The Winchester Mystery House

          My next post comes in the spirit of Halloween. With Halloween, a time for scares and horror stories, at our doorstep,  I've decided to tell you about the Winchester Mystery House. This spooky house has been claimed to be home to many disturbing spirits and ghosts. The Winchester Mansion has a long, haunting background. The family that made the Winchester rifle made millions off of the gun that was labeled as "the gun that won the West". This money however, came with only misery and pain for the family. Sarah Winchester experienced two devastating losses, the first being the death of her infant son, and the second being the early death of her husband due to Tuberculosis. Sarah Winchester was told that the spirits of all the men killed in war by the Winchester rifle were behind those two deaths. She was also told that she would be next, that is, unless she could appease the spirits by moving out west and building a huge house for them. It was said that she must never stop construction though, or else the spirits would again resume their quest for revenge against Mrs. Winchester. Also, Mrs. Winchester believed that if she never ceased construction of the mansion, she would be rewarded with eternal life.

          Mrs. Winchester used her $20,000,000 to buy property in Santa Clara Valley and began constructing a mansion to appease the spirits. The mansion had many features to it which seemed to support the idea of Mrs. Winchester trying to appease the spirits. It was said that spirits didn't like to have shadows cast around them as they could cast none themselves, so Mrs. Winchester had an innumerable amount of lights installed in her house. She also furnished every room with the finest furniture available at that time, some furniture cost more than most houses at that time. According to legend, Mrs. Winchester went to a special room in the middle of her house to communicate with the spirits. Also, it was said that every night you could hear a bell ring at 12am and 2am, the supposed arrival and departure times of spirits. Mrs. Winchester passed away in her bed and after 38 years of constant construction of the house, the workers stopped building the house. Was the house haunted? Where the spirits Mrs. Winchester was plagued by real? Go see the Winchester Mansion and find out yourself.

          This is my second article and I know I said I would write every Tuesday and Saturday, but this week was very hectic for me so I'm sorry for that but I will start writing articles every Tuesday and Saturday from now on. Again, I want to say thank you for reading this and I would really appreciate any comments, questions, or ideas for my next article. Finally, I want to give a special thank you to Ariana for helping me want to write this article.