Captive of the Labyrinth Read online

  Sarah Winchester's identity and persona are also born of the ambiguity surrounding the repeater, and she remains an enigma. She continues to be clothed in a mantle of idiosyncrasy and madness for a public that remains conflicted about the role of weapons in our society and skeptical about the notion of life after death. Her connection to the repeating rifle has elicited a sort of gallows humor, making her the standard-bearer for those wishing to communicate with the dead. This quirky assignment comforts an uncomfortable public, and allows people to make fun of her without implicating themselves in any such beliefs. Winchester never spoke directly to these timeless challenges, but her life story tells, as the Yeats verse at the beginning of this book describes, how one woman's strangeness and dreaming earned slander. Some highly credible sources have relegated Winchester to an eternal madhouse. One was the longtime director of the San Mateo Historical Society, Frank M. Stanger, who declared that she was “demented,” and even when author Ralph Rambo wrote to him, saying “I saw her often and remember her well” and that he believed she was sane, Stanger was not persuaded.

  More troubling than a single opinion, though, is that the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) bought the legends hook, line, and sinker when it added the San José house to the National Register of Historic Places in 1981. Documentation for this states, “This extraordinary structure is sui generis. Constructed over a period of 38 years because its owner, Winchester Rifle heiress Sarah L. Winchester believed she would live as long as construction continued, the house contains 160 rooms and covers six acres. The original portion purchased in 1884 contains 12 rooms. Some of the 40 stairways and 2,000 doors lead nowhere.”3

  Historians who gather information for HABS applications are supposed to offer objective analyses of particular properties, not merely parrot the claims of their owners. They failed in this instance. The HABS survey was undertaken at the behest of Mystery House manager Keith Kittle. His motivation was not pure self interest, although the National Register status garnered significant publicity and brought more tourists to the house. Kittle appreciated the house's historic character and the role that popular culture assigned to the Winchester rifle in the West. However, Kittle had very little knowledge about or understanding of Sarah Winchester.

  A quick look at county records shows that the property was not even purchased by Winchester until 1886, two years later than the survey states. Second, HABS does not take into account that the house was substantially damaged in the 1906 earthquake. The blocked stairs, doors, and chimneys have simple explanations: they were not repaired after the earthquake. The house was constructed and remodeled between 1886 and 1906, reducing the years of construction from the HABS record of thirty-eight years to twenty. After 1906 there was no extensive construction, and only simple repairs were undertaken. Furthermore, there is no evidence that Sarah Winchester pinned her existence upon the construction project. In fact, she put far more effort into estate planning than house building.

  Those who are the most mocking of Winchester, her most strident accusers, have based their definitive opinions on a mythology that does not stand up to historical scrutiny. It is a disservice to the facts of her life to dismiss Sarah Winchester as a superstitious madwoman. It is time to set the record straight. If Winchester's San José house had not been turned into a tourist attraction, her memory would have been relegated to the annals of local history as an eccentric dowager who spent a fortune in equal parts on frivolity and philanthropy. But as the house draws thousand of people each year and represents details of the widow's life to them, it becomes imperative to give the other side of the story.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  SARAH WINCHESTER IS AS BEGUILING A SUBJECT AS ONE CAN IMAGINE. Her simultaneously secretive and public life called for such a wide spectrum of sources—ranging from archives to zip codes—that as I acknowledge those who helped I am afraid that some will be left out. I offer gratitude and admiration for many, many friends, colleagues, professionals, and strangers who helped map out this life story.

  The idea for this work came from Bob Johnson, librarian (retired) at Martin Luther King Jr. Main Library in San José. He planted the seed and over the years has asked about its progress. Other librarians and archivists have also been essential to this work, including Barbara Austen (Connecticut Historical Society), Allison Botelho (New Haven Free Public Library), Lisa Christiansen (Stocklmeir Library and Archive, California History Center, De Anza College), Mary Hanel (Santa Clara City Library) and the staff at the Mission Branch of the same Santa Clara library, Margaret Kimball (Stanford University Archives), Thom Peters (Hopkins School, New Haven), Carol Peterson (San Mateo County History Museum Archives), and Sean Campbell and Mary Robinson (Buffalo Bill Cody Museum in Cody, Wyoming).

  The most important sources for this book were found at History San José, a regional museum and archive. I am grateful to the former archivist, Paula Jabloner, for initially showing me the Leib papers and the Hansen Collection. The current archivist, Jim Reed, was remarkably accommodating over a period of a few years, even through the relocation of the archives and a thunder-and-lightning storm that took out power and Internet service for over a month at precisely the time I requested images and permissions. Thank you, Jim, for your good-natured and professional help.

  Richard Hansen, grandson of Sarah Winchester's ranch foreman John Hansen, sent copies of pictures, letters, documents, and references to me. His kindness is a warm reflection on his parents and grandparents, who made a home at the Winchester place for more than two decades. Likewise, the great-granddaughter of Winchester's attorney, Frank Leib, Marian Leib Adams, agreed to be interviewed. She provided detailed family background and access to an unpublished manuscript of a Leib family history. April and Hans Halberstadt rescued some Leib-Winchester letters from a Saturday morning garage sale and shared them for this work. The general manager of the Winchester Mystery House, Shozo Kagoshima, was very courteous in agreeing to be interviewed and helpful in explaining how the public views today's tourist attraction. Others who helped in sometimes very detailed ways were Bob Knapel and Charlene Duval; Dale Fiore at Evergreen Cemetery in New Haven; Katerina Rohner, who sent current photographs of New Haven; and architect Leslie Dill, who accompanied me on a tour of the Winchester Mystery House. She helped to identify the portions of the house lost in the 1906 earthquake.

  I appreciate the people and institutions that loaned photographs with permission to this publication, namely, Marian Leib Adams; the Buffalo Bill Cody Museum in Cody, Wyoming; Richard Hansen; History San José; the San Mateo County History Museum Archives; and the Whitney Museum in Hartford, Connecticut. I am also thankful to LeeAnn Nelson of Nelson Design in San Ramon, California, for designing and producing the maps and family trees that appear in this book. I always get new insights from working with an amazing artist like LeeAnn.

  The California History Center at De Anza College, where I teach, has welcomed me and inspired me. Tom Izu, Executive Director, and Lisa Christiansen, archivist, are both friends and colleagues who have apparently never tired of hearing or asking questions about Sarah Winchester. Lisa responded to many arcane requests, and Tom has a knack for seeing a much larger picture than most. The history center's class “Significant Californians” welcomed Sarah Winchester as a subject worthy of the title, and students who took that class in Fall 2008 rendered important insights and questions about our visit to the Winchester Mystery House. I am grateful for the support of De Anza College Dean of Social Sciences, Carolyn Wilkins-Greene, and History Department Chair, Margaret Stevens.

  The nursemaid of this project has been Grey Osterud of Newton Upper Falls, Massachusetts. My one-time San José State University professor—turned friend—then editor has followed and cajoled this project with faith and insight. Despite life-threatening health challenges, Grey consistently encouraged and questioned at the same time. She is a first-rate critic and supportive friend, as well as an ardent advocate for women's rights from Afghanistan to Zambia.

  I would like to thank those who read a portion of the early manuscript and commented on it, including the late Don Fuller, Susan Fuller, Emily Mace, and Bob Senkewicz. I am in debt to those who read a draft of the final version, including Kimberley Cameron, Lisa Christiansen, April Halberstadt, Leslie Masunaga, LeeAnn Nelson, and Grey Osterud. I was happy to find a supportive community at Stanford's Publishing Courses Writers Workshop in the summer of 2009 and people who read and commented on this work, especially Jay Schaefer and Bonnie Solow.

  I am grateful that the University of Missouri Press has taken on this project and managed it through every stage with professional facility, especially the Editor-in-Chief, Clair Willcox, editorial staff Sara Davis and Gloria Thomas, and marketing staff Beth Chandler and Jennifer Gravley. Each has been courteous and patient, elusive qualities in this fast-paced world. I very much appreciate their hard work.

  On the more personal side, friends and family have often asked about the progress of this book, and each inquiry was appreciated. Bob and Susan Raffo have been unbelievably supportive, even calculating the present value of Winchester monies. My parents, Sandy and Helen Hull, who as this book comes to publication celebrate their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary, are remarkable in every way, especially how supportive they have always been. My brother, Sandy Hull, and sisters, Laura Sando and Debbie Hull, often ask after Sarah Winchester, knowing she has been a steady companion for some time. Sandy rescued our late brother Mike's Centennial Winchester and told me the harrowing details of that rescue. The rifle is currently in his possession. My sister, Miriam Hull, encouraged the genesis of this project before she died in 2005. The Ignoffo family of Vancouver, Washington, has also offered support, particularly John, with technical advice. I am grateful to my son, Joey Ignoffo,
for research assistance at the Santa Clara County Superior Court and for consistent comic relief; and to my daughter, Lisa Ignoffo, for photographic help and fashion counseling. Sarah Winchester was discussed in our house for a good portion of Joey and Lisa's childhoods, and it would not surprise me if on many occasions they did not believe there was actually a book in progress.

  Finally and most importantly I am grateful to and for Pat Ignoffo, my husband, confidant, and great friend. In considering the dedication of this book, there was no question in my mind. To Pat, with admiration, appreciation, and abiding love.

  M.J.I.

  INTRODUCTION

  SARAH WINCHESTER'S LIFETIME SPANNED THE VICTORIAN AGE. SHE WAS born in 1839, two years after the teenaged Queen Victoria was crowned, and eighty years later, as death approached, Winchester could have been a Victoria look-alike—a stooped little lady, face veiled, in black silk mourning garb. Like the queen, she had seen profound personal and societal transformations occur during her lifetime. Winchester's attitudes and tastes were shaped as turbulent religious, aesthetic, and political seas changed America in the years just before and after the Civil War.

  Winchester was born Sarah Lockwood Pardee in New Haven, Connecticut, at the peak of the Industrial Revolution and in the same year that the Amistad incident focused worldwide attention on New Haven. At the time, the underpinnings of America's religions were making seismic shifts, and belief systems such as spiritualism and transcendentalism entered the mainstream. Sarah was nine years old when the first women's rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. Before her death in 1922, the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution had established women's right to vote. She was witness to and the product of a magnification of women's roles in the world. But despite her financial and apparent social independence, Winchester was not able to live as she wanted. In California as well as in Connecticut, her days and decisions were highly circumscribed by the boundaries of traditional upper-class womanhood. She developed a sharp intellect, but had no prospects for higher education. She admired clever, time-saving inventions, but her gender and class kept her from engaging in work that was more than a hobby. She often ignored social, religious, and business expectations, but this gave fodder to labels of superstition, religious fanaticism, and mental illness. These judgments, although often rendered against women who ventured beyond the implicit confines of womanly behavior, overwhelmed any personal identity she may otherwise have achieved.

  When Sarah Pardee married William Wirt Winchester in 1862, he was heir apparent to a large and profitable clothing factory in the center of New Haven. At age twenty-five, William was running the day-to-day operations of the Winchester & Davies Shirt Manufactory, and there was no question that one day he would carry it to unparalleled production and record profits in New England's garment industry. But within four years of his marriage, William had relinquished his partnership and taken on a leading role in a rifle company. His father's aggressive investments in a weapons factory dragged William into this unlikely occupation. The younger Winchester's unexpected conversion from garment-maker to gun-maker changed the course of his life as well as his new wife's.

  The design and manufacture of firearms had undergone a dramatic evolution, almost literally in the Winchesters' Connecticut backyard. Eli Whitney, inventor of the labor-saving cotton gin, established the Whitney Arms Company late in the eighteenth century in Hamden, Sarah's ancestral village. Whitney applied the principles of mass production with interchangeable parts (tactics that the Winchester firm later adopted) to appreciably accelerate the process of weapons production. In the meantime, Samuel Colt of Hartford invented the “revolver,” a pistol with a revolving barrel, and Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson partnered in developing a repeating pistol called the “Volcanic.” These sidearms were the immediate precursors of the “Winchester,” a revolutionary advance from the traditional muzzle-loaded musket.1 The Winchester was the first financially successful repeating rifle and the most sought-after long arm in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. It generated great wealth for the Winchester family.

  Sarah and William Winchester, together with William's parents, built a palatial home on the outskirts of New Haven overlooking the new Winchester Repeating Arms Company factory. From 1868, when they took occupancy of the new mansion, until 1880, the couple lived in high style and traveled together, and William devoted himself to his father's rifle factory, which he planned to take over one day. Sarah's mother died in the spring of 1880, and William's father died at the end of that year. Just three months later, in March 1881, William died from tuberculosis, leaving Sarah his Winchester Repeating Arms Company stock worth $77,700, which paid dividends of $7,770 annually, and she stood to inherit another $200,000 worth when her mother-in-law died.2 If those three deaths were not enough to cope with, Sarah's eldest sister, Mary Converse, died in 1884. The following year, she fled New Haven a grief-stricken woman of few words and even fewer companions, a practical, no-nonsense Yankee embarking on a quest to create a California retreat where she could heal from the loss of her husband. She purchased land in the warm and salubrious Santa Clara Valley and invited her assorted sisters with sometimes difficult husbands and half-grown children to come live near her. This extended family generated episodes that embroidered Winchester's early years in California with comedy and tragedy and headaches—common symptoms of complex family relationships.

  Winchester's move to California came at a time when thousands of others were settling in the West. After the midcentury Gold Rush, there had been a steady stream of pioneers making the trek by wagon across the prairies and over the mountains to California. With the opening of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, the stream grew, and by the middle 1880s, people were flooding into the West to start life anew. At the beginning of her residence in California, Winchester was very much like others of her class who lived in the valley. She joined Leland and Jane Stanford, who, recovering from the death of their only son, laid the foundation for a great university. Another neighbor was the Pullman railcar heiress, Harriet Pullman Carolan, who brought her fortune into a marriage and set the social scene on the San Francisco Peninsula. Carolan's best friend, Virginia “Ella” Hobart Baldwin, was heiress to one of the Comstock Lode's silver barons, Walter S. Hobart. Like the Stanfords, the Carolans, and the Baldwins, Winchester owned several homes on which she lavished expensive decor and furnishings. She purchased a houseboat (others may have preferred a yacht) for summering. In this company, Winchester may not have appeared particularly odd.

  The excesses of the Gilded Age were less apparent in California than in the East, however, and Sarah Winchester's display of wealth, although in step with a few of her neighbors,' mostly stood out in the rural and middle-class valley. Her house and ranch took on the look of a personal “exposition,” a micro version of the enormously popular world's fairs held during that era. While the international expositions in Philadelphia in 1876, Paris in 1889, Chicago in 1893, and Glasgow in 1901 reflected the wealth and achievements of nations around the world, the homes of the wealthy during this era made public statements about the aspirations and sensibilities of their owners. Winchester's house, for example, displayed a collection of disparate styles and decorations in the building arts. She found great satisfaction in directing the construction and remodeling of the large, “rambling” (to use her word) house.3 The landscape of the ranch was divided into carefully cultivated fruit and nut orchards, plus decorative gardens favoring Japanese-style horticulture. An English garden with French statuary accented the Victorian house. Setting Winchester apart from both neighbors and other elites was the fact that she herself superintended the construction rather than hiring a construction manager. She drew plans and directed implementation until 1906.