Thomas Whaley built the house, starting in 1856 and finishing in 1857, for about $10,000. The first floor consists of the living room, music room, and kitchen, on the right side. The left side of the first floor is a courtroom. There are four bedrooms upstairs. 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 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, he haunts his stately home until the records are returned and the debt paid.
Another haunting is caused by Violet Whaley. There are 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 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, is possibly 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 building. 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. 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. 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.
What and who really haunts the Whaley house? It is a question that will probably remain unanswered by most. The popular belief it is Violet Whaley, her father Thomas and her mother Anna. It is also believed that George Whaley could be haunting the house as well, he is the one who meets his mother everyday in the garden.
