George's Revenge

After its unceremonious arrival in San Francisco, Atherton’s body was uncasked, dried out and buried, but soon there were reports that his spirit was haunting the family estate, Valparaiso Park, in San Francisco.

In life, George had been rather lackluster and passive. He and Gertrude lived with his mother, Dominga de Goñi. Both were very strong women, and it is said that he took his fateful trip to Chile (his father had won his fortune there in the 1830s) as a way to evade their domineering and to prove his mettle.

Gertrude reported that she was repeatedly woken by knocks on her bedroom door and sensed a cold, disturbing presence. Dominga de Goñi soon sold the mansion, so disturbed was she by the haunting. In the 1920s, the house was bought by Carrie Rousseau, who lived in the house’s ballroom for five decades with her 50 cats. The house (below) is on the National Register of Historic Places and many still consider it to be haunted.