WHALEY HOUSE
Old Town San Diego. Yankee Jim Robinson hanged on the lot 18 September 1852. Thomas Whaley builds 1857 and names heavy second-floor steps for Jim. House later a museum. Scaffold is the fact under the parlour.
117°12'00 W
1. Public Record
Whaley House, Old Town San Diego. Thomas Whaley builds on the lot in 1857. Five years earlier, on 18 September 1852, James "Yankee Jim" Robinson is hanged on this ground after a burglary conviction. He is baptised Santiago Robinson that morning. The drop is bad in the local telling. Whaley knows the story when he buys. Soon after the family move in he reports heavy steps on the second floor and gives them Jim's name. Anna Whaley speaks of a presence she does not want.
Later talk adds Thomas and Anna themselves, daughter Violet, a woman in the old courtroom, a child, bread baking that no one put in the oven. The house serves as home, granary, courthouse, theatre. San Diego saves it as a museum. Visitors on the stair speak of a pressure. The scaffold is the fact under the parlour. The footsteps are the claim that followed the fact.
A lot that had a gallows first. A family that moved in anyway.
Whaley said he heard loud footsteps on the second floor and attributed the noise to Yankee Jim.
2. Date of Incident
Hanging 18 September 1852. House 1857. Family occupancy thereafter. Museum years into the present.
3. Location
San Diego, California. Approximate 32°45 N 117°12 W.
4. Official Narrative
A restored historic house museum. Official narrative will name Yankee Jim as the man hanged on the lot. It will not certify the footsteps.
5. Witness Layer
Thomas and Anna Whaley. Later staff and visitors. County record of the 1852 sentence.
On September 18 he was given a quick Catholic baptism and renamed Santiago Robinson.
Anna felt that an unseen presence had taken up residence.
6. Recovery Logistics
The house. County paper for 1852. No remains tagged to the footsteps.
7. Assessment
Keep the date of the hanging and the baptismal name so Jim is a person before he is a tour. Keep Whaley's own attribution of the steps. Do not write every later figure on the stair as documented. Do not write the bad drop as theatre. The lot had a scaffold. That is the load-bearing sentence. Everything else leans on it.
8. Materials & Remains
House museum. 1852 court paper. Visitor accounts.
9. Key Personnel
James "Yankee Jim" Robinson : Hanged on the lot, 1852.
Thomas and Anna Whaley : Builders and first witnesses of the steps.
10. Aftermath
Old Town sells the night tour. The county still has the 1852 minute. The parlour sits on the same dirt.
11. Current Archive Status
Status: Lot 1852. House 1857. Steps claimed. Museum now.
Confidence: High that Robinson was hanged on that ground and that Whaley built there five years later. Low that the footsteps are his. Low that the later cast of figures is documented.
Filing note
A San Diego lot, a hanging in September, a baptismal name given that morning, a brick house five years later, a husband who named the footsteps on the second floor, a wife who did not like the air.
Santiago Robinson. The name they gave him when the other one was about to end.