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The home sits quietly on San Diego Avenue in Old Town San Diego. The elegance this stately brick home commands gives you a clue of its social importance to the city. Once inside, the courtroom, attached to the living quarters, gives the feeling of an austere room, yet maintains its historical importance to San Diego. A look around this room, gives one the chance to see artifacts of the 1800's, books and diaries of the Whaley family and pictures of the house taken by visitors. Pictures of nothing other than, the ghosts of the house. It is not certain, by this writer, or by many others who have investigated the house, who is haunting this stately home. Yet it is haunted. The Historical Shrine Foundation's founder, June Reading, says the ghostly inhabitant is Thomas Whaley. This writer believes Thomas Whaley is one of the ghosts of the house but not the primary ghost. Thomas Whaley built the house, starting in 1856 and finishing in 1857. He and his wife Anna, lived in the house, raising their six children. The last Whaley child, Corinne Lillian Whaley lived in the house until 1953, when she died at age 89. The story goes, Thomas Whaley haunts because of the county shifting the the county records from Old Town, i.e. the courthouse in Whaley's home, to new San Diego. When this was done, a debt was left unpaid by the county to Whaley of $385.00. Whaley fought in court, for several years, after the records in his charge where seized in the dead of night, while Thomas was away on business. The country officials broke into the courthouse, pushing Anna Whaley aside, loaded the records into a wagon and left. Whaley lost in court, in addition he was never paid. So, according to Mrs. Reading, he haunts his stately home. More likely, after some extensive investigation on the part of the editors of Eeeek-NET, the haunting is caused by Violet Whaley. We discovered in our quest for information about the Whaley House, a series of unexplained events leading to Violet Whaley's death. Violet had married and divorced within three years time. When she divorced she moved back home to live with her father Thomas, her mother Anna, one brother George, and young sister Corinne Lillian. On two separate occasions, Violet supposedly attempted suicide. A study of the Coroner's inquest, as well as examination of the house, clearly it shows the "attempted suicides" were not possible as stated by Corinne Lillian and Thomas. Violet, supposedly attempting to kill herself, threw herself out a second floor window into the cistern. In order to have achieved this feat, she would have had the ability to throw herself through the window, stopped mid-flight, make a a perfect right angle turn and then land in the cistern. On the morning Violet died, a note was found on the back porch written by her, telling of her unhappiness since her divorce and her desire to die. Oddly, the note was not found by her father until after he heard the gun shot from the privy where Violet was. Oddly because her father had paced the porch for nearly twenty minutes waiting for Violet to get finished in the privy so he could use it. Once Thomas heard the shot, he knew exactly, according to his testimony, where the shot had come from and he raced to the privy. Violet had been shot in the chest by a .32 caliber bullet. Thomas carried her into the house and placed her in the back parlor. She lay there until her death, fifteen minutes later saying "nothing" according to Thomas. The inquest was attended by Thomas and Corinne Lillian, but not Anna or George Whaley. The answers were pat and sounded rehearsed as well as exact. In addition, the testimony clearly showed no gun was found. The ghostly lights of the Whaley house, the footsteps on the second floor when no one is up there, the burglar alarms going off by themselves in the dark of night, the windows being opened wide long after the house is locked and closed to the public, as well as the icy feeling of someone walking through you, in the opinion of the editors of Eeeek-NET is none other than Violet Whaley trying to uncover her murderer and the truth. Violet Whaley died at Whaley house. She died in a manner still unexplained. A gun was not found at the time of her death. Yet, in the 1950's, just prior to Lillian Corrine's death, work was being done at the house to restore some of the buildings. Near where the barn once stood, and what once was the corral, a concrete slab was removed. Beneath the concrete slab was a .32 caliber gun. Could it have been the gun that killed Violet? Lillian Corrine claimed the gun as her own, saying it was the gun she carried when working in downtown San Diego at the library. The gun is not available for viewing at the now museum of the Whaley house. During the time Whaley house was used as living quarters, Whaley rented out the upstairs portion of the house to a theater troop. They used the old courtroom for their stage and theater. It is said, that one member of the Tanner Troop, (the theater groups name), became drunk one night and accused his sometimes girlfriend of being unfaithful. When she denied this, he took a knife and stabbed her. She ran, reportedly, out the back door of the second floor, down the stairs to the rose garden. He caught up with her and stabbed her again until she lay dead. A report appeared in the newspaper, giving no names but these details. When we went to the Whaley house this was not the impression any of us had. Each person, all part of a team of psychic investigators, came up with a completely different impression on those stairs at the back of the house. Independently each person explored the house and its exterior, making notes of their impressions. Each, when compared later, we learned had the impression of a man in uniform running after the woman who had been stabbed. Each stated that the woman had fallen on the stairs, but still managed to get up and run from the man. Each person also had the impression that the woman did not die in the rose garden as reported but instead near the back entry to what is now the Darby-Pendleton house, on the back lot of the Whaley property. Most had the impression that she did not die from stab wounds but from being beaten to death. Could it be that her troubled spirit also haunts the house of Thomas Whaley? In addition to these rather unusual occurrences, there is the question of Thomas Whaley Jr.'s death. He died at the tender age of 18 months. The following day, in the San Diego Tribune was a poem written to Anna Whaley, Thomas Jr.'s mother, by his brother George Whaley. However, the date of Thomas Jr.'s death preceded George's birth by two years. It would be interesting to understand how this was possible. Beyond all of these confusing facts, there are still more things which bring further questions to mind. For instance, it is said that a young child haunts the house, a girl. Yet none of the psychic investigators had the impression of a girl but rather of a boy. The story goes that a young girl who lived on the hill behind the Whaley's came running into the yard one day and not paying attention, ran directly into a low hanging clothes line, hanging herself instantly. She supposedly haunts the house. Yet when the archives of newspaper reports and death records were searched for the Washburn child, there was no record of her death in either. The final mystery surrounding the Whaley house is at the cemetery. First, Lillian Corrine Whaley, who never married, refused to be buried in the family plot and is buried on the other side of the cemetery. Secondly, the cemetery office furnished us with a map and listing of each person buried in the Whaley plot. The children, Thomas Jr., George Whaley, Francis Whaley, Violet Whaley, were all buried at the family plot along with Thomas Sr. and Anna Whaley. Lillian Corrine was buried in another part of the cemetery and Anna Amelia Whaley was buried in Bakersfield where she lived most of her adult life. In addition, Victoria De Launay, mother of Anna Whaley was listed as being buried at the plot. Plus, a child by the name of Victoria Whaley. However, the child, Victoria is denied to have ever existed by the historians of the Whaley House. The only names listed on the headstone are Violet, Thomas Sr., and Anna Whaley. The rest of the family buried there must be secured from the office of the cemetery. Our investigation of the Whaley House was done over a period of one year. In addition to experiencing various psychic phenomena at the house itself, a great deal of research was done in San Diego, Bakersfield, and Los Angeles. The most astounding factor involving the investigation was the lack of information that could be found. This house, a state historical monument, had less than four pages in the petition to become a historical monument. The coroner's inquest of Violet's death, was found in a completely different set of records at the historical society of San Diego. The historians maintaining the house refuse to discuss any of the circumstances surrounding Violet's death as well as the reason Lillian Corrine Whaley gave for not being buried in the family plot. Reportedly, there was over 20,000 letters as well as diaries of the Whaley family found, none are on display or subject to public inspection. What and who really haunts the
Whaley house? It is a question that will probably remain unanswered by most. Those of us
who took part in this investigation have a firm conviction it is Violet Whaley, her father
Thomas and her mother Anna. We also believe George Whaley could be haunting the house as
well, he is the one who meets his mother everyday in the garden. |
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