Lore - Episode 79: Locked Away

Episode Date: February 5, 2018

Our lives have a way of becoming magnets that attract pain and suffering. Some of us go through more than others, but in the end, we’re all running from something. Just how far we might go to get away is a mystery, but it could never top the lengths one person went to to escape a life of pain and guilt. This is their story. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey there, if this is your first time listening to lore, welcome to the campfire. Grab a seat, close your eyes, and enjoy your guided tour of one small dark corner of history. And when you're done, there are three ways you can dive deeper. First, there is a whole back catalogue of over 80 other episodes you can listen to. Subscribe in your favorite podcast app to find them all, free and ready for you to enjoy. You should also check out the Lore television show. Yeah, a TV show. The first season of six episodes is available to Amazon Prime members through their Prime Video Service, and it's absolutely amazing. If you love the podcast, the TV show will fill right at home.

And finally, Penguin Random House is releasing a lore book series called The World of Lore. A first book, Monstrous Creatures, came out in October of 2017, and it's available everywhere you buy books, in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook. It's all of the creature episodes gathered in one place, along with special extra tales and a whole bunch of gorgeous illustrations. Lore is more than a podcast, and as you dive deep into it all, I hope you enjoy the journey. And now, on with the show. They had been searching for it for nearly 15 years, so when they uncovered a set of steps on November 2nd of 1922, you can imagine how elated they must have felt.

Word was sent to the man who had financed the entire project, and by November 26th, the entire team found themselves standing in front of a sealed tomb door. Today, most of the world knows what they found. As archaeologist Howard Carter led his team inside, they stepped into the 3,000-year-old tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun. It was the discovery of a lifetime, and it was everything they'd hoped for. Things didn't go so well after that, though. Lord Canarvon, the man who had paid for all 15 years of digging and searching, died less than two months later from an infected mosquito bite. It's said that at the very moment he took his last breath, all the lights in Cairo mysteriously

went out. At the same time, his faithful dog howled mournfully, staggered on his feet, and then fell over, dead. And while Carter himself seems to have escaped the wave of death that followed the opening of the tomb, others weren't so lucky. George J. Gould, another investor, visited the tomb shortly after it was opened, and died just two months later. Carter's secretary, Richard Bethel, died young a few years later himself. One other archaeologist on the project, Hugh Evelyn White, said to have committed suicide after leaving a message. I have succumbed to a curse, he wrote, with his own blood. Whether the stories are rooted in fact or fiction, one thing is clear. People are convinced that their

past can haunt them, that whether we like it or not, sometimes the things we've done follow us through life, waiting for that moment when they can take revenge. And as one story shows, it doesn't matter how far you run, or how high you build your walls. Our past, like a dark and twisted shadow, has a way of following us wherever we go. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. They grew up near each other and didn't even know it. It was only for a couple of years, from 1850 to 1852, but later in life it would become one of those happy memories they pulled out at social gatherings to get a laugh. And that's fine.

Sally was going to need all the happy memories she could get. She was born in New Haven, Connecticut, back in 1839. It was a large family, with Sally being the fifth born, and another after her, and for a while there, I think that was a challenge for her parents, Sarah and Leonard. Finally though, around the time of Sally's eighth birthday, her father's carpentry business began to take off. They eventually bought that temporary house over on Court Street. In 1852, with business booming and the money pouring in, Sally's parents purchased a large six-acre estate in a different part of town. I have a feeling they all exhaled a collective sigh of relief. They'd made it. They were socialites,

climbing the ladder of the well-to-do and influential. Things were looking up. New Haven in the mid-1800s was a fantastic place to grow up if you loved education. Yale University, known then as Yale College, was the centerpiece of the city, with a network of other schools surrounding it. Students in New Haven couldn't help but learn from the best minds, soaking in modern science and ideas. There was more, though. As the 1850s faded into the 1860s, other movements were spreading. Spiritualism had extended beyond its birthplace of upstate New York and was transforming the way many people viewed the natural world. In the South, rebellious tremors were shaking the structure of America,

due to a growing interest in banning slavery. I'd be putting it far too lightly to say that 1860 was a year of change. In 1861, everything fell apart. Under Confederate orders, General Beauregard attacked the Union-held Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina and effectively set a match to the dry, inflammable mountain of tension between both sides. The American Civil War began that day and the world was never the same. Little over a year later, though, in September of 1862, Sally walked down the aisle on her wedding day. The man who would become her husband that day was the very same boy she'd lived near during those two years on Court Street. Even though her family had moved out of the neighborhood, they hadn't left the same social

circles, which most likely led to this joyful moment. William was born in June of 1837. His father, Oliver, was a clothing manufacturer with a knack for improving the machines that he worked with, and that ingenuity paid off. Business was profitable and brisk, and as Sally's parents were climbing that social ladder, they were doing so right alongside William's family. There's a good chance they knew each other for most of their childhood, too. We know that while she studied at the Young Lady's Collegiate Institute, Sally took classes with William's sister Annie, and both families attended the First Baptist Church of New Haven. They might have stopped being neighbors in 1852, but they were never really far apart.

If the families were to compare balance sheets, William's parents were vastly more wealthy than Sally's, but that didn't matter. A couple was in love, and Sally more than held her own in the relationship. She had a brilliant mind, having excelled in subjects like literature and music, and she spoke fluent French, which was a good thing. She was going to need every advantage she could get, because life was about to climb to a whole new level very soon. You see, a few years before the young couple's wedding, William's father had acquired another business through some, well, shall we say, aggressive methods. The result was his complete ownership and control of what he called the New Haven Arms Company. If the name of the business

isn't a big enough clue, it's important to point out that they made a very specific item, firearms. In October of 1860, one of the plant managers filed a patent for a new type of rifle, a rifle that would hold 16 shots, one that didn't need to be loaded by inserting gunpowder and a bullet down the muzzle. In an era when a well-trained soldier might be able to fire three shots per minute, this new rifle was a game changer. It was officially known as the Henry Rifle, named after Benjamin Tyler Henry, the employee who patented it. Although it wasn't the most common rifle used in the Civil War, it was certainly the most sought after. Infantry would save up their salaries for them or use their re-enlistment bonuses, believing that its greater

firepower might just save their lives. It's hard to tell if that hypothesis really played out in reality. What we do know is that by the time the war was over in 1866, the firearm had been so popular that William's father went all in, putting his last name right there on the company and the star weapon it produced. In doing so, he gave it a name that nearly everyone today has heard of, the Winchester Rifle. What's it Oliver Winchester named his new 1866 model? Creatively, the Winchester model 1866. I know, not the most sexy name in the world, but it got the point across in a way that even Apple could be proud of. This firearm was new. It was better. While the Henry had been a hit, this new Winchester model came with a few improvements, and that only served to increased

demand. France would later buy 6,000 of them, along with over 4 million cartridges. That's roughly the same number of Henry rifles that sold during the whole span of the Civil War, all in one transaction. But it got better. When the Ottoman Empire needed weapons for a war against the Russian Empire, they purchased 45,000 of them. All of this success brought an explosion of prosperity to the Winchester family, but there were still moments of darkness. In order to put his name on the rifle and take full control of its financial destiny, Oliver Winchester had to wrestle the weapon out of the hands of its creator, Benjamin Henry, who spent the rest of his life working alone. The model 1866 wasn't the only Winchester born that year. Sally, who at this point

had dropped her childhood nickname in favor of her given name, Sarah, spent the first half of the year pregnant. In July of 1866, she and William became parents to a baby girl. They named her Annie, after William's sister. But that was a joy they barely had time to soak in. Just nine days after she was born, Annie Winchester passed away, leaving her parents in utter and absolute grief. Most new mothers struggle with some level of postpartum depression, and many fathers do as well. But this was something darker. After months of anticipation, they lost their child. Sarah fell into a deep depression. By some accounts, the loss of Annie was a blow that would take her years to recover from, although I'm not sure how you ever fully come back from something

like that. So when I tell you that the Winchester has had a new home built just outside of New Haven and moved into it a couple of years later, we have to see that move through the lens of her pain. She was running, starting fresh in a way offered her hope. I imagine the next decade was a bit of a blur for Sarah and William. He worked as the treasurer of his father's empire, watching the company coffers fill at a mind-boggling rate. The Winchester Model 1866 gave way to the Model 1873, which was even more successful if you can believe it. It would become known as the gun that won the West and would stay in production for 50 years. Sarah and William would never have another child. Maybe they just didn't have the courage for the

risk of more heartbreak. But that's the trouble with grief. You can build yourself a world without risk, but nothing will stop pain from breaking in on its own. And in 1880, that's just what happened. That's when William's father, Oliver, passed away. If there was a bright side to this new wave of grief, it was William's inheritance. The Winchester Company, those overflowing bank accounts, and that incessant demand for more of their rifles, all of it translated into a massive windfall. In modern currency, William inherited close to half a billion dollars from his father. He wouldn't have a chance to enjoy it, though. Less than three months later, William Winchester died at the age of 43. Like a lot of tragic deaths from the 19th century, his killer was

tuberculosis. It had moved quickly, and when it was over, Sarah was alone. Alone and looking for answers. Because she'd lost her only child, her father-in-law, and her husband in a span of just 15 years. Maybe that was normal in the late 1800s, but to Sarah, it felt unusual. In fact, it felt intentional. We're told that her deep grief in the spring of 1881 led her to seek out answers. The growth of spiritualism had put mediums, those individuals who claimed to speak for and with the spirits of the dead, firmly in the public eye, until Sarah talked to a number of them. Finally, it was a man from Boston, Adam Coons, who delivered an answer she believed. Those rifles that had made her family incredibly wealthy had accomplished something else,

something more horrifying. They had led to tens of thousands of deaths. And according to William Spirit, who Coons claimed to be speaking with in the room, those deaths had cursed their family. But there was a way out if she was willing to try. William told her, through Coons, of course, that she needed to follow the sun west. When she traveled far enough, he would tell her to stop. She was being invited to do something she'd become so very good at over the years. She needed to run away. So she did. After selling her estate in New Haven, Sarah Winchester packed up everything and began her long westward journey, always listening for the voice of her dead husband to tell her she'd gone

far enough. She crossed the Mississippi and the Midwest, the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada. Don't know how long it took her, but in the 1880s, it was a journey that was far from comfortable and easy. Still, she did it. Once she finally stopped in 1886, she'd traveled all the way to California's Santa Clara Valley. Once there, she purchased a small farmhouse on a large piece of property, then began to build a new life for herself. But as you might have guessed, that's not all she would build. If Sarah Winchester's goal was to escape the past, California was a great destination. It was new and fresh and so

full of possibilities, and that made it ideal for someone starting over. The state itself had only become part of the Union less than four decades earlier, and the pain and conflict of the Civil War had barely left a scratch on the culture there. It was a brand new world. But you can't run away from everything. By the early 1880s, the press had begun to look more compassionately on the Native Americans who had suffered under the March of Westward Expansion, and one of the things they pinned the blame on was the Winchester rifle. Without it, they said, countless lives might have been saved. That's not to say that she rejected the wealth that came with her ownership of the company. The entire fortune her husband had inherited from his father was now hers,

along with a large monthly income of $1,000, roughly $25,000 in modern currency. That's monthly, not yearly. But don't worry, Sarah had a plan for how she was going to spend it all. The house she bought was a simple eight-room farmhouse. I doubt it was the structure itself that interested her. No, it had to be the 162 acres of land that surrounded it. That represented a lot of space between herself and the rest of the world. It was a wall made of distance, designed to keep the public out. Her demons, though, were another story, and she was going to have to do something even more dramatic to keep them at bay. Back when she had visited the medium in Boston, the man had passed along another set of instructions from her dead husband.

Build a house, he told her. Build a house that can hold all the spirits, and if you do it right, you'll find peace. Now, I'll be the first to admit, much of what we know about her meetings with that medium come down to guesswork. We don't have transcripts, and Sarah herself never went on record with a detailed account of those conversations. This is the place where legend pokes its head into the story, like Kramer sliding into Jerry Seinfeld's apartment. It's there, uninvited, and now we have to deal with it. And that's how a lot of stories go. But what we do know is that Sarah Winchester started remodeling her new house as soon as she bought it. She had a bottomless pit of money, all the space she needed, and a whole lot of

self-inflicted guilt, all of which powered the construction project. More and more rooms were added on, eventually expanding the original eight to a massive 26, but she was far from finished. A railroad line was added so that building materials could be brought closer to the house. Legend says that a team of construction workers toiled on the house every hour of the day, seven days a week, and she lived there, in the middle of all that chaos, managing the foreman and drawing up new plans herself. Over the years, that house exploded with new rooms and features. The structure itself grew to become seven stories tall, and with no architect guiding the process with skill and logic, the results were more than a bit unusual. I don't mean that

things were crooked or poorly made, I mean that the house began to look more and more like an emcee-esher drawing come to life. For example, there are staircases in the house that lead nowhere, literally ending at a blank wall or a ledge that a person could easily fall off. There are chimneys that you can see from the exterior, but when you look for their corresponding fireplaces or stoves inside, they just aren't there. And you might come upon a massive door and open it only to find a tiny closet. Or, because opposites are fun, you could open a small door and discover an enormous room. All told, the house has roughly 50 fireplaces, 10,000 windows, 40 staircases, and 2,000 doors. Some people have speculated that Sarah Winchester was simply trying

to confuse the spirits that haunted her. That somehow, if the house were illogical and unpredictable enough, the spirits wouldn't be able to get out. They see the house as one giant puzzle box designed to trap things inside. To prove it, they point to the near lack of mirrors and the overwhelming abundance of objects with 13 parts like steps or window panes. In 1906, nearly two decades after construction began, San Francisco suffered a massive earthquake. The entire front portion of the Winchester house, along with the top three stories, all collapsed, leaving portions of the house in ruin. Sarah found herself trapped in her bedroom, and when she was finally rescued, she ordered the collapsed parts of the house, a section with at least 30 rooms, to be boarded up and

ignored. The work finally came to an end on September 4th of 1922, 36 years after it all began. According to one legend, Sarah held a seance that evening and spoke with the spirits in the house. Then she went to bed and never woke up. She was 83 years old. Sarah Winchester finally achieved her goal. She got away. Sarah Winchester spent her life running from pain. That's not something I'm faulting her for, believe me. Each and every one of us carries a bag that's overflowing with regret or guilt or suffering. We're all just too busy managing our own to notice everyone else is doing the same thing. So Sarah ran. Maybe her story is powerful and unique because she took running to a new level.

She literally got on a train and headed west and then built walls around her inner struggles. Perhaps her story is attractive because she built a crazy house, or maybe it's because it feels familiar. She did, but many of us wish we could. What she left us with is a monument to forgetting. That eight-room farmhouse she purchased in 1886 grew into a complex maze of stairs and halls and room after room of space. Heck, it's so confusing that there's no official room count. I've seen estimates range anywhere from 148 to 161. If the stories are true, even the staff who worked for her had to use a map to get around. There's a colorful rumor that Sarah hid treasure somewhere in the

house, locking away a piece of her vast fortune for some intrepid explorer to discover later. But of course, no one has ever tracked it down, if it even exists at all. The truth is probably a lot more simple. Most of her fortune was poured into the very building itself. There are other stories, too. Legends without a lot of proof, but there are threads that add color to the tapestry of Sarah's story. They say that the moment the workers learned of her death, they just stopped and walked away, leaving nails sticking out of the wood. Visitors to the house today have noticed doors that shut on their own, cold spots, floating lights, and the distant sound of breaking glass.

Trust me, I get it. A lot of people view the Winchester House as one of those ultra cool can-you-believe-its-true sort of places. It's fascinating and eerie, and so very rebellious and insane. But when we simply stare at the house and marvel at its eccentricities, we risk missing the pain inside those walls. After all, a person built that house, however broken the reasons. Today, the house exists as something more inspiring. Legendary author Shirley Jackson, who grew up nearby, makes mention of it at the beginning of her 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House. When Disneyland built their haunted mansion, they took their inspiration from the Winchester House. And of course, the building is a state landmark and

tourist attraction open to the public for guided viewings. In the fall of 2016, the preservation team at the Winchester House made a discovery. It was a new room, one that had been boarded up and hidden away for over a century. Their best guess is that the room was one of many that were closed up and abandoned following the 1906 earthquake. It wasn't empty, either. But rather than find that lost, hidden treasure everyone seems to whisper about, they found a snapshot of everyday life. A Victorian couch, a dress form and sewing machine, even a couple of paintings. It was a time capsule locked away and forgotten, exactly as Sarah would have wanted it.

We're often so obsessed with the house she built that we forget to ask whether or not Sarah Winchester's idea actually worked. Did her maze-like mansion really keep the spirits at bay? Find out after the break. Sarah Winchester built her mansion as a way of confusing and tricking the spirits that she felt were chasing her. Some say that's why there are only two mirrors in the entire house, while others point to the symbolic number 13 that pops up in almost every room in one shape or another. A number that was considered evil and acted like a ward fighting off the ghosts of her past. But did it work? Well, if the stories that have been told about the house since her death

are any indication, it's hard to tell. What's certain is that even though the house is empty now, there has been a lot of activity reported inside it. One tour guide once reported hearing an audible sigh as she led a group of tourists into one of the bedrooms. When she paused to listen closer, she claims that a small, dark shape drifted in through one door and then vanished around a corner. No one was able to identify the source of the sound or the mysterious shape. Over the years the people have been visiting the mansion and its surrounding grounds, multiple witnesses have reported the sensation of being watched. Some have even seen a figure of a dark-haired man watching over them, sometimes from inside the house and sometimes outside.

And while the witnesses and locations are always different, the description of the ghostly figure is always the same. One more revealing tale comes from a few years ago, when a contractor was doing some restoration work on a fireplace inside the house. According to his story, he was up on a ladder in a room all by himself when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to look, more out of reflex than any sort of expectation that someone might actually be there, but saw nothing. A moment later, it happened again. Only this time, the tap was a shove and he almost lost his balance and fell off the ladder. Frightened for his safety, he said that he stopped his work, climbed back down, and didn't return to that room for the rest

of the day. And honestly, it's hard to blame him, with so many rooms in a place like the Winchester mansion. It can't all be empty. Can they? This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research assistants from Marsette Crockett, music by Chad Lawson, and administrative help from Carl Nellis. As I mentioned at the top, Lore is more than a podcast. Explore the book series, the television show, and old episodes over at theworldoflore.com slash now. And last, if you're a social media sort of person, you can follow the show over on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow

button. When you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.