Historic Places: Who is Haunting the Whaley House?

Historic Places with Elsa Sevilla, a KPBS-TV series about San Diego history, visited the Whaley House in Old Town for this October 2019 segment. Sevilla tours the museum with staff member Victor Santana, who outlines the house’s many lives: home of the merchant Thomas Whaley and his family, his general store, a theatre and the county courthouse.

Santana then introduces the ghosts staff and visitors talk about: Thomas Whaley, linked to the smell of cigar smoke; his wife Anna, linked to lavender perfume; Dolly, a dog visitors say they feel at their feet; and above all Yankee Jim Robinson, hanged on the site before the house was built. He also tells of the death of the Whaleys’ daughter Violet in 1885, and shows the upstairs room that became San Diego’s first commercial theatre in 1868. The two climb the staircase where visitors claim to feel pressure on their chests – and feel nothing.

The segment presents staff lore warmly but clearly as stories, and the presenter reports feeling nothing on the famous staircase. Some details differ from the record: the house was built in 1856–57 rather than 1853, and Yankee Jim Robinson was hanged in 1852 – before any house stood on the lot – after being convicted of trying to steal a boat.

The house’s haunted reputation grew after it opened as a museum in 1960, and its operator now brands it “America’s Most Haunted House.” Old Town is a busy district of restaurants and shops, which offers simpler explanations for drifting smells of smoke and perfume.