"Though we all grew up with the supernatural legends surrounding the San Jose house, they're simply not true. As definitively explained in South Bay author Mary Jo Ignoffo's 2012 book Captive of the Labyrinth, the mansion's namesake Sarah L. Winchester never gave any indication in her lifetime that she was haunted by any ghosts, let alone angry ones who had been killed by the rifles that her family produced. She probably never held a seance or had any interest in spiritualism at all."
"Pretty much all of the spooky mythology around her started to spread around 1895, according to Ignoffo long after she had moved to the Santa Clara Valley from New Haven, Connecticut, and begun transforming a simple two-story, eight-room farmhouse into a never-ending construction project in 1886 and intensified after her death in 1922. First spread by distrustful locals and the San Jose newspapers (seriously, our bad),"
Supernatural legends about the Winchester Mystery House are fabrications. Sarah L. Winchester showed no evidence of being haunted and likely did not practice spiritualism or hold seances. Construction on the mansion began in 1886 when Winchester transformed a small farmhouse into an endless building project. Mythology surrounding her emerged around 1895, intensified after her death in 1922, and was spread by distrustful locals and newspapers. Those stories portrayed Winchester as an outsider and a freak and later served to promote the house as a tourist attraction. The myths ultimately helped preserve the mansion, allowing ongoing public access to a rare piece of San Jose history.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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