with dew, which extended miles and miles away, till it was lost in the haze. The vision had utterly faded. However, it was so powerful that I slept no more till the sunlight was streaming broadly in at the widow, and then I feel into a slumber. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
In my dream last night, when in my ears came softly, like music stealing across the gardens below, the old song William and I used to sing together, then to my brain, like a way of light, came an idea whose grandeur for a moment struck me dumb. Before my eyes grew a Ballroom of such beauty that I knew my hope was born to life, and his spirit had placed my foot on a stairway that leads from this my palace to freedom. My mansion is daily growing nearer to completion. I sing as I work, and my constant song is the one I love so well. I can hear the echo of my voice in the Grand Ballroom; and as I end, the wailing song note is prolonged in sweet music. So beautiful my home has become, so much do I love it, that I could gladly die to be maker of such a work, were it not for the spirits, and my hope of appeasing them. My life is slowly ebbing away. This yearning for completeness much be unsatisfied in the end. Leaning on the edge of the window, looking out at the dark, moonless sky, my excitement was so great that my knees were trembling. When I retired to my bedroom that night, I was much too excited to sleep. I paced up and down the room for some time, thinking and doubting. I could not believe what I expected to happen, and yet my heart was filled with a vague dread. The next few minutes passed so slowly that each moment seemed an age. I was standing, counting the moments, when suddenly a light came into the room that made the candle on the table appear quite dim, and my shadow was reflected on the wall by some brilliant light which streamed in through the window. My heart for an instead ceased to beat, and then the blood rushed so violently to my temples that my eyes grew dim and my head began to reel. As I lied down in my bed, I fell quickly to sleep. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
Then there came from the dark interior a husky whisper which somehow chilled me through and though I did not know why I feared it. However, as disturbing as was the whisper, the greater fear was that which immediately followed. The floor creaked and the steps went back and forth. Heavy, masculine steps, the kind a big man would make. Soon after the footsteps, other noises began to be heard in the attic and along the corridors and stairs leading toward it. I got out of bed, and opened by bedroom door and started to go up the stairs, when suddenly I walked into what I can only described as a warm, wet blanket, something that touched my physically as if it had been hung from wires in the corridor. I was very upset. As I reached the attic, the door knob had turned in front of my very eyes before I could reach for it to open the door. All of a sudden, my right side, the right side of my head, felt very depressed and a feeling of great despair came over me. I felt like wringing my hands and was very distraught. It only stayed with me a few moments, and I could almost feel something or someone pressing against the right side of my head. And then I saw a mist, on the landing of the stairs. It had a shape, rather tall and thin. It did not have a face. But I did see hands wringing. Then I felt a mighty shock, and all the Universe seemed filed with sparks of fire that whirled around me with lightning speed, till I seemed to be in the center of a World of flame, and then came in my ears the rushing of a mighty wind, swelling ever louder, and then came a blackness over al things and a deadness of sound as if all the Earth had passes away, and I remembered no more. When I next became conscious, I was lying in bed in a dark room. As I tried to look around but, I could hardly stir my head. I attempted to speak, but my voice was without sound. And I again felt a darkness gathering around me. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
The Winchester Mystery House
In the middle of April 1890, Mrs. Winchester told one of the servants that she had been plagued by extraordinary noises resounding through the house that she believed to be the work of thieves. He dismissed her complaint as being nothing other than the result of an over-active imagination. Then, a few nights later, he heard the noises for himself. He heard a very great knocking at the doors and on the outside walls of the hose. He immediately arose, dressed himself, and took out a shot gun. He truly believed that there was an intruder in the grounds. However, as he walked down stairs, the noise seemed always to travel before or behind him. When he came to the front door, from which he thought the principal noise had come, there was no one there. Then he heard the knocking at another door. As soon as he had retired the noises began, even more furiously than before, and he heard what he described as a thumping and drumming on the top of the house, and then by degrees going off into the air. This strange hollow noise visited Mrs. Winchester very frequently, usually for thirteen nights and then ceased for three nights before beginning again.
Sometimes the afterlife is difficult for the ghost, as he or she may be too strongly attached to feelings of guilt or revenge to “let go.” Ghosts usually do not harm anyone, except through fear found within the witness. The harm results from the witness’s own doing because of his or her unawareness of what ghosts represent. In the few cases where ghosts have attacked people of the flesh, it is simply a matter of mistaken identity, where extreme violence at the time of death had left a strong residue of memory in the individual ghosts. Try a they might, people cannot explain away ghosts, not will ghost simply disappear. They continue to appear frequently in The Winchester Myster House and all over the World to young and senior citizens, to affluent and less affluent, in old houses and new, in airports and forests, streets and hotels, and wherever tragedy strikes. For ghosts are indeed more or nothing less than a human being trapped by special circumstances in this World while already being in the next; or, to put it another way, ghosts are human beings whose spirits are unable to leave the Earthly surroundings because of unfinished business or emotional entanglement. However, even if you do not encounter ghosts or have a psychic experience in The Winchester Mystery House, you will find it a fascinating place. As an adventure, The Winchester Mystery House has no equal.
Come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
It is Not Always the Same Time Here
It was a wet November afternoon, rather windy, rather warm. Outside the window great trees were stirring and weeping. Between them were stretched of green and yellow country, and blue hills far off, veiled with rain. Up above was a very restless and hopeless movement of low clouds travelling north-west. If you call it work—I had suspected my work—for some minutes to stand at the window and look at these things, and at the greenhouse roof on the right with the water sliding off it, and the nine story Observational Tower. It was all in favour of my going steadily on; no likelihood of a clearing up for hours to come. I, therefore, returned to my desk. By this time, I was somewhat tried. The clock struck four, and it really was four, for in 1889 there was no saving of daylight. So, I settled myself in the Hall of Fires. And first I glanced over some of the blueprints for additions to Llanada Villa. The clock struck five. This, I knew, meant tea. I lifted myself out of the deep chair, and went to the parlour. As I sat down in my favourite chair, the housemaid, Engrid Sebald, poured my tea. When I pick the cup up, she witnessed it fly out of my hand as it smashed at her feet. She glanced out of the window and saw what appeared to be a man’s face. It was unspeakably evil. There was something curious and ghastly about the way the sun began to sink into the west. The long shadows of the trees obscured the face from sight. Engrid was blanching with fright, as I was in a misery of fear. A considerable degree of darkness came on. I managed to calm Engrid by suggesting she had seen some sort of shadow, but the incessant barking of Zip, for no apparent reason, made matters worse. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
As the blackened darkness reigned, and all was silent. The perfect stillness was interrupted only by the mutterings of distant thunder. Without saying another word, the young lady went crept up the stairs trembling to her room. Shortly after, her things all packed she came down again to say goodbye. Under intolerable distress, I was once again without help. The adventure of the day mightily tormented my dreams that night. As I lay in the early morning recalling the incidents of the pervious night, it seemed curiously subdued and far away—as if it had happened in another World, or in a time long gone by. A few days later, a new housemaid arrived. Her name was Atina Kossert. A simple and quite unimaginative person, she had put no stock into all the tales of goings-on she had heard and was quite willing to prove her point. On going to her room, she found nothing out of order. On the next night, Atina complained of a shuffling or scraping noise in her bedroom. It sounded to her as if the chair was being moved, or as if someone was shuffling across the floor in slippers. She removed the chair from the room. When she turned the light off, however, she herself heard the sound. She turned on the light, and the noise stopped. She turned off the light, and the sound of scraping began again. The phenomena soon increased in intensity. A chest of drawers moved approximately thirteen inches from the wall. Atina pushed it back again. When she turned away the chest of drawer moved out again, and proved impossible to return to its original position. The drawers in the chest also came out, and could not be moved. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Atina, now thoroughly alarmed, changed her tune. “Someone is watching me,” she complained. She complained of things flying off the shelves seemingly by their own volition and of the chest of drawers moving and the drawers opening as if someone were looking for something or other. She wanted to leave, but Atina simply could not afford to, things were difficult enough in the physical World to allow the unseen forces to add to her problems. Atina when on to complain about noisy children in the halls. When she was informed that there were no children running about unattended, she became annoyed. Setting about to prove she was not going crazy, she was determined to catch one of these shouting, squealing, laughing kids who was disturbing her sleep. One night, Atina was extremely frustrated. She heard the kids in the hallway and rushed from her bed and nearly grabbed one of the little rascals, but was astonished to see the child disappeared before her eyes. Amid the chaos taking place, a rumbling sound began in Atina’s bedroom. The sound intensified, and as it did it took on a physical manner, moving out from under the bed towards the center of the room. The floorboards vibrated as the spirit rolled under the floor. The spirit made its way across the room, went out the door and disappeared into the hall. Terrified beyond reason, Atina found her voice and began to pray. She found herself looking over her shoulder, certain someone was there with her, only to see no one. Atina started putting thing back in place. As she was facing the fireplace, he heard a soft rapping at her door. She rushed over to open the door, there was a young man, about six foot, three inches with a hole in his head, signaling that he had been shot. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Atina quickly slammed the door and jumped into bed, shivering with fear. A flush of warmth cascaded over her, and the room turned fuzzy. She tried to regain her equilibrium. As if invisible fingers caressed her hair, Atina’s scalp tingled. Then an inescapable sensation took her breath away. The room seemed infused with a new, unfathomable energy—she had become sensitized to a dimension just beyond the range of normal. Light from the chandelier sparkled, and the tall, stained-glass windows created kaleidoscopic pools throughout the room. Atina wiped the moisture from her eyes, drew a deep breath, and cried herself to sleep. In the following days, Atina became frail and listless. Her once beautiful features became waxy and pale, her gorgeous brown eyes no longer sparkled. She began to believe that the house itself was dangerous prolonged life in it could only destroy those who remain in it. On an early Wednesday morning, Atina saw a form cross from the window, over her bed, and then down the stairs. This brought her out screaming and demanding to know what was going on. The light from the apparition was so intense they it hurt her eyes. She felt an icy chill as the form passed her. “Atina, my dear,” I said. “I insist it was only lightning.” However, instead of triumph, I found terror, and my talk with Atina boasted not of victory but a plea for help and advice in saving both myself and the World from horror beyond all human conception or calculation. I slipped out of the room so quietly that no one had seen me depart or knew that I had gone. I had gone upstairs, where a bit of my fear must has surged back; for I was heard to cry out in a highly terrified fashion upon entering the library, afterward trailing off into a kind of choking grasp. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
When, however, the butler had come to inquire what the troubles was, I appeared at the door with a great show of boldness, and had silently gestured the man away in a matter that terrified him unaccountably. After a time, the shadows began to gather, and the sunset cheer gave place to a vague growing terror which flew shadow-like before the night. Something frightful and unholy seemed to haunt. About the middle of January, a queer nocturnal incident occurred. In the early evening, there had been some noise and thumping in the sewing room upstairs, and I was on the point of investigating when it suddenly quieted down. Meanwhile, although she was more frightened than ever, Atina grew very curious about the mansion. She inspected the walls of her bedroom and found hollow spots. A bookcase turned out to be a false front. She discovered hidden passages. Of course, the house was honeycombed with areas not visible to the casual observer. Atina also discovered that the front portion of the wall seemed to block off another room beyond it, not accounted for when measuring the outside walls. When she managed to pry it open, she found a stairwell, narrow though it was, where apparently a flight of stairs had once been. As she treaded the stairs, the air became still, as a winged demon emerged. He looked like a monstrous gargoyle with large horns curling inward on his head, and he had razor sharp talons; perfect for ripping prey apart. He had two, vampire-like fangs that were bigger than the rest of his teeth and resembled a wolf’s, and his eyes shimmer crimson-red. Atina’s blood went cold. “Demon! He’s a demon.” “Witch!” The demon’s voice shook the walls, his voice deeper and louder than Atina’s. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Atina jumped away as the demon stared at her. Red welt covered her torso and legs, the angular shapes of ancient letters and symbols. “Go home, Witch! Go back to your house and pray to you God.” Smoke rose from where the demon was standing, and he vanished. It was a terror too profound and real, and in conjunction with what Atina already knew evoked too vivid hints of monstrosities from beyond time and space to permit of any sensible explanation. That midnight, after the household had retired, the butler was locking the back door when according to his statement Atina appeared somewhat blunderingly and uncertainly at the foot of the stairs with a large suitcase and made signs that she wised egress. The young lady spoke no word, but the worthy butler caught one sight of her fevered eyes and trembled causelessly. He opened the door and young Atina went out, but in the morning, she presented her resignation to me. There was, she said, something unholy in the glance butler had fixed on her. It was no way for a man to look at an honest woman, and she could not possibly stay another night. I allowed the woman to depart, but I did not value her statement highly. To fancy my butler in a savage state that night was quite ridiculous, for as long as I had remained awake, I had heard faint sounds from the room above; sounds as if of sobbing and pacing, and of a sighing which told only of his despair’s profoundest depths. I had grown used to listening for sounds in the night, and could often hear he was. There were nameless horrors in my home; and no matter how little one might be able to get at them, one ought to stand prepared for any sort of action at any time. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
In 2010, while clean the basement, a ghost of a boy appeared a caretaker, he appeared to be four of five years old. “Mrs. Winchester is dead…but not dead forever,” he said in a faint voice. In terms of psychic research, a ghost appears to be a surviving emotional memory of someone who has died traumatically, and usually tragically, but is unaware of his or her death. Ghosts, then, in the overwhelming majority, do not realize that they have died. Those who do know they are “dead” are confused as to where they are and why they do not feel quite as they used to feel. When death occurs unexpectedly or unacceptably, or when a person has become very attached to a place he or she has lived in for a very long time, sudden, unexpected death may come as a shock. Unwilling to part with the physical World, such human personalities then continue to stay on in the very sport where their tragedy or their emotional attachment had existed prior to physical death.
Come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Ghostly Encounters
Time moved slowly in Llanada Villa, if at all. Footsteps echoed along the corridors and up stairwells, but the sound seemed muted and out of synch with any motion amidst the shadows. It was dark out when my eyes fluttered open. Evening sunlight slanted across the countryside in a blaze of copper. Llanada Villa was hidden by trees and set in large Victorian gardens, the elegant mansion could only be glimpsed by walkers. Red roses bloomed on the trellis by the from doors. A cool breeze stirred the leaves of the shrubbery. If beauty really went on decaying, as the ancients say, by this time there could be no beauty left. Those who had the powers to see beyond the beautiful flowers, trees and towers, the inviting lawns, or the richness of the interior, when the doors are thrown open, knew my home harboured a terrifying evil and those who lived within its walls faced unspeakable dangers. A sound pierced the stillness like a clap of thunder. My heart raced, but I walked through the downstairs parlour and up the stairs. At the top of the landing, I pushed open the door, and my eyes still adjusting from the darkness to the light, walked down the long halls, dark, wining hallway past several bedrooms, turned the corner and headed toward the Grand Ballroom. As I rounded the corner, I stumbled over something on the floor. Heinz Bongartz, one of the carpenters, lay face down on the mahogany floor, his whole body scratched and bruised, his skull smashed to pieces, and blood everywhere. Someone had taken this man straight to the Devil. No one—no one—could imagine my fear. I was struggling with my own conscience about what to do. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
Poor weather seemed to deepen my malaise: the winds that buffeted the house, shuddering the windows and ratting the doors, inflicted particular torment. If I was alone in the house, I did not know. I gingerly stepped around Heinz, and fled down the hallway, toward the front of the house, through the morning room. From the window, I could see huntsmen mounted on horses as black as the Devil, wrapped in black cloaks. Hoods drawn right over their faces. Eyes glowing red. They give me a scare causing me to shiver. I felt my heart pounding, felt the blood stirring in my body, and began shuffling away from the wind, deeper into a passage. I walked toward the glow and away from the light. That is when the screaming started. At first, it was so loud that I thought it was some strange, high-pitched thunder from the storm that was still darkening the sky beyond the windows. However, it was too high, too shrill, and lasted too long to be part of the storm, even though it sounded like nothing human. The noise seemed to come from above…from up the stairwell on the darkened third floor…but it seemed to echo from the walls, from down stairs, even from the pipes and metal radiator. It went on and on. I froe and turned toward the doorway and stared at it for a full moment after the terrible noise stopped, expecting the source of the scream to appear there. A dark shape appeared in the gloom of the doorway. When I narrowed my eyes to make out the visage, I gasped, for was this not the same countenance that I had seen in the mirror the previous morning, the reflection of my own late mother? My eyes were swelled with crying. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
It was so cold, forcing me to wrap a shawl more closely around my shoulders. I shivered and longed to return to the warmth of my bed. It was not Mother, of course, how could it be? The rain began almost immediately then, falling heavily, great drops tumbling on the roof. I shivered again; a ghost walked over my grave terrifying me into the depths of my very soul. I began to fear that I might not sleep this night, so certain was I that I was surrounded by the spirits of those who had left their corporeal form being but had not yet been admitted through the gates of Heaven and so were left to trawl through my home, crying aloud, desperate to be heard, causing disarray and torment wherever they went, uncertain when they would be released to the peace of the afterlife and the quiet promise of eternal rest. I was terrified at the horror I knew was sure to come my way. It was dark in the room and illuminated only by the glow of the reddened coals with the colour of the sporadic flames. I fell asleep quite soon after going to bed but it was a fitful and unhappy sleep. My dreams were supplanted by nightmares. I encountered spirits where I should have undertaken adventures. My landscape was dark graveyards and irregular vistas rather than mansions and castles. However, nevertheless I slept through the night, and when I woke, feeling groggy and out of sorts, the morning light was already coming through my curtains. I looked at my clock; it was almost half past seven and I cursed myself, knowing that I would certainly be late for breakfast. Plucking up all my courage, I put my bar feet out of bed. It was cold in the room. The chill seemed to have entered into my very bones. I pushed the covers aside. Very quietly, I cautiously tiptoed to the door in case the floorboards creak. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
The morning fog was beginning to descend on the garden and a persistent wind was forcing its way down the chimney, tracking a path along the stonework. I gradually learned about the horrific murder of Heinz Bongartz. However, my heat bleed for this distressed, and the temptations I was exposed to. I resolved to tarry to see how things went. “Mrs. Winchester!” Millicent, the housemaid’s voice interrupted. As I made my way to the breakfast room, Millicent obediently stood next to the to the door. As Millicent opened the door, “Mrs. Winchester, you’re getting a late start. Maybe you need to stop consulting the spirits so late a night?” she said. “And so I am to be exposed, in my own house, and out of my house, to the whole World, by such a sauce-box as you?” I replied. “No, Mrs. Winchester, and I hope your honour won’t be angry with me; it is not I that exposed you, if I say nothing but the truth.” Millicent, I am very much displeased with the freedoms you have taken with my name.” Millicent silently went over to the table and delicately placed my meal before me. Then she went to put another log on the fire. Millicent, serve the tea, and then you can go. I will probably have a little rest after you leave, so you do not need to return until four.” Millicent bobbed a curtsy and went over to a table covered in burgundy velvet that was located near the door to pour my cup of she. She also removed a thick linen napkin, revealing a plate piled high with slices of ham, Swiss cheese, and soft rolls. Millicent signed, since she knew that even the tea would remain untouched by me as long as I was handling the delicate satin material, but she did appreciate the gesture. Thank goodness for the excellent breakfast served this morning. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
Later that evening, a peculiar incident occurred. At about midnight, I heard a chanting ritual whose weird cadence echoed unpleasantly through the house, there came a sudden gust of chill wind, and a faint obscure trembling of the earth which everyone noted. At the same time, Zip exhibited phenomenal traces of fright. This was the prelude to a sharp thunderstorm, anomalous for the season, which brought with it such a crash that I believed the house had been struck. Daisy and I rushed upstairs to see what damage had been done, but Millicent met us at the door to the attic; pale, resolute, and portentous, with an almost fearsome combination of triumph and seriousness on her face. She assured us that the house had not really been struck, and that the storm would soon be over. We paused, and looking through a window saw that she was indeed right; for the lightning flashed father and father off, whilst the trees ceased to bend in the strange frigid gust from the water. The thunder sank to a sort of dull mumbling chuckle and finally died away. Stars came out. A chill shot through me and threated to reduce me to the very state from which I was emerging. It was of a quality profoundly disturbing to the soul. Ever since I had been in my home, I had known that something was amiss, and at last it dawned upon me what it was. I just remember I got my chamber for I knew nothing further of the matter till afterwards; for I fell into a fit with my terror, and there I lay. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
The following day, I took a turn or two in the garden, but in sight of my home, for fear of the worst; and breathed upon my hand to dry my eyes, because I would not be too disobedient. Close upon this, there was a thundering and with it came a momentary darkening of the daylight, though the sunset was still an hour distant. A second later all previous memories were effaced by the wailing scream which burst out with frantic explosiveness and gradually changed from a paroxysm of a diabolic and hysterical laughter. I ran back into my home and was greeting by Daisy. We traversed up the stairs just in time to see a cryptic soul creep through an opening in the door to nowhere, as we glimpsed the frightful vista of the void beyond. There was something hideous, blasphemous, and abnormal about it. As it was, I was seized my niece in her arms and bore her quickly downstairs before she could notice the voices which had so horribly disturbed me. Even so, however, I was not quick enough to escape catching something myself which caused me to stagger dangerously with my burden. The cry had been evidently heard by others. Every minute, as it grew near, my terrors increased; and sometimes I had great courage, and sometimes none at all; and I thought I should faint. “Answer me then, I bid you!” I shouted. And it did. However, the voice had a depth and hollowness which I could not comprehend. “Aunt Sarah, all of this must be stopped or you will be made ill and the keeping of servants become an impossibility!” In our tracks, however, I paused at the sounds which I heard proceeding from the now disused library. Books were apparently being flung about and papers wildly rustled. For the fright of fainting, Daisy rushed me to the Crystal Bedroom. The strangeness was a poignant sensation, and almost clawed at my chest as I strove to see just what was wrong around me. Something was indeed wrong, and tangibly as well as spiritually so. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
It can happen to anyone: Ghost are, after all, people who had unfinished business on their minds when they passed on. Ghosts are not figments of the imagination. Those who have studied parapsychology have come to understand that human life does continue beyond what we commonly call death. Once in a while, there are extraordinary circumstances when death occurs, and these exceptional situations create what we popularly call ghost and haunted houses.
Come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Pursued by the Ghost of Several Generations
My butler Garth has suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. I gather that there is very little hope that he can still be alive; but whether it is accident or design that carried him off, I cannot judge. The facts are these. On Monday the 6th, he went as usual shortly before six o’clock to gather the silverware for dinner; and the housemaid brought him a message, in response to which he set off to the east wing of the house. He paid visit to the Sunshine Room, and started his journey back to the Venetian Dining Room at about half past seven. This is the last that is known of him. The servants and myself are very much grieved at his loss; he had been here many years, and though, he was not the most genial of men, and had more than a little of the martinet in his composition, he seems to have been active in good works, and unsparing of trouble to himself. Poor Mrs. Kurlander, who was the housemaid who called him away is quite overcome: it seems like the end of the World to her. Naturally, the house has been searched, as well as the fruit orchards and acres of fields, and the ponds dragged without result. There can be no question of foul play amongst the servants, nor is there the shadow of a probability that they or any of them should have agreed to decoy poor Garth out in order that he might be attacked on out the outskirts of the estate. He left some money when he went away and one of the servants show him cross int the fruit orchards. He was dressed as he always was. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
I wandered around, and after a while I found myself in a long corridor where I had never been before. The walls were lined with portraits of our ancestors and the eyes of the stern-looking men and women seemed to watch me disapprovingly as I passed. I told myself it was just an optical illusion and that I should enjoy this opportunity to be alone, to really figure out my way around and to look at things that I might have felt self-consciously examining closely. As I passed the portraits, I was left in pitch darkness—such an absolute darkness as I have never before experienced. Suddenly, my eyes caught the glint of a light. At first it was but a lurid spark upon the mahogany floor. Then it lengthened out until it became a yellow line, and then, without any warning or sound, a gash seemed to open and a hand appeared, a white, almost womanly hand, which felt about in the center of the little area of light. For a minute or more the hand, with its writhing fingers, protruded out of the floor. Then it was withdrawn as suddenly as it appeared, and all was dark again save the lurid spark which marked the opening of the trap door in the floor. As I continued down the corridor, everything on the instant grew dark. The floors creaked beneath my feet. There was something Satanic about this wing of the house. Then, there was one long, loud, shuddering scream, as I glanced to see where it came from, I found myself looking straight into the face of a large owl, which was seated on my window-sill, holding up its wings like two shrouded arms. I caught the fierce glace of its yellow eyes, and then it was gone. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
I repaired into a chamber at one end of the gallery. Having shut the door, I heard a strange noise, and on a sudden something was flung against the chamber door, with extraordinary violence, upon which the noise immediately ceased. Moments later, I went to go forth of the chamber door, but could by no means force it open. Behind me, a door opened in the darkness, and I felt a wave of night-air, cool and fragrant, come in against my neck. I had not known there was another door at the far end of the chamber, but I was out through it in a heartbeat. The connecting room was a soothing green. On one wall was a Monet. I was listening to the boom of my heart, and the noise from the storm outside. The wind had become louder, slamming the door against a wall. If it had just been the whine of the wind coming from below, no doubt my ambitions would have had me halfway down the stairs by now. However, there were other sound being carried on the back of the wind, some easy to interpret, others not so easy. I could hear the screech of bats, which was not too distressing. However, there were other species giving voice below. Looking at the doorway that led to the tower, I took a deep breath, and went out into the hallway. Reassuringly, the door had stopped slamming quite so hard. I took a deep breath, then headed down the flight. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
I suddenly sensed someone was there. Watching me. I looked up. And I saw him, standing on the landing encircling one of the towers that rose from the house. It was the guy I had seen at the library window. He was looking down at me. However, not as me. Once more I was sure I had seen him before—before I saw him outside the library. I stared at the gentleman long enough. Suddenly, I felt queer and faint, and bent over and grabbed my knees. When I looked up again, the man—or whatever he was—had vanished from the tower. I could not imagine how he had gotten down or, into my house. Judging by the different voices heard at odd times within, it must be accessible through secret passages beneath. There are whisperings and frenzied screams, coupled with curious chants or invocations. On this night, however, they assumed a very singular and terrible cast as they ran the gamut betwixt dronings of dull acquiescence and explosions of frantic pain or fury, rumblings of conversation and whines of entreaty, pantings of eagerness and shouts of protest. They appeared to be in different languages, whose rasping accents were frequently distinguishable in reply, reproof, or threatening. Sometimes it seemed that several persons must be in this wing of the house; certain captives, and the guards of those captives. There were voices of a sort that I had never heard before despite my wide knowledge of foreign parts, and many that I did place belonging to certain nationalities. It sounded as if a guard was extorting some sort of information from terrified or rebellious prisoners. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
However, besides a few ghoulish dialogues, most of the questions and answers I could understand were historical or scientific; pertaining to very remote places and ages. These ghosts were discussing a massacre in 1370. After a long pause of silence, there was a terrific shriek followed by silence and muttering and a bumping sound. The crack of a stick on the skulls had here a crushing sound as if the bone was giving way, and the victims quivered and kicked as the lay. The ghost wrung the neck of one of the victims, and if the choke or squeak which it gave were not real, I know nothing of reality. My home got perceptibly darked. I heard hard breathing and horrid muffled sound. Shortly after, a shadow was seen on the wall. Then faint cries and groans unmistakably came up from the solid mahogany floors. As I walked further down the gallery, I found an oaken door in a frame of heavy masonry, which was obviously an entrance into the caverns beneath my home. When or how these catacombs could have been constructed, I was unable to say. However, in the catacombs was poor Garth’s body, with a sack over the head, the throat horribly mangled. I cannot bring myself to describe the scene in greater detail. The events that attended the discovery bewildered me so completely that I needed what I could get of a night’s rest to enable me to face the situation at all. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
Ancient philosophers suggested that the appearance of spirits is evidence that we are part of a larger community of intelligences, a universe of interrelated species, both physical and nonphysical. We might conclude, therefore, that corrupt stimuli cause objects to rise in the air or to be hurled about; create thundering noises, and violently slamming doors. If there are forms of energy that can indeed be responsible for this phenomenon, are we ready to deal with the powers of the dead?
Take pleasure in the antiques, the gardens and experience the homemaking of Victorian times. Enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Dreams Do Not Come While You’re Awake!
The places and spaces of the dead always maintain a deep connection with time. Always at nightfall, the halls were not exactly pitch-black, but in fear of discovering of other people in my house, in fear of ghosts, and whatever else I may find, I lock all of the doors. All of the windows were covered by heavy curtains. And although I had all six hundred rooms memorized, nothing was every laid out in the way I expected. Would you not think that a hall would eventually lead to a room? Nonetheless, some halls only led to other halls that right angled and doubled back. One evening in particular, I went up a winding staircase and down a corridor, then up a staircase, across a short bridge, and down another staircase. However, I could not tell how far I had come or what floor I was on. The distinct spaces and unique features became new epicenters or “auras” of the dead, as Llanada Villa itself became a haunting and haunted maze of corridors and rooms, miles of twisting hallways and winding staircases teeming with specters of the past, present, and even the future. As I proceeded to the fourth floor a spider web started to envelop me, as if some invisible force was trying to wrap me into a wet, cold silken sheet. When I touched the web, however, there was nothing to be seen or felt, and yet, the clammy, cold force was still with me. Doors that had been locked were now wide open, the locks turned by unseen hands. As I looked behind me, there was a man on the stairs. A big man, trying to pull himself up the stairs. His eyes were blazing red with pain as he tried to call out to me. Apparently, he had been hurt, for his britches were torn and his shirt covered with blood. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
“Oh, Heavens, it cannot be true,” I thought to myself as I continued down the hallway. When I dared to look behind me again, the man was still holding out his hands in a desperate attempt to get my attention. However, when I did not respond, he became upset and starting shouting. At that very moment, trembling with fear, I screamed, ran into a room and locked the door. The house had been secured, and I did not understand how anyone could have gained entrance. In this room was a row of chairs, which ringed the mirrored walls. In the middle of the floor was a gigantic pool tale. A giant cobweb covered half the table, and as the pale light from the skylight trickled in, I thought I saw something scurry through the webbing. After an hour, I backed out of the billiards room and headed down another hall, then up another flight of stairs very steep and narrow. When I reached the landing, I was immediately impressed by all the beautiful wainscot oak, and garlands-like foliage and fruit, and the lovely old gilding work on the coats of arms and the organ pipes. Still, I felt a brooding sense of oppression. This was a dreadful night. I got another fright; for I heard something rustling outside in the passage. Now to be sure I thought I was done when someone whispered outside the door. I could not see anything. Then right down in the shadow under a buttress I made out what I shall say was two spots of red—a dull red it was—nothing like a lamp or a fire, but just so as you could pick them out of the black shadow. I turned my head to make sure of it, and then looked back into the shadow for those two red things, and they were gone, and for all I peered about and stared, there was not a sign of them. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
With the physical powers drawn from the living, apparitions play and continue to exist in a World which they are no longer a part of. The presence lets you know it is its house and not yet yours, and the disturbances to attract your attention to make sure you realize that you are never really alone—those are the earmarks of the Llanada Villa, and if you are only a little bit psychic, sooner or later you will come in contact with the spirits. The spirits of the Llanada Villa are so complex that they involved both the living and the dead in a mutually entwining relationship that cannot exist one without the other, and to ever arbitrarily that which nature has evidently ordained somehow, would be as wrong as not heeding the cry for help from those who desperately want help and release. Man’s inhumanity to man has created countless remnants of tragic events that persist in the areas of their demise and even the walls are able to talk and tell posterity what has happened in them. Emotions cling to the surroundings forever. If you step into my home today, or a century from now, the vortex of feelings will still be here and you may relieve the moments as if the time in between had never passed. I have stared death in the eye many times, and I was not afraid. I listened hard and sure enough, it was coming to the door of the Daisy Bedroom. I gently slid out of bed and turned on the light, waiting. The host was just outside the door. I looked at the door knob, and it was being turned slowly. I did not panic, but nothing further was heard. Later that night when I awoke from a deep sleep with the fearful feeling that I was not alone in my room. In the semi-darkness my eyes fell upon the left side of the pillow where I distinguished the outline of a man. Finally I overcame my fears, and sat up in bed. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Before me stood my late husband, dressed in dark clothes, looking directly at me. Without saying a word, he left slowly and quietly. I heard the steps, but when he reached the stairs, he did not go down, but through a wall. Afterwards I went downstairs, and checked the doors, looked in closets, and there was no one there. Dense fog began wrap around me with a cold clammy embrace, so thick that I could not see where I was going. Doors started opening and closing by themselves and spectral figures could be seen flinting from room to room. As I made my way to the Crystal Bedroom, I saw a solider. He was dark and had a noose around the neck; the rope was cut and his face seemed almost luminous. Suddenly I found it hard to breathe. Something was gripping me by the throat. It I was lifted off the ground by an unseen force and was unable to move even so much as a finger! It felt as if someone were strangling me. It felt like man, because his hands were so big, and his breath smelled of decayed teeth. I tried to scream, but could not move my lips. I tried to see who it was, but could only see the cold, white mist. The pain shot through me, as I appeared to be floating in the air/ “Help me! Somebody, please save me!” I cried out. Moments later, I fell to the floor. Dizzy, and struggling to catch my breath, I tried to stand, but lost my balance and fell to my knees. Every part of my body felt battered and bruised. Then curious sounds seemed to overwhelm the mansion. There were voices everywhere, shouting and calling out words that I could not understand. And the whole time, there was the sound of heavy footsteps, pounding furiously against the floor. Then a deep, weird groaning filled my home. I was just able to see across the darkened room, dimly lit from a yellow glow of the lamps from outside. A cooling breeze drifted beside me. Echoes of angry shouting drifted down from the floors above. Horrified, I just stood there in the darkness. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
It is a pleasant house. Often flooded with light. The afternoon sun poured through white lace curtains and sparkled beautiful colours in the stained-glass windows. The light gave a glow to the freshly polished wood floors, but frequently I hear strange raps at night, raps that did not come from the pipes or other natural sources. Whenever I heard those noises, I would simply turn to the wall and pretend I did not hear them. When one night I was awakened from deep sleep by the feeling of a presence in my room. I sat up in bed and looked out. There, right in front of my bed, was the kneeling figure of a man with extremely dark eyes in a place face. I rubbed my eyes and looked again, but the apparition was gone. Before long, I had accepted the phenomenon as simply a dream, but again I knew this was not so, and I was merely accommodating my sense of logic. However, who had the stranger been? My ears were growing sensitive to a preternatural and intolerable degree. The darkness always teemed with unexplained sound. I rose from my bed. As I sat by the fire, trying to gather my senses. I felt silly being so frightened. But again, I was disturbed when I heard clawing and scratching noises coming from the hallway. I was too afraid to move or turn on the light to see what was causing it. After what seemed to be hours, it stopped. The next morning, I found my precious Lincrusta-Walton wallpaper ripped to shreds and blood splattered on the walls. The plaster had claw marks in it, exposing the lath. My ornately carved Victorian chairs and several of the marble-topped tables were knocked over and laying on top of the oriental rugs. The carved rosewood settee had been completely destroyed. The servants were deeply concerned. However, they understood and fearfully accepted the situation when I told them what happened. The threatening aura of the house was scaring me, but I would not admit that to the servants. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
January 13, 1889, the east wing was finally completed. I spent one night in the Mahogany Bedroom. The first night I was very, very frightened—hearing walking up and down the halls, and I was the only one in the house! There was a pervasive feeling of eeriness and a feeling that there was someone in the house. There were footsteps in the hall outside my bedroom door. I could hear the door knob turning, but I could not see through the misty vapour. Owls hooted and frogs croaked. Every rustle in the grass of leaves moving on the trees made me think of creatures of prey. The howl of a wolf made me envision ghosts and ghouls outside of my window. Shuttering with revulsion, I could not calm the restless apprehension bedeviling me. In the morning, the beckoning aroma of fresh coffee freed me from my thoughts. I went into the kitchen and filled a white coffee up, as I was adding cream and sugar, the kitchen door opened itself and closed itself, without anyone being visible. I carried the cup in to the morning room, when I noticed the front doors did the same thing—opened and closed themselves. The smell of damp Earth became overwhelming. Then, along with the footsteps I heard things being dragged upstairs in the Cupid Bedroom, heavy objects, it seemed. My heart stopped, and I questioned, “What is this? What is going on?” So I got up and went up there to look. However, I did not see anyone and nothing was disarranged. Wait. Something moved in the corner, almost hidden in the encroaching darkness. It was more dense fog. The fog started growing and encroaching upon the room. My heart started pounding hard. Frozen, I stood, watching in horror as the fog took on the form of a large woman with porcelain cerulean eyes, in a long dress. She looked directly into my eyes, and started to glid across the floor towards me. I was terribly frightened. But then I felt a warm, calming presence enveloping me. The apparition smiled and psychically communicated with me. Although she did not move her lips, I could hear her voice inside of my head. “Sarah, don’t fear me. As long as you stay here and continue to build, I will protect you.” Then, suddenly she disappeared. Early the next morning the golden dawn of dawn faded to a bright blue. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
The next morning, I woke with a start and sat up in bed before I knew what had awakened me. The room was filled with the somber light of dawn, and I was astonished to see William standing near the foot of the bed. “William? What are you doing here? You are—” My voice broke off as though it had been cut by something sharp. It was not right, I realized. He was not right. I could see the curtains through him. A coldness grayer than the dawn seeped into my body, into my very bones, and I heard myself make an anguished sound when William seemed to reach out toward me, his handsome face tormented. “No,” I whispered. “Oh, no…” I reached my had out toward him, but even as I did so, he was gone. And I was alone in the stark down. As I made my way down stairs, I saw a man with auburn hair, and it was William. I stood frozen, and when our eyes met, I almost cried out. Then the door bell rang and I looked away. When I turned back around, William was gone. I stood there and rushed down the stairs, there was no sign of Willian. No. No, of course there was not. Because he is dead. Realizing that my legs were actually shaking, I took a seat. When the housemaids arrived, one of them asked, “Are you all right, Mrs. Winchester?” she returned with a steaming cup. “You look sort of upset.” “I am fine, my dear.” I managed a smile that I doubted was very reassuring, but it was enough to satisfy the young housemaid. Left along again, the housemaid went up into the attic to clean, taking Zip with her, while the other was preparing breakfast. Suddenly she dropped her cleaning supplies and screamed as if in pain. She said that Devil had grabbed her. And reported that there was a man, whose fingernails had been ripped off, eyes poked out, hung lifeless from his shackles, his buttocks had been removed, a stick was protruding from a gaping hole that had been drilled into the top of his skill, which had evidently been used to “stir” his brains. She also said that Zip was so frightened that he steadfastly refused to cross the threshold. However, upon inspection, I could find no evidence to substantiate these claims. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
Not all of the Victorian ghosts live in the mansion. Some mysterious things have been seen in the gardens. Down Palm Lane, dancing lights are seen there at night. The flowers are sometimes seen shimmering. Do not believer such things can happen? Neither did two handymen employed at The Winchester Mystery House years ago. That changed when they swore that William Wirt Winchester’s regular stroll across the squeaky floors of the Daisy Bedroom ended when he climbed in the coffin. An amazing sight it must have been when one evening when Mr. Willliam Winchester clambered onto the verandah still mounted, pounded through the doorway, down the hall and through the wall. There are phantoms of several generations. Formal gardens enhance the grounds; stables were once filled with the swiftest horses, and elaborate dinner parties were helped for aristocracy. Come experience and admire the timeless beauty of centuries old architecture. Enjoy the antiques, the gardens and experience the homemaking of Victorian times. Enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café.
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
This is a Journey Not Meant for the Faint of Heart
Welcome to The Winchester Mystery House. If you choose to visit, you will find out things you never knew existed. This is a journey not meant for the faint of heart. Secrets of darkness will be revealed, some of which you may leave you baffled. You may even find out what lies behind the eyes of what seem to be innocent people. This labyrinth represents a journey. A pilgrimage of change, growth, discovery, movement, transformation. This house was continuously expanding Mrs. Winchester’s vision of what is possible by stretching her soul, as she was learning to see clearly and deeply. Listening to her intuition and taking courageous architectural challenges at every step along the way, whether it be on easy riser or stains to the ceiling. Mrs. Winchester knew she was on the right path, exactly where she wanted to be. Moving forward as each turret rose and dormer was crowned, and the house expanded nine stories, shaping Llanada Villa into a magnificent legend of triumph, healing, courage, mystery, beauty, and power. This fortress is an ancient symbol that represents union with the eternal. The hallways create an illusion of walking in circles, yet never passing by the same room more than once. It is believed that the miles and long and twisting hall in The Winchester Mystery House were used as pathways of prayer and meditation. Llanada Villa is a metaphour of Mrs. Winchester’s journey. This house is a living memorial, a sacred space; it is a puzzle that allows each and every one of us to solve the enigma of Mrs. Winchester. However, once you enter, there is no way out. #RandolphHarris 1 of 4
To understand The Winchester Mystery House one needs intuition, creativity, and imagery. If you do not get lost along the way, as some have disappeared into the fabric of this home, this is a journey to the center of the Victorian Ear and then back out into the modern World. The archetype has symbols incorporated into the architecture and floors of this gothic pilgrimage which date back centuries. Perhaps the most impressive features are the steeply pitched roofs, the plush gardens, or ornate hand craved wood details. The nine-story tower, which was removed in 1906, was said to reach 328 feet into the style. The Winchester Mystery House is also just as famous for its several stained glass windows and one of the double hung wooden windows. These remarkable windows, the most complete collection of ancient stained-glass windows in America, are particularly celebrated for their vibrant colours. Many of the stained-glass windows remain in position, but some were removed and kept sage in an onsite museum. If the pilgrims were seeking redemption, they would often crawl along the route to the Witches Cap, or go to the height of the nine-story tower for repentance, or as an attempt to be closer to God. In some cases, walking the labyrinth would symbolize an actual pilgrimage of the Holy Land known as America, and came to be known as the “Chemin de New World,” or road of the New World. The wings of the Winchester Mansion and nonstop construction have a deep symbolic meaning, including representing the six days of Creation, the Holy Spirit, or simply enlightenment. #RandolphHarris 2 of 4
One of the most unusual names attached to the Winchester Mansion is “Llanda Villa,” which means small village. No matter how forbidding some of the dark places in the house are, people have used labyrinths throughout history—often surprisingly, to stay safe. In 1923, a man knocking down a wall inside The Winchester Mystery House made an amazing find. He discovered a human unexplored area of the mansion—that had been forgotten for decades. There was a long hallways and secrets rooms where some suspected Mrs. Winchester would go for solitude. There were also kitchens, storage rooms, and even schools and séance rooms. Thick stone doors were used to seal off the entrance to some of the rooms. In this sprawling mansion are several miles of passage ways, galleries, and chambers. One of the most amazing chambers is the Blue Séance Room, which has been a place of worship since about 1896. It was once lit by a huge chandelier made with glass-like crystals, and had an altar, statues, and detailed cloth sheets with architectural details on them. The Winchester Mystery House is hauntingly beautiful. After the death of Mrs. Winchester, the movers wondered would the prevail against encroaching malevolence, as some were entangled in the inescapable clutches of shadows. The people of the town spread rumours about an evil presence that was said to be hiding within the shadows of the basement. They spoke of lost and vengeful souls who were tormented by their past. There are secret passages in the walls, honeycombing the mansion, making it a kind of parallel universe within. To this day, something lives in the basement and in the attics, there are strange apparitions. #RandolphHarris 3 of 4
Within the framework of this medieval teratology, there is an “otherness.” Many have traversed an upward or downward path, with monsters becoming either saintly, angelic beings, or animals and demons. Sometimes these entities are reabsorbed into the into the soul of the house in a blink of an eye. Although there have been intrusive forensic investigations of the house, the growing mystery of what lies behind the walls and beneath the floors is still unknown. The ghosts are indifferent to material barriers; they can pass through solid objects and manifest themselves in defiance of dimensional logic. This house is a border between life and death. An entire unknown World exists. The door-to-nowhere is at times closed, bolted, pad-locked. At others, it is open, that is to say wide open. The walls, ceilings, and floors are home to the invisible but audible lives that are carried on beyond them and can evoke some of the familiar moods of the vast castles and monasteries of the Gothic romance. The “roar” that can be heard in the house must be the scream of a spirit as it was torn from its body. It represents the terror, the crisis, the pain, and individual suffering the spirits that call this house home live with. On 16 January 2024, a caretaker was walking along the upstairs landing in the afternoon when he heard footsteps behind him; he turned and saw the figure of a man that promptly disappeared. He saw the same man on other occasions; he was wearing an old fashion suit and cowboy hat and was carrying a shotgun. Later, on seeing photographs he realized it was Oliver Winchester. Objects often disappear, and reappear in other places. Most curiously of all, books appear out of nowhere. One evening a caretaker found a collection of books stacked at the top of the stairs to the ceiling. These books were of some age, and were of a historical nature. #RandolphHarris 4 of 4
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
The Winchester Mystery House
On December 25, 1905 there was a sudden terrible noise from the nine story Observational Tower. Mrs. Winchester was convinced that the tower was falling but, on hasty inspection, there was nothing whatever the matter with the fabric of the building. More strange incidents continued to occur. Doors rattled as if someone were attempting to get in; there were sounds of footsteps, chandeliers exploded. Mrs. Winchester also a phantom battalion in the hallway on the fourth floor. One of the young men appeared to be the leader and was ahead of the column. He wore dark trousers, a tan coloured shirt, and a dark vest which he wore open. One his head he had a brown hat with an upturned brim and a satin hatband. Perhaps the oddest part was that they were not carrying military arms, but picks and shovels, as if they were some work detail. They also had packs on their backs and marched wearily as if returning from the fields of toils.
The column was only about fifty feet away from two housemaids, so they got a good look at them. They joked about how strange they seemed, and kidded each other that they may have just seen an apparition. Suddenly, as if realizing exactly where they were, the housemaids got serious and decided to turn around just after they passed by the balcony to see if she could find out where the men were going. In a matter of moments, they were back at the site where the party had been seen…but the oddly-dressed boys and their picks and shovels were gone.
These incidents were widely reported to the local press. Of course The Winchester Mansion soon became known as “the most haunted house in the West.” Mrs. Winchester was also blessed with the faculty of second sight. A few months later, 5.13 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major Earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI. It severely damaged Mrs. Winchester’s home, toppling the nine-story Observational Tower and some cupolas. She herself was badly shaken, trapped in her favourite Daisy Bedroom near the front of the mansion. It took several caretakers hours to locate her and then pry open the door and rescue her.
It had been reported that Mrs. Winchester felt the Earthquake was a warning from the spirits that she had spent too much time and money on the front section of the house, which was nearing completion. After having the structural damage repaired, she immediately ordered the front thirty rooms—including the Daisy Bedroom, Grand Ballroom, and the beautiful front doors—sealed up. The heavy, ornate front doors, which had been installed just prior to the Earthquake, had only been used by three people—Mrs. Winchester and the two carpenters who installed them.
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
There are Always Misunderstandings
How beautiful it is to wake with the dusk, when the silver webs of night begin to form, frost and ice, on everything. My house tinseled and shining with this magic substance, each window glittering. Oh, and the sky, thick as a daisy-filed with the white stars. Llanada Villa is a marvelous sight, but beneath the surface were things far greater and more terrible than one can imagine. It was a quest amid black and black and forbidden realms of the unknown, in which I had hoped to never uncover; my home had a secret life of perpetual animation. I encounter the most ghastly obstacles. Every since I broke ground, I had felt a brooding menace. I half felt that I was followed—a psychological delusion of shaken nerves, enhanced by the undeniably disturbing fact that something supernatural was alive—a frightful carnivorous gorilla-like thing, with abnormally long arms, and a face that conjured up thoughts of unspeakable Congo secrets and tom-tom poundings under an eerie moon. During construction, I kept track of all the deaths and their circumstances with systematic care. However, surreptitious and ill-conducted bouts among the carpenters were common, and occasionally professional talent of low grade was imported, which is why I had rooms torn down, built over and sealed up. Upon the fourth floor is a biting chill like a pane of ghostly vitreous. Sounds transmitted through the flawless silence and amplifications of the Observational tower, scatter through countless miles of the labyrinth, where they are taken for the shrieks of malign invisible devils, tiny as bats, and armed with the barbed sting of scorpions. There are always misunderstandings. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
The wind tears through the skin and hair to gnaw the bones. To weep with cold earns no compassion of the cold. The night is full of lashing whips of when, and when the fireplaces in the Hall of Fires are lit, they are as white as snow itself, its flames giving nothing. In the winter, it seems possible that never again will there be a summer in the World. Crowds of frightened foreigners gather to watch towers and gables rise and the house mushroom from a farmhouse into a Grand Queen Anne Victorian mansion. Then villagers tell an odd story, about Llanada Villa, besieged by a huge flock, a menace of winged vampires, and how I waited in vain for my husband William to save us. But it seems there was a cruse on William, who on the very night our infant daughter was lost. And soon after he went mad, and himself stole out one night, and let the winged fiends into our castle, so all here perished. Horror was upon the whole pitiful crowd. They suspected that I was holding something back, and perhaps suspected graver things; but I could not tell them the truth because they would not have believed it. They knew, indeed, that Llanada Villa had been connected with activities beyond the credence of ordinary men. During the excavation of the basement, the workmen had struck some exceedingly ancient masonry; undoubtedly connected with the old burying-ground, yet far too deep to correspond with any known sepulcher therein. After a number of calculations, the carpenters decided that it represented some secret chamber beneath a tomb, where the last interment had been made in 1523. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
They studied the nitrous, dipping walls laid bare by the spades and mattocks of men, and were prepared for a gruesome thrill which would attend the uncovering of ancient grave-secrets; but my respect for the dead was more powerful than their curiosity. I ordered the men to leave the masonry intact and they plastered over it. Hours later, something fearsome happened. In the wee hours of the morning, a menacing military figure with a blueish face which was partially eaten away appeared. Most healthy men would drop dead from fright and disgust. He trampled, and bit every carpenter that did not flee; killing three. However, by the time help could be hailed, every trace of the men and the beast had vanished. This thin, misty line between life and death, it has been breached at certain times and in certain places. Many men have related hideous things, not mentioned in print, which have happened on the battlefields of Gettysburg. Some of these apparitions have made me faint, others have convulsed me with devastating nausea, while still others have made me tremble and look behind me in the dark; yet despite the worst of them I believe I can myself relate the most hideous thing of all—the shocking, the unnatural, the unbelievable horror from the shadows. Terror stalked me. A certain number of the servants had remained. However, one was in an asylum, while others had vanished. The ghost soon had achieved such strength that it could hand boards to the carpenters who were working on the house. I stepped in and forbade the carpenters to encourage such familiar interaction with the demon. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
The phantasmal, unmentionable thing occurred one midnight late in December, 1887. I wonder even now if it could have been other than a demonic dream of delirium. As I was reading in bed last night, I found myself looking across the room every now and then. There was an effect as if someone kept peeping out between the curtains in one place or another, where there was no edge. The only other thing that troubled me was the wind. There was enough to sway my curtains and rustle them more than I wanted. Then I dozed, and then I woke, and bethought myself that my dog Zip, which ordinarily slept in my room, had not come upstairs with me. Then I though I was mistaken: for happening to move my hand which hung down off the bed within inches of the floor, I felt on the back of it just the slightest touch of a surface of hair, and stretching it out in that direction I stroked and patted a rounded something. But the feel of it, and still more the fact that instead of a responsive movement, absolute stillness greeting my touch, made me look at my arm. What I had been touching rose to meet me. It was a ghoulish thing crawling from the black shadows. There was about it so horrible an air of menace that as I bounded from bed and rushed from the room, I heard myself moaning with fear: and doubtless I did right to fly. As I dashed into the baize door that cut the passage in two, and—forgetting that it opened towards me—beat against it with all the force in me, I felt a soft ineffectual tearing at my back which, all the same, seemed to be growing in power, as if the hand, or whatever wore than a hand was there, were becoming more material as the pursuer’s rage was more concentrated. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Then I remembered the trick of the door—I got it open—I shut it behind me and gained another room. I flung away my candle at random, and, knowing I was near the window, I tore at the curtain and somehow let in enough light to be able to see. There was blood on the table. I walked a little closer. Looking at the floor, I noticed there had been blood smeared on into a wide, thin trail. I abruptly followed the blood trail through the doors. That is when I discovered the body of one of my carpenters Helmut Laux. I began to scream. It was a scream of utter terror. Helmut had marks of murderous violence upon him: the crime was so recently perpetrated, that the body still retained the warmth and pliancy observed in someone who has just died. He had two stab wounds, both in the area of the heart. He apparently was stretched out on the bed when he received them, and the hair had been plucked clear off his head. His throat was also severely cut: the razor with which the wounds had been inflicted was found on the bed. He had eaten breakfast maybe an hour or so before he died, and from our questioning that places the time of death at about ten o’clock. My brain became formless darkness. My eyes glared, seeing nothing. In an effort to warm myself up I turned to the fire; it was an unfortunate move, because it brought the ghost directly over the fire, which immediately was extinguished. A morbid and ghoulish curiosity and secret sense of charnel picturesqueness filled the atmosphere. This dreadful loss, the wort that has ever been or can be. Oh how cruel Death, Cold and Still. The shock was not just that of discovering a dead body; it was the horror of discovering someone had been murdered in my home. My first reaction was disbelief. In my agony of mind, I tried to revive him with hot-water, blankets, massage, brandy, and blessed water, but nothing could rouse him. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
We kept the body as long as we could, in the hope that Helmut could be revived. As the hour grew dangerously near to dawn, we dragged the body across the fruit orchards to a secluded neck of the woods and buried it there in the best sort of grave the froze ground would furnish. The grave was not very deep. The clock clanged out the hour of twelve. There was a sudden banging of doors. A blast of cold air swept through the halls. The Door to Nowhere flew open, in the light of our dark lanterns, a deathly white ghost appeared, retreating back into the abyss of darkness in the room. When the thing returned three nights later, it seemed to take out its anger on us. Then came the steady rattling at the back door. A stick of fire wood suddenly became animated. With red-ringed eyes and a lip that trembled, the butler fired his pistol at it, and we were astonished to see several drops of blood appear on the hearth. The firewood fell to the floor, and a trail of blood began to drip on the stairway as the wounded ghost retreated. The soul-shattering catastrophe held elements of the demonic which made me even doubt they reality of what I saw. Part of my fear came merely from knowing of the existence of such nameless monsters, while another part arose from apprehension of the bodily harm, they might under certain circumstances do. Their disappearance added horror to the situation. A phantom laughter echoed and rebounded, filling the dark mansion with a sound like laughing banshees or demons approving a particularly good jest. And when it struck me, the vibration running through my body was enough to knock me backwards. I was dragged back into the darkness. I screamed once more. Only once. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
The Winchester Mystery House was built for many reasons. One purpose was to heighten the sense of religious experience. To produce a sort of mystical involvement which is the whole meaning of life. On Sunday 23 December 2007 a caretaker glimpsed the figure of a woman he had seen on previous occasion; she was standing in the hallway, wearing a blue scarf before disappearing through the forgotten door (the door that opens to a wall).
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
This is Not the Devil’s Work, this is Your Invitation to Paradise!
Nobody had visited my home for a while—but there were a few explorers who came here every winter, usually imagining they had stumbled on something darkly marvelous. After a silent evening, then—silent, not sullen—I retired to rest. Judge of my terror, when, not yet in bed, I heard what I can only describe as a distant bellow, and knew it for the butler’s voice, though never in my hearing so exerted before. His sleeping-room is at the father extremity of this large house, and to gain access to it one must traverse an antique hall some eighty feet long, a lofty panelled chamber, and twenty unoccupied bedrooms. There was a secret feeling, as I moved with great trepidation along these hidden halls. Deeper and deeper I went into my mysterious home. I felt as though phantom pursuers were almost upon me. Tiptoeing from room to room, ready to run at a moment’s notice. A voice sounded out of nowhere. It spoke in whispers and then not at all. Lightning flashed in the sky, silent, without thunder, and the trees shook their leaves and shivered down all their branches. In the last of these twenty rooms, the door stood in open in the darkness of the hall. Lightning flashed again, bright this time, like light on copper. I found the butler, his candle lying smashed on the floor. As I ran in, bearing a light, he clasped me in the arms and trembled for the first time since I have known him, thanked God, and hurried me out of the room. He would say nothing of what had alarmed him. “Tomorrow, tomorrow,” was all I could get from him. I doubt if his night more restful than mine. It was then that I came up to my room with a heavy foreboding of evil oppressing me, and went with a hesitation and reluctance I could not explain to my chest of drawers. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
A cold feeling came over me as I opened the top drawer, in which was nothing but ribbons and handkerchiefs, and then the second, where was as little to alarm, and then, O Heavens, the third and last: and there was a mass of linen neatly folded: upon which, as I looked with curiosity that began to be tinged with horror, I perceived a movement in it, and a pink hand was thrust out of the fold and began to grope feebly in the air. I could bear it no more, and rushed from the room, clapping the door after me, and strove with all my force to lock it. However, they key would not turn in the wards, and from within the room came a sound of rustling and bumping, drawing nearer and nearer to the door. Why I did not flee down the stairs I know not. I continued grasping the handle, and mercifully, as the door was plucked from my hand with an irresistible force. I looked on in horror and in horror grasped. In the moment, a demon sprang from the room, his talons and teeth and eyes burned against the stars. He took to the air like an arow, unhindered, as if gravity did not any more exist, and crashed through the skylight. Now he was in the sky above me, a black star which had not been put out. At breakfast the next morning, the butler was very uncommunicative. However, afterward, he inquired of me if Mr. Hansen would be able to repair the skylight before the next storm rolled in. After throwing out a good many short remarks on indifferent topics, “It should be done by noon,” I said. He bowed to my acknowledgements. The trouble with Llanada Villa was that it was haunted, and what was worse, ghost did not merely appear and disappear, they would remain for hours. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
The following evening, a ghost appeared promptly, and frighted Astrid out of the guest room quite out of her senses by sitting down beside her, and gazing with his cavernous blue eyes into her. In his long, bony finger bits of dripping seaweed were entwined, the ends hanging down, and these ends he drew across her forehead until she fainted away. Astrid was found unconscious in her bed the next morning, simply saturated with seawater and fright. As I stepped out of my study into the great hall that is next to it, and shut the door, my candle went out. I supposed I had clapped the door behind me too quick, and made a draught, and I was annoyed, for I had no tinder-box neater than my bedroom. However, I knew my way well enough, and went on. The next thing was that my book was stuck out f my hand in the dark: if I said twitched out of my hand it would better express the sensation. It fell on the floor. I picked it up, and went on, more annoyed than before, and a little startled. However, that hall has many windows and I know where the furniture is. So I went on through the audit chamber next to it, which also has very big windows, and then into the bedrooms which lead to my own, where the curtains were drawn. It was in the Daisy Bedroom that I nearly got my quietus. The moment I opened the door of it I felt there was something wrong. I thought twice, I confess, whether I should not turn back and find another chamber. At about 3 A.M. the whole house was aroused by cries coming from the butler’s room. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
I rushed through the mansion and knocked at the door and asked if anything was wrong. The butler called out that he was sick. He would not open the door. I went back to my chamber and did not think much about. Then, this morning, I knocked to see how he was. The butler’s voice sounded strange. “Where is your roommate at this time?” I asked. “Mrs. Winchester, he’s away. His father died and he went home for the funeral.” When he would not open the door, I became quite concerned and told him I was going for help. He opened it—then I saw Dorian stretched dead on the blood-stained carpet, beaten, scratched, and mauled. I learned long ago the uselessness of weeping, I did not shed tears, though my heart began to break. Only an open window told what had become of our assailant, and many wondered how he himself had fared after the terrific leap from the second story to the law which he must have made. There were some strange garments in the room, but the butler said they did not belong to the stranger. That same night saw the beginning of the second horror—the horror to me eclipsed the plague itself. Llanada Villa was the scene of another terrible killing; a watchman had been clawed to death in a manner not only too hideous for description, but raising a doubt as to the human agency of the deed. The victim had been seen alive considerably after midnight—the dawn revealed the unutterable thing. I knew the demon must have returned. Those who found the body noted a trail of blood leading to the door-to-nowhere, where a small pool of red lay on the ground just below. A fainter trail led away toward the fruit orchards, but it soon gave out. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
The next night devils danced in the Grand Ball Room, and unnatural madness howled in the wind. Through my mansion had crept a curse which some said was greater than the Black Death, and which some whispered was the embodied demon-soul of the plague itself. Thirteen rooms were entered by a nameless thing which strewed red death in its wake—in all, thirteen maimed and shapeless remnants of bodies were left behind by the voiceless, sadistic monster that crept through the twisting halls of my labyrinth. A few persons had half seen in the night, and said it was dark as night. It had not left behind quite all that it had attacked, for sometimes it had been hungry. The number it had killed was twenty-six. I went downstairs. Outside the air was fresh and crisp as I strolled through the garden. Something seemed to rush at me, and there was—I do not know how to put it—a sensation of long strong arms about my shoulders. The dagger had been taken from my waist. It fell to the ground. Then I heard a female voice, somewhere behind me. “You are a cruel man,” she said. Then there was no one visible. I do not think I was ever more horrified in all my life, that I could remember. However, frantic farmers captured it in the Observational Tower. A housemaid had reported hearing a scratching at a shuttered window, the net was quickly spread. On account of the general alarm and precautions, there were only three more victims, and the capture was effected without major causalities. After that, I could only get sleep in the small hours, when daylight was already strong, and then my dreams were of the grimmest—particularly one which stamped itself on my brain. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
The Winchester Mystery House
Life in the 1830s and ‘40s was limited in scope for everyone. Individuals were known by all their neighbours and restricted by the mores of the culture. Men and women were very unequal under law but were more alike in real life. Society was not under great pressure; men and women had a much more even balance of power than they were to have fifty years later. The 1830s saw Watt’s improvement of the steam engine which made the railroads and steamboats possible. The completion of the Erie canal in the 1820s opened the near Midwest and the Great Lakes to commerce and settlement. The 1850 saw the discovery of coal and iron together in Pennsylvania, which permitted the cast-iron and steel industries to produce factories in cities and to produce railroads to ship their raw materials and manufactured goods. The Civil War caused the railroads to boom and heavy industry to flourish.
As a result, everything changed in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. American became urbanized. The 1870 census revealed that, for the first time, most Americans lived in cities. In small town or a farm village, everyone knew each other, and behaviour was controlled by the neighbours. In a big city each person was anonymous, and standards for behaviour had to be internalized and enforced by the individual. For most of history right and wrong were external rules; now personal morality had to prevail. The ideal of “self-control” for modern people became widespread in the late nineteenth century. At the same time, the family as an economic unit, a “little commonwealth,” disappeared. It was replaced by the modern cash economy where each person is an individual. By the turn of the century in America, most people worked in manufacturing or in offices. The new middle class worked in skyscrapers and took a commuter railroad or “el” (elevated railroad) or trolley to work.
Unlike Mrs. Winchester “home” for most people was an apartment or flat or row house. This was a new class of people. They were not the gentry of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century who made their living from owning land that others farmed or from shipping. They were not the “yeoman farmers” who grew their food with their own hands. They were clerks and office workers whose work was not manual and who saw themselves as newly arrived gentry. They Irish potato famine of the 1840s drove millions of immigrants to America while revolutions and repressions pushed millions out of Eastern Europe in the 1850 through the ‘80s. This labour was inexpensive. Even clerical, white-collar workers could have several servants, either live-in maids or daily cleaning ladies who returned to their (newly invented) tenements at night.
For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Randolph Harris II International Institute 