Captive of the Labyrinth: Sarah L. Winchester Heiress to the Rifle Fortune

Rounding out our spooky season, this week’s book of the week is about what is probably America’s most famous haunted legend, Sarah Winchester, making this weeks book of the week, Captive of the Labyrinth: Sarah L. Winchester Heiress to the Rifle Fortune by Mary Jo Ignoffo.

Sarah Lockwood Pardee was born in the summer of 1839, specific date is not known at this time, to Leonard and Sarah Pardee. She was the fifth of seven children born, and the second to bear the name Sarah, as the Pardee’s first born daughter, Sarah E Pardee, lived less than a year before dying. The rest of the Pardee children made it to adulthood though, and the family grew up in New Haven, Connecticut.

Leonard Pardee was a master wood worker; however, for a period of time, his shop was not doing very well so for about ten years he managed a public bath house. This is not as salacious as it sounds. As the industrial age revved up, the ready availability of hot water made public bath houses popular locations, as the populace of the 19th century embraced the maxim that cleanliness is next to godliness. Basically, he took the coins and directed the men to the men’s side and the women to the women’s side.

Gradually though, as the economic downturns of the 1830’s and 1840’s started to improve, his carpentry shop took off and he eventually became fairly wealthy, moving the family to the up-and-coming neighborhoods, finally settling in on Brown Street, where the new neighbors, the Winchester’s moved in.

Now, the initial Winchester fortune was NOT made in manufacturing firearms. Oliver Winchester, who was William Wirt Winchester’s father, made his fortune by patenting a new neckline in fashion. Literally, by 1845 he had spent a decade working in mercantile with his twin brother, Samuel Winchester. And in those 10 years, he had determined that men’s shirts just did not fit the way they should. Mostly because prior to his 1845 patent of the rounded collar, all shirts were cut on a straight line, which leaves the neckline a bit lumpy and bulging. Oliver figured out how to round the neckline, patented it, and made a fortune in textiles selling his new shirts that were guaranteed to fit better than anything ever worn before.

Part of his ability to mass produce these shirts for department store sale was his ability to recognize the benefits of the sewing machine, and to hire women to do the sewing on these new machines. Basically, he was an early mover in adopting new technology, and reaped massive benefits, becoming a millionaire in just 10 years. His upward mobility was such that if she hadn’t literally been the girl next door while the fortune was being built, it’s entirely possible Sarah’s relationship with her in-laws would not have been as cordial as it became. Even in the 19th century, gold digger was a thing. But as it is, she did grow up the girl next door, and I think, given how Sarah withdrew after William’s death, it was very much a love match between the two of them.

Now, Oliver Winchester, following his success with the Winchester and Davies Shirt Manufacturing, took some of his money and put it into a small passion project, Volcanic Repeating Arms Company, which was basically bankrupt when he bought it and brought it to solvency, renaming it New Haven Arms Company. And this was a fun bit for the gun lover, as you learn just how intertwined 19th century gunsmithing in America was. See, the lead designers for the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company were two gentlemen called Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson. Following the bankruptcy of Volcanic Repeating Arms, when Winchester bought the company and created solvency, those two gentlemen left and formed their own company, Smith and Wesson.

Once he had established the New Haven Arms Company, Winchester hired a mechanic from his shirt manufacturing business, a remarkable gunsmith named Benjamin T. Henry, who would almost immediately design and patent the Henry Repeating Rifle, which is still an outstanding rifle manufactured today by Henry Repeating Arms. And while Winchester never quite managed the government contracts he was hoping for during the Civil War, the company sold enough of the rifles to individual soldiers that they ran into manufacturing difficulties and had to outsource the making of some of their rifles to a factory owned by Samuel Colt.

Now, this push to make more and more of the rifles soured Henry’s relationship with Winchester, and while Winchester was in Europe trying to make more sales, he arrived in Switzerland one day and there was a cable waiting for him from his son and his friend John Davies, informing him that Henry had filed to reincorporate the New Haven Arms Company as the Henry Repeating Rifle Company. Basically, Henry had done a hostile takeover of the corporation while Winchester was out drumming up new business.

However, Winchester has fucked up. Before leaving on his sales mission, he had given power of attorney over the company to Henry. Winchester did not become the pre-eminent businessman he was by reacting in his fury. He instead took a minute, then instructed his son to call in his personal loans to the arms company, which resulted in all Winchester Cash being removed from the company. And once that was done, Winchester filed papers of his own to incorporate Winchester Repeating Arms Company and waited until Henry went broke. Then Winchester offered to pay all the debts and buy the manufacturing capabilities. I believe this included the patents that Henry held on the repeating rifle; however, to avoid any conflicts or claims of infringement, Winchester made several changes to the design, and the Winchester Repeating Rifle became ubiquitous as the Gun that Won the West.

Now, during all of this, Sarah and William married, had a daughter Annie, who died in less than a month due to basically malnutrition, known then as failure to thrive. She was unable to obtain sustenance from mother’s milk, a condition known as marasmus. Sarah and William were devastated, and to help ease their grief, the two of them threw themselves into helping the Senior Winchesters build a new residence on Prospect Hill in New Haven. It’s during this time that Sarah developed a love for architecture, which supplemented her love for fine woodworking, inherited from watching her father work. Williams love of architecture was so acute, that following his death, his mother set up an endowment at nearby Yale University that is still in effect today, the William Wirt Winchester Fund, which is awarded annually to the graduate student in architecture to allow them to study and travel architecture outside the United States. It is also considered the school of architecture’s most prestigious award. I gotta wonder how the extreme lefties at Yale feel about accepting an award named after the infamous Winchester Rifle.

And as Winchester Repeating Arms Company took off, Winchester Sr. sent his son and daughter in law to San Francisco to set up a sales hub there for the west coast, which they did quite successfully. During this time, William Wirt Winchester who developed tuberculosis, started to become ill from this, and within a very short span of time, Sarah lost her mother, father-in-law, and husband. This all contributed to the later legends, as well as to Sarah’s outstanding wealth.

So, her mother, Sarah Pardee, died on May 11, 1880. Her father-in-law, of whom Sarah was quite fond, died on December 10, 1880. Then on March 7, 1881, William died, leaving Sarah a widow at just 41 years old. Which, believe it or not, was seen as closer to death then it is today, as women tended to die around 55-60 years of age at that time.

William had left Sarah executrix of his will, charging Thomas Bennett and William Converse, who were his brothers in law, Bennett through marrying Williams Sister, and Converse through marrying Sarah’s sister, as Executors; however, the two executors were only to offer advice to Sarah, never to require a bond of Sarah or to interfere in her inheritance in any way. And they never did, the family as a whole was quite close.

As devastating as these losses were to Sarah, they left her independently wealthy, so that she did not have to rely on the good graces of her mother-in-law to support her. Wealth can have different meanings in different time spans, so what does that mean for Sarah in the 19th century?

Well, her mother, through Sarah’s father’s death several years prior, had also owned stock in Winchester Repeating Arms Company, 224 shares, which were split evenly among the surviving 6 Pardee children, so Sarah ended up with 37 shares. The 224 total were worth $22,400 in 1880 dollars, which using an inflation calculator, totals about $112,644 in today’s money.

Oliver Winchester’s estate included 4,000 shares of Winchester Repeating Arms Company stock. Adding in what she inherited from her mother directly, Sarah now owned 777 shares. Oliver’s will stipulated that his 4,000 shares would belong to his widow Jane until her death, at which point they would be split evenly between his two children, his daughter Jennie Bennett, and his son William Winchester. And since William pre-deceased Jane, upon Janes’ death, 2,000 shares would go directly to Willliams’ heir, Sarah.

On his death, William, who owned 521 shares of the company stock, passed his shares directly to Sarah. Sarah’s 777 shares included the 521 she had inherited from William. In addition to that, she inherited about $362,330 from William directly, worth about $8 million in today’s dollars.

One final connection to great gunsmiths in the 19th century: following William Winchester’s death, Thomas Bennett was made president of the company, and used his new position to hire one John Moses Browning as a gunsmith for the company.

And Sarah, realizing that for the first time in her life she was independently wealthy, used some of that money to travel, first through Europe, before setting her sights on the west coast. The legends of her buildup of Llanada Villa into what would become the Winchester Mystery House would be many years in the future. The author provides many reasons why Winchester could have chosen the Santa Clara valley as her final destination.

Let’s start with Sarah Winchester was an introvert by temperament. Had she stayed in New Haven, living in the residence she had helped design in her grief over her daughter’s death, she would have been expected to take part in the New Haven social scene. Moving to the west coast, where there was no social scene, removed her from that pressure. For a time at least.

Unfortunately for Sarah, she was not the only woman of wealth to move west, and San Francisco seemed to think that it was her duty to provide them with a social scene. Which she completely ignored. This started a hostile relationship with the press. At least, the press was hostile to Sarah. With one notable exception when she lambasted a political critter for trying to use her name in his political campaigns, Sarah basically ignored the parasitic press in her day.

Another reason Sarah moved out west is the climate. Connecticut, even in the warmth of summer, is considerably cooler than Santa Clara valley. And that coolness would have been agony for Sarah, who had been diagnosed at like 40 with rheumatoid arthritis, which disease would eventually make movement excruciatingly painful for her.

So why the constant building? Well, that question too is answered. The author, after laying some detailed groundwork, hypothesizes that she purchased Llanada Villa and built it up as a way to cope with her grief following her husband’s death. Having learned that embroiling herself in architecture helped her cope with her daughter’s death, she sought to repeat that experience by building up her new residence. And the constant building was not so constant. It was not, in fact, day and night from 1884 to 1922 when she died. It was from 1886, when she purchased the residence, until 1906. And it was not 24/7 as has been billed. It was normal working hours. But it was for 20 years. Why 20 years? Well, the author believes Sarah wasn’t trying to keep away ghosts. She was trying to keep away GUESTS. Whenever someone would ask when they could come visit, Sarah would say now’s not a good time, the house isn’t done yet. This…. This is my introverted soul sister. I felt that to my bones when I read that theory.

Now, in 1906, April 18 to be precise, San Francisco experienced a cataclysmic earthquake. It was a plot point in the movie Hollywood made a few years ago, starring Helen Mirren as Sarah Winchester. And as entertaining as that movie was, for those who like a good ghost story, the building stopped at that point. Not because Sarah believed she had conquered the ghosts. But because it was obvious her architectural chops just weren’t up to snuff. So, the only construction done on site from 1906 until her death was clean up, and that needed to ensure the house didn’t completely collapse. And Sarah took up full-time residence at one of her other myriad properties in the area.

Sarah, during the 41 years she lived following her husband’s death, proved herself to be quite astute at land purchases and investments, and when she died on September 5, 1922, her estate was worth $3 million, or $54,962,321 in today’s currency.

Prior to her death, she had been outstandingly generous with donations, the vast majority of which were entirely anonymous. We only know about them because of the careful record keeping of her attorney, Frank Leib. One of the donations for which Sarah is well known, because she eventually allowed her name to be publicly attached to it, is her multiple donations of $300,000 each….approximately $9million in today’s dollars….to a tuberculosis hospital in Connecticut. Once it became known who their anonymous benefactor was, was named the William Wirt Winchester Hospital. And while initially the fund was set up to treat those with lung disease, namely tuberculosis, by the time Sarah’s estate had run it’s course, that disease had largely been cured…or at least, is very treatable.

Now, what do I mean by the time her estate had run its course. When Sarah died, she had set up several trusts for some of her heirs that were designed to provide them with monthly payments until their death. Then any money left in that particular trust would revert to the William Wirt Winchester Hospital in Connecticut. Well by the time the last beneficiary of those trusts died in like 2016 or something like that, tuberculosis was not really a thing. But given that special circumstance, the Connecticut court ruled the hospital could still receive the trust, as long as it used the money to treat lung disease. I think Sarah would approve.

Sarah, incidentally, did not just leave money to family. True, that was the bulk of her beneficiaries, but she also let significant sums to individual members of her staff, all of whom had served her for at least a decade prior to her death. And all of whom denied to their own death’s that Sarah was trying to appease spirits with Llanda Villa. So where did this legend come from?

Mostly, hostile newspapermen. Sarah really was an introvert, and couple that with her illness, she moved to California to be left the hell alone. And when she failed to provide newspaper fodder for the journalists, they made up their own. Starting with the rumor that construction was 24/7 because of the ghosts of those killed by Winchester firearms, and ending, quite maliciously, with the surprise that her estate was only worth $3million on her death. That, incidentally, was not Sarah’s fault. Winchester Repeating Arms was in a hot ramp up of production in firearms when World War I abruptly ended, leaving the company strapped for cash to finish their sales and a sharp decline in stock valuation. This led to an abrupt decline in the company’s fortune, and just one year after the last president Thomas Bennett died in 1930, this venerable company went under, victim of the great depression in 1931. The name exists today purely because it was purchased for marketing purposes by Olin Industries. The original Winchester plant continue to manufacture firearms until 2006.

And less than a year after Sarah died, about 9 months actually, Llanada Villa as opened as a haunted house for tourism by one John H. Brown and his wife, Mayme. The house itself was crumbling so badly, the land it sat on was more valuable than anything. But Brown, who was part of the entertainment industry in a round about fashion, having started out designing roller coasters, rented the place at first. And in short order, off the revenues from tourism, bought it outright. And it has been open as a haunted house ever since. Adding an interesting cachet to the story is the fact that before he died, Harry Houdini visited the house in 1924, ultimately endorsing it as a tourist venture. Which is not, actually, to say that he believed the house was haunted, although the author indicates he may have believed so. I think it more likely Houdini knew it was humbug, which is why he endorsed it as a tourist spot, and not as a haunted mansion.

But the tour guides of the house know it’s all humbug. And the people who know Sarah argued with grim determination against the mystery house until one by one they all died as well. No one who actually KNEW Sarah ever heard her mention ghosts or spirits or remorse for her fortune. And the building stopped on April 18, 1906. Mrs. Winchester spent the bulk of her remaining time at her second home, located in Atherton. The only reason she was at Llanada Villa when she died is that it was closer to her doctor.

This book was quite well written, and it brought to life a much maligned and highly introverted woman, who lived with a great deal of integrity, and basically just wanted to be left the fuck alone. Which is truly a goal I can get behind.

This book was originally reviewed on YouTube on October 23, 2023, but is now available on Rumble and PodBean.