“Together, we looked in the other rooms but could see no evidence that anyone had been in them. The rain was so bad that it was almost dark out, although it was only about two-thirty in the afternoon. So I began to close the windows, but the frames are all the original white cedar that swells up just like a sponge when it gets wet. They were so swollen that I could hardly close them, and I certainly don’t know how anyone could have pulled them open.
“I could not get them bolted, and I said, ‘Denise, you are going to have to go downstairs and get a hammer.’ She said, ‘Let me try it,’ and together we finally got the bolt over. Then we walked into the nursery and, once there, began to relax because nothing was out of place. Suddenly, just a few feet behind us, a man’s deep laugh rang out. Denise said, ‘Did you hear that?’ I said, ‘What did you hear?’ She said, ‘I heard a man’s laughter.’ I said, ‘So did I!’
“‘Let’s get out of here!’ Denise cried, and with that, she picked up her skirts and down the stairs she went—lickety split. She dashed over to the telephone and called her mother. I knew that we had both heard laughter from the past. I felt what I can only describe as an intense electric shock go the length of my back, and for a few seconds I stood there frozen, truly unable to move. I have never had anything affect me in such a way.
“As for Denise, her face was white and her eyes were terrified. I would never have imagined we could get down the stairs so fast in long dresses. It is a wonder we didn’t break our necks. I don’t recall Denise ever mentioning any desire for a supernatural experience again.
“After we began to talk about it downstairs, I remembered that the place where we had been standing when we heard the laugh was right over the location of the old gallows that stood there before Thomas Whaley built this house. He had watched the hanging of a colorful man named Yankee Jim. Imprisoned for attempting to steal a boat, Yankee Jim’s crime does not seem as grave as the sort for which men were ordinarily sentenced to hang. Unfortunately for him, his trial came upon the heels of the Indian uprising of 1851, when San Diego had been under martial law and any sort of disorder occasioned swift and sometimes harsh action.
“Yankee Jim did not take the sentence of hanging him seriously, and, believing he would be pardoned at the last minute, even made jokes on his way to the gallows. But he was not pardoned. His last moments were painful, indeed, for when the wagon in which he was standing was pulled from under his feet, his neck remained unbroken. He continued to live for almost an hour, until he finally strangled to death.”
Is it possible that the laugh they heard that afternoon was Yankee Jim? “It may be,” admitted Mrs. Reading. “I sometimes wonder if certain sounds remain forever in the atmosphere, or perhaps accessible, and now and then something we do sets them off. Then we hear that sound again exactly as it once occurred. The footsteps, the laugh, even the old-fashioned melodies we occasionally hear playing in the music room of the house . . . Thomas Whaley once wrote in a letter to his mother, ‘My wife is the best little woman in the world, loved by all, she is proficient in music, plays and sings.’ Perhaps she is still heard here.
“I could tell you many other strange things,” continued June Reading, “but the sound of that deep laugh shocked me more than anything else that has ever happened to me in this house.”
For those who are fascinated by ghost stories, it is said that four different ghosts have been identified at the Whaley House. The noisiest of all is reputed to be that of Yankee Jim.
Whatever your tastes, you are welcome to enjoy a tour of this early home of the Old West. Located at 2476 San Diego Avenue in San Diego, California, Whaley House, with its rich and violent chronicles of yesteryear, is open to the public daily year-round. For more information, call (619) 297-7511 or visit whaleyhouse.org. For those who suffer from the summer heat elsewhere, the cool breezes off the bay and temperatures during the day ranging between 65 and 75 degrees are delightful. Bring a sweater for evenings outdoors.
THE HOUSE THE SPIRITS BUILT
THE WINCHESTER MANSION, SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA
It could be a nightmare to find one’s way out of the Winchester House, particularly for the terrified young girl in this story.
A luxurious black carriage cruised slowly through one of Boston’s old neighborhoods, along a once fashionable street lined with what were once grand houses. Now paint peeled from most of them, and soot from coal-burning furnaces gave the neighborhood a bedraggled look. The driver peered at the front of each building, trying to make out the numbers. He stopped before a dirty mustard-colored house with cream trim.
Standing nervously on the porch, he turned an etched, brass doorbell, which made a jarring, metallic sound. How strange to make a trip to this neighborhood just a day after the great man’s funeral. Whatever could Mrs. Winchester and her niece expect to find here? He waited. Would anyone answer?
Suddenly the knob turned and the door opened. The driver stepped back, startled. On the threshold stood a tall woman with deep-set, olive-colored eyes. Her pasty white face was shaped like a hatchet and her black hair, pulled back severely, was wound in an immense twist on top of her head. She wore a long, somewhat shabby brown dress and an ancient shawl. The driver’s usually impassive face must have reflected shock,
