Sarah Pardee Winchester grew up in New Haven, Connecticut
where she married William W. Winchester, son of the entrepreneur who founded
the Winchester rifle company, which became the largest gun company in the
world. At its peak, many members of the
Winchester family started dying: Sarah's sister-in-law, her only child, her
father-in-law, and finally, her husband. Because of the succession, Sarah found
herself heir to the Winchester fortune.
And because her lifespan exactly coincided with the popularity of
Spiritualism, Sarah went to a medium in Boston who told her that evil spirits,
killed by Winchester rifles, were murdering her family in revenge. Given advice to thwart them, she moved to
San Jose, California becoming an early feminist and creating a new life for
herself: one of eccentricity, romance, and intrigue, while overcoming powerful
forces against her. Because of her
beliefs, she truly felt that evil spirits surrounded her. Her fame drew a Victorian version of
paparazzi, one of which nearly killed her. She battled behind the scenes with
Theodore Roosevelt and local hypocrites; and was buried alive in the 1906 San
Andreas Earthquake. Even with all of this, she remained kind-hearted and sane.
Her home remains today as one of the largest Victorian mansions ever built.
