[2] In 1871, there was a series of "haunted windows" in San Francisco that made the news and were collected by Woodward and displayed in the museum.

[1] An unexplained sad male face with baggy eyes was appearing for more than five days in the window, and rumors spread that it was the ghost of the home owners deceased husband.

[1] Days later, nearby on 708 Lombard Street, another house had an older male ghost in profile in the window, which also drew a crowd of onlookers.

[1] In 1877, Miriam Leslie described Woodward's Gardens as "open to the public, who, for twenty-five cents each soul, may spend the day in rambling among shady groves, verdant lawns, flowery bosquets, lakes, streams and waterfalls, conservatories, ferneries, using the swings, the trapezes, the merry-go-rounds at will".

When the Woodward family auctioned the 75,000 objects in the collection in 1894, much of it was purchased by San Francisco philanthropist and politician Adolph Sutro.