Settlers’ Souls Haunt Old San Diego’s Whaley House

Thursday, Oct. 31, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

The couple make occasional appearances and can be heard banging around during the darkest hours of the night. Never mind they've been dead for about a century.

"It's not like there are poltergeists or furniture that flies around or anything anyone needs to be afraid of," said Wayne Cook, curator of the 140-year-old Whaley House. "It's just a very old, very lovely house - ancient history by California standards."

The surreal stories are often repeated by visitors who know nothing about the history of the red brick house located just outside Old Town State Park, one of California's earliest settlements.

"These people come downstairs and say, 'What's the deal with all the cigar smoke upstairs? Who's got the lavender perfume?" Cook said. "They report out of thin air something that's part of the legend of the house."

In the early 1960s, the Whaley House was designated as haunted by the U.S. Commerce Department. California's only other official haunted home is the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose.

Since then, celebrities like Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling and horror flick actor Vincent Price have flocked to the home along with ghost chasers and the curious.

In 1964, then-local television celebrity Regis Philbin and a companion tried to spend the night in the house. About 2:30 a.m., they saw someone - or something - walk from the study into the music room.

"They put a flashlight beam on it, and whatever it was vanished into thin air," Cook said.

The duo escaped. The house's haunted reputation exploded.

"I'm sure haunted structures abound, but before you make the government list you've got to have a history," Cook said. "This house certainly qualifies on that."

Whaley, the son of a New York merchant family that owned the land now known as Central Park, constructed his San Diego home in 1856, seven years after he sailed to California in search of gold.

Four years after finishing his house and knocking down the gallows that had been on the property, Whaley heard footsteps upstairs. He wrote in letters that they belonged to James "Yankee Jim" Robinson, who was hanged for trying to steal a schooner.

In addition to the Whaleys and Yankee Jim, some visitors have heard the sound of children crying where the Whaley's 17-month-old son died of scarlet fever and a neighbor's daughter was killed after slicing her neck on Anna Whaley's clothesline.

Thomas Whaley died in 1890, and his wife followed him in 1913.

The house itself is experiencing something of a second coming: After the last Whaley relative died in 1953, a new owner wanted to tear it down to make room for a warehouse.

The county and preservationists intervened, and it was opened as a museum in 1960 after four years of renovations. Now a state historical landmark, the house is packed with antiques, if not souls, from the 19th century.

Today, a large room that once held grain from Whaley's mercantile business is decorated as a courtroom as it did from 1869-1871, when it was San Diego County's first administration building.

But while visitors flock to see the antiques, they also come to pay homage to the less fathomable, like Mr. and Mrs. Whaley.

"When I first walked through here, I was by myself and had this eerie feeling like someone was watching me," said visitor Ellen Cavezudo of Spring Valley. "I believe in ghosts, so I wouldn't be surprised if I saw one. I was hoping."