The Whaley House | San Diego, CA

Listen along to my episode, The Scarecast Files #18: The Whaley House | San Diego, CA , featured on The Scarecast Podcast, while reading this post:

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The Whaley House in San Diego, California, is widely regarded as one of the most haunted houses in America, with a rich history of paranormal activity dating back to its construction in 1857. The story of its haunting begins even before the house was built, setting the stage for a legacy of supernatural occurrences.

The land where the Whaley House stands was originally the site of a public gallows, where in 1852, a man known as "Yankee Jim" Robinson was executed for stealing a boat.

James "Yankee Jim" Robinson was a notorious figure in San Diego's early history. He was a tall, blonde Canadian, likely a former sailor who came to California in 1842 after serving in the Navy. Some historians believe he acquired the nickname "Yankee" either during his time in the Navy or while prospecting for gold in Northern California.

In the summer of 1852, Yankee Jim Robinson found himself in serious trouble in San Diego. He and two accomplices were caught attempting to steal a rowboat from the San Diego Harbor. Their arrest was swift and violent, with Yankee Jim being beaten before being taken into custody.

The subsequent trial took an unexpected turn when prosecutor James W. Robinson (no relation to Yankee Jim) presented a dramatic accusation. He claimed that Yankee Jim's true intention was far more sinister than simply stealing a small boat. According to the prosecutor, Yankee Jim had come to San Diego with the goal of stealing the town's only ship to engage in piracy on the high seas.

This accusation significantly escalated the severity of the charges against Yankee Jim. What might have been treated as a simple case of attempted theft was now being portrayed as a prelude to a much more serious crime. 

The trial proceedings were so absurd to Yankee Jim that he reportedly laughed throughout, requiring multiple admonishments to maintain decorum in the courtroom.

Interestingly, Yankee Jim's cavalier attitude during the trial stemmed from his belief that the entire proceeding was merely a skit designed to scare him straight. This misconception would prove to be tragically misguided as the case progressed towards its grim conclusion.

After a brief deliberation, the jury, which included two men who owned the stolen rowboat, found Yankee Jim guilty of grand larceny and recommended the death penalty. Judge Benjamin Hayes, who was reportedly drunk during much of the trial, agreed with the jury's verdict. Yankee Jim was sentenced to be hanged the very next day, a sentence that seemed unusually harsh for the crime of stealing a boat.

It wasn't until he saw the rope the following day that he realized the last 24 hours of his life had been very real.

On September 18, 1852, Yankee Jim Robinson faced a gruesome execution at the gallows, situated where the Whaley House would later stand. The poorly planned hanging became a horrific spectacle due to a critical error: the scaffolding was inadequately constructed for Yankee Jim's towering 6-foot-3-inch stature. As the mule cart was pulled away, leaving him suspended, his toes grazed the ground, preventing a swift death. Instead of a quick end, Yankee Jim endured a torturous 45-minute ordeal, swinging back and forth like a macabre pendulum as he slowly strangled to death. This botched execution left an indelible mark on the site, setting the stage for the paranormal reputation that would later surround the Whaley House.

Interestingly, Thomas Whaley, who would later build his family home on this site, was a spectator at Yankee Jim's execution. Despite witnessing this horrific event, Whaley was not deterred from purchasing the property and constructing his house there a few years later.

The brutal nature of Yankee Jim's death is believed to have cursed the land, setting the foundation for future hauntings. Shortly after the execution, some citizens reported seeing Yankee Jim's ghost in the area of the gallows. These sightings continued even after the Whaley House was built in 1857.

The lingering presence of Yankee Jim's spirit became apparent to the Whaley family soon after they moved in. Thomas Whaley reported hearing heavy footsteps moving about the house, which he described as sounding "as though they were made by the boots of a large man". He eventually concluded that these unexplained footfalls were made by Yankee Jim Robinson. The whole tale of Yankee Jim became part of the house's lore, with Thomas reportedly telling guests about Yankee Jim's hanging and the subsequent ghostly occurrences.

To this day, many visitors to the Whaley House report feeling a choking sensation when passing through the archway between the music room and parlor, which stands where the gallows once were. This eerie phenomenon is often attributed to the lingering energy of Yankee Jim's traumatic death.

The Whaley House's haunted reputation is rooted not only in its location on a former gallows site but also in the series of tragic events that befell the family shortly after moving in. Thomas Whaley's decision to build his home where public hangings were once held set the stage for what many believe to be a cursed property. The family's misfortunes began almost immediately:

Thomas Whaley Jr., the second child of Thomas and Anna Whaley, met a tragic fate in the Whaley House. Born within its walls, the infant contracted scarlet fever at just 18 months old and passed away on January 29, 1858. This heartbreaking loss profoundly impacted the family, and many believe that young Thomas's spirit continues to inhabit the house. Visitors and staff frequently report eerie experiences associated with the child's presence, including the sound of infant cries echoing through the halls, the patter of tiny footsteps, and inexplicable giggling when no children are around. 

Thomas Whaley's daughter, Violet Eloise Whaley, endured a tragically short life marked by deception and heartbreak. On January 5, 1882, she married George T. Bertolacci in a double wedding ceremony with her sister Anna Amelia at the Whaley House. However, their marital bliss was short-lived. Bertolacci soon revealed himself as a con artist who had married Violet solely to gain access to the Whaley family fortune. The marriage crumbled rapidly, with Bertolacci abandoning Violet a mere two weeks into their honeymoon. The ensuing divorce process, scandalous for the time, dragged on for nearly a year, subjecting Violet to public scrutiny and shame. Overwhelmed by the emotional turmoil and societal judgment, Violet tragically took her own life on August 19, 1885, at the young age of 22. She used her father's 32-caliber pistol to shoot herself in the chest within the Whaley House, leaving behind a poignant suicide note quoting Thomas Hood's poem "Bridge of Sighs." Violet's heartbreaking story adds another layer to the Whaley House's haunting legacy.

Violet Whaley's tragic demise has left an indelible mark on the Whaley House, with her spirit reportedly being one of the most active presences in the historic building. Numerous visitors have recounted encounters with a young woman's apparition on the second floor, widely believed to be Violet herself. These sightings often occur in areas closely associated with her life and death, such as her bedroom or the spot where she took her own life. Beyond visual manifestations, many guests describe experiencing a profound and inexplicable sense of sorrow in these locations, as if Violet's emotional anguish continues to permeate the atmosphere. 

 Other family members, including Thomas, Anna, and their other children, lived and died in the house, with many believed to have remained as spirits.

The Whaley House is alive with spectral activity, as the spirits of the family are said to manifest in various eerie ways. Thomas Whaley's apparition is often spotted on the second-floor landing or at the top of the stairs, typically wearing a frock coat and top hat. Anna Whaley's presence is detected through the lingering scent of her French perfume, the sound of her high heels clicking across polished floors, or sightings of her ghost in a green gingham gown on the parlor couch. Even the family dog, Dolly, makes ghostly appearances throughout the house. Visitors frequently report hearing mysterious sounds like music, laughter, and footsteps, while witnessing objects move on their own and lights flickering inexplicably. Cold spots are commonly felt throughout the house, and full-bodied apparitions are often seen on the stairwells. Adding to the tragic lore, a young girl, believed to be Anna Whaley's granddaughter, is said to haunt the dining room where she accidentally ingested poison, further cementing the Whaley House's reputation as one of America's most haunted locations.

After featuring this place on my Instagram page, I got a bunch of comments from different people who have had experiences at the Whaley House.

One user, psycho_xander_, sent me a picture of what appears to potentially show an apparition of Thomas Whaley, taken in the theater room of the house upstairs:

He claims that if you zoom into the picture in the curtain and zoom out, you can see a guy with a beard, top hat, and a trench coat forming over the curtain:

Apparently the picture was taken back on November 15th, 2017, and has never been revealed to the public before today. Do you see the figure? I admit I had a tough time trying to find the figure in this image.

Funny that this was caught in the theater room, because another user, Devyn (yoo_its_dev), had sent me this mssage:

I do remember upstairs in the theater room I was sitting in the back corner in the last row against the wall next to an old girlfriend and I could feel like the temperature in the area I was in dropped and I was touched on the shoulder on the opposite side so I turned and ask if she felt cold and she said she felt chilly but her hands were in her jacket showing she couldn’t have touched me.

Devyn also sent me another photograph taken in the room right by the front door of the Whaley House inside the parlor room right across from the court room which appears to show a face, including two eyes, a nose, mouth, and chin on the top of the arch way. Apparently the tour guide he was with claimed that this was one of the most convincing faces they had seen in a photograph.

After doing some research, I see that the specific area where the gallows were located is believed to be near the archway between the music room and parlor, which is particularly the area where this image was taken. What do you think of this image?

I got one comment from one anonymous user who believes she caught the apparition of the young girl who died from poisoning on camera. The mom was taking pictures of her daughter in the kitchen/dining area of the home, and something weird showed up on camera. Upon closer look, it appeared to show a little girl with a bay blue dress with ruffles. Two photographs was taken:

The images appear to show a girl in a blue dress in two different places, very faint and hard to make out. It was only after these photographs were taken that they would find out a little girl had died in that very area from accidental poisoning.

The dining room has been described as having a "heavy feeling" and inducing feelings of anger in some visitors.

Interestingly, I received a video from Jennifer Armas (poisonivy.11) who claimed to have caught an orb while also inside the dining room:

Notice that if you watch the video, the orb moves much faster than the pan of the camera. She also noticed a shadow like glare against the wallpaper that preceded the orb caught on video. Apparently she sells homes and have captured a ton of orbs and figure like images in the past.

Now I want to cover a story someone told me that also took place in the dining room, which was a crazy experience at the Whaley House. This story came from Monica Herrera (monica.herrera.334) who commented on my post:

We experienced a crazy event there like maybe 8 years ago that they had to shut the house down for the day , so i@do believe this is very much real we never went back after that day.

I was curious what happened so I sent her a message and this is what she told me:

So we went to check it out… It was 3 of my daughters, a friend, and my son, and we started the tour. We saw the courtroom then we walked into the store and then the kitchen or the dining area, they were telling us a story of the little girl I think , then out of nowhere a man that was there with his family falls forward into his daughter… gets up with the strangest look on his face and says I’m fine, but he has this very sinister look , as they’re walking him out to get him some fresh air he falls forward again but this time we were all looking at him and everybody that was in the room said that it looked like his body had been pushed the way his body jerked he hit the front of his head and cut it , at that moment my daughter starts to say she’s not feeling well and faints and starts to sweat 😓 percussively, her color turn pale as a ghost , when she wakes up from her faint she says she’s felt like her neck was being choked… the people giving the tour then decides they’re going to shut down the house

They shut the house down for an hour to rest, when we exited from the back   We’re standing there kind of trying to gather ourselves up from what happened and we look up at the window and there was a shadow of a lady wearing lace with like a weird drip on the front of the gown for the longest time. My son refused to go back in after that hour when they let us back in. We spoke to the guy and asked what happened and he said he had this odd feeling come over him that he had never experienced anything like that before and that he didn’t have any health issues, when we went back and we were in the room where they had a little play house my daughter felt someone yank her hair .

That was quite the most violent experience I read of the Whaley House. After believing she initially deleted the photographs associated with her visit… I was in luck, Monica was able to find the photos.

One photo is during the day where u don’t see anything the other ones are the ones right after the incident blow them up and you will see a face and another you will see an outline of two faces.

Photo taken during the day:

Photos taken after incident:

Do you see it, or could this be a reflection from the window? Let me know what you think.

The story they told us if I can remember is that the girl tried twice to end her own life…

Could this be a capture of Violet, who committed suicide and whose apparition is often encountered on the second floor?

Monica messaged me again with more details on her experience:

My daughter reminded me that on the way home in the car their was a very strong scent of a cigar.  A month ago we were all talking about that incident with my daughters friend because she said she wanted to return and I was like no way that day was too intense, and we have all felt that something followed us back, because we often hear loud dragging noises in the house and a friend saw a lady with a little girl on the bannister of my home.

I do have to tell you we lived in Whittier the house was built in 1918 and we all except for my husband felt things and saw things , so possibly that could be what’s in our home , I did the mistake of bringing old books from that home .

Another anonymous user sent me a message:

Back in April 2018 my family & I visited. I took a lot of pictures, but didn’t look at many of them until we got back home the next night. In exactly one picture, one I took of an upstairs bedroom, there was a black & white…I don’t know how to describe it. A black & white smudge? My wife turned the contrast all the way up and it almost looks like curtains. It runs the entire length of the right side of the picture. All I know is I was the only person in the immediate area when I took that picture and whatever that thing was / is wasn’t visible when I snapped the picture. Creeped us out for sure!

A lot of users claimed that every room had a different energy to it, however, someone claimed that the heaviest energy in the house was the court room, as I mentioned earlier, which another user stated the room hosted a enery vortex, where visitors have experienced sudden temperature drops and feelings of unease, much more than other rooms. 

A former volunteer reported always feeling on the verge of fainting in the courtroom, describing difficulty breathing and discomfort. According to one source, LastAdventurer.com, the energy vortex is specifically in the jury box area of the courtroom. 

So… what is a energy vortex?

In the context of hauntings, an energy vortex is believed to be a concentrated area of paranormal activity that acts as a gateway between our physical world and the spirit realm. These vortexes are thought to have unique properties that facilitate supernatural phenomena and ghostly encounters.

I also got word from another anonymous user who stated:

We went 2 years ago and my daughter who was 15 at the time was the one who was experiencing weird things. Telling us she felt a burning sensation on her neck and when we looked there was a small scratch where there wasn't one before in the room where the beam was used for the hanging. In the theatre room my wife took a picture of my daughter's face sitting right next to her and when we looked at it, it looked like another face superimposed on my daughters.

When I asked him more about this photograph, he mentioned that, the first pic shown in just a picture of his daughter in front of the Whaley House:

The second picture, he states does not look quite like her:

His wife remembers taking the photo and said the phone camera was totally still and his daughter was just sitting in a daze staring out of the window, not towards the camera as shown in the photograph. 

What do you all think this is, some weird camera glitch? How could she be looking at the camera in the pictures when she was looking out the window?

Another anonymous user who also captured a blurry photo stated:

Was sitting down in front of the stage and took a picture of the stage. There was a blurry swirl on the chair on the stage that showed up in the picture. Then I got a migraine which is rare, then I started feeling nauseous and I had to leave. I got back to my room and threw up.

The images were taken in rapid succession, and the second one is blurry, but she was sitting down not moving around.

Photo 1:

Photo 2:

Now this image seems to be very close to what happened in the prior image of the daughter who was apparently not looking at the camera. How does perfectly still images result in such blurry captures?  Also, this was the same location where psycho_xander_ also caught an apparition of what was purported to be Thomas Whaley.

Another anonymous user sent me a photograph taken during a tour of the home, which they did not realize until the day after when reviewing their photos, that they caught something very unusual. In the picture is a dark black figure. 

The user claims that he wasn't sure if it was someone passing, but they took 3 pictures and the others did not show this figure. I was able to get the picture taken before the dark shadow figure popped up, but I'm intrigued to hear what you all think of this image.

Before:

After:

I feel this next set of photographs is perhaps the most chilling, here is what another anonymous user told me:

We took the Paranormal tour at night. I am Clairvoyant, I felt a female presence and the tour guide said take a picture. So right behind me was this woman in the picture.

We are on the second floor. There is also a second one from the same night. She is also in the window

According to the user, the first image appears to show a face and a arm. They took another picture of the same area and this apparition does not show up:

The second photo is really eerie, looks like a full apparition as clear as day:

There was even an experience by another user, Joan Holt (jholt1953) who claimed that her and her niece were taking pics outside the Whaley House near a tree and they caught something weird on camera. In two photographs taken, they believe they caught a picture of a ghostly figure, to which they dont believe could have been fog or mist. In one pic there is a grayish figure and the second photograph, there appears to be a black mass.

One chilling account was posted by Tracee (hairbytraceewyer) who stated:

We did a ghost hunters tour there and my emf reader went off so I took pictures in the downstairs hallways. I saw a little girl ghost peeking around the wall with Shirley temple type curly hair in my photo. The tour also included voice recordings where we asked Mrs. Whaley questions in her kitchen. I ask “hi Mrs Whaley, do you like visitors beings here?” My question was the only one from the group that got a response and she said in a quiet voice “I like it.”😳”

Unfortunately, when I asked for the picture, it was not available given this happened 10 years ago, however they will send it once the image is found, so make sure you all stay on the lookout for this photograph.

These tragic events, and experiences I have gotten from different listeners, combined with the property's dark history as a former execution site, have cemented the Whaley House's reputation as one of America's most haunted locations.

Now operating as a museum, the Whaley House continues to attract ghost hunters and curious visitors. Its reputation as a paranormal hotspot has been reinforced by numerous investigations and media coverage. The U.S. Department of Commerce has even listed it as an authentic haunted house. Have you had a chance to visit this infamous haunted house?