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The legend of Chowchilla's Minturn Cemetery

On the banks of the Chowchilla River in northern Madera County lies a small cemetery dating back to the late 1800's. Both the cemetery and the area itself were named after wheat farmers by the name of Minturn who had a railroad siding built in the area in 1872. Buried at the cemetery are Rowland (1845-1894), Jonas (1819-1884) and Jonas's wife Abby West (1820-1899). It should be noted that Jonas and Abby had several children, but none are buried there.

Rumors of paranormal activity have gone back for many years. High school students would go out there in the hopes of witnessing something strange. There have been reports of hearing a woman screaming and children either crying or laughing. Others have claimed to have seen the ghost of a man picking up trash around the graves. There's even a report of a group of teens going out there one night and their car died when the drove up to the cemetery. One group even claims to actually hear a disembodied voice asking why they came back and they they were going to die.

One has to ask the question is this cemetery actually haunted and if so why? Could the ghost of the man that has been seen be either Rowland or Jonas, making sure the grounds on which they are buried are kept clean and tidy? And what of the reports of the woman screaming? Could this be Abby? Perhaps the sound of ghostly children can be linked to this. It's known that Abby and Jonas had several children, but the cemetery only has the three I mentioned buried there. There's no mention of any children at all. Maybe Abby is screaming because her children aren't buried in the same location she is and the children are crying for the same reason. All I do know is that the legends of the Minturn Cemetery have persisted for a long time and will continue to do so.

Please note that I did not say where this cemetery is located. I was told it is on private property and that the owner's permission is required first. Even with that information I don't know the exact location, just the intersection of two roads and then you travel down a dirt path for about a mile. With that being said if anyone does decide to find this cemetery, please, please get the owners permission first. If not you will be trepessaing and will deserve any punishment you will get. Don't fuck this up for paranormal researchers just because you want to get a cheap thrill.
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Anonymous said…
If this is the one in Chowchilla just off the main road (the only cemetary I know of in Chowchilla), I have been there many times as I have family buried there. Granted I have only been there during the day but I have never seen or heard anything paranormal there. As for the children screaming aspect of it, the cemetary actually has two halves. The left is adults and the right is children. Sometimes children are buried with their parents on the left half if the deaths were under obvious circumstances.
June 30, 2011 at 12:25 AM
Anonymous said…
It's off the 171 exit before chowchilla on the north bound side. Haven't gone past the no trespassing sign tho would like to .
October 15, 2011 at 11:47 PM
Anonymous said…
Hey Michael,

Our group may be interested in investigating (we are in Fresno). How can I find owners name? Public records? I am assuming the private property means it is a small private plot? I ask because one of the comments indicates a cemetery off the main road...the other comment suggests something different...any help would be appreciated, and by all means we will definitely contact the owner to get permission first!
Thank you.
December 5, 2011 at 2:33 PM
Anonymous said…
I went there last night with some family and family friends and experienced the woman screaming two times. The first scream sounded like a hawk or a bird of some sort, the second one sounded as if it was coming from a distance(maybe the tree that the woman had hung herself from after she killed her 3 kids) but it sounded so vivid as if it was right behind you. I could hear the vibrations in the scream.
March 4, 2012 at 1:47 PM
Weird Fresno said…
@Anonymous: This is the first I have heard that the woman hung herself after killing her three children. Can you elaborate on this story some more? Curious as to where you heard it. Thanks.
March 4, 2012 at 3:42 PM
Anonymous said…
Well, my dad's friend was telling us the history and the background story about the woman. When you drive out to the graves, the only tree on the rigth side of that little dusty road is the tree where she hung herself.(So I was told)
March 9, 2012 at 11:58 PM
Anonymous said…
I am amazed by these stories im reading. I live less then a mile away from these graves and have passed by there numerous times, while taking a shortcut to my house-at night. I have yet not exprienced any of the paranormal explained in the post above. However, i became very intrigued with the Minturn Family history. I would like to find out more of what happened in reality with this family.
January 14, 2013 at 9:13 AM
Unknown said…
I grew up about 2 miles west from where the graves sit. I traveled along the paved roads many, many times and my dad did tell me about that area being haunted. A couple weeks ago a coworker of mine who grew up in chowchilla told me about the graves and about the book The Minturn Chronicles. I found a copy at the Clovis Bookbarn and learned about the Minturn family. On September 15, 2013 I went to the location but hesitated to enter the dirt road because there are no trespassing signs posted. I would like to visit the location with my dad just to check it out. I am not interested at all in the paranormal activity. That would freak me out for days.
September 15, 2013 at 5:47 PM
Anonymous said…
I went there when I was 18 with about 10 people in two cars. We went because a friend told us that if you knock over the mothers headstone and then go up to the house (what was left of it) and wait for a few minutes, when you return it will be upright again. We were curious but no one planned on knocking it over. However, one guy did and a girl starting screaming to put it back up. He did. Then one of the cars died and we had to turn the other one around to jump it. If you've been there, you know how narrow the road was. Very creepy feel but didn't see anything paranormal.

Kind of weird sidenote, the original friend who told us DID knock it over on a previous occasion and claimed with was returned upright without explanation. He died in a freak accident within a few months. The guy who knocked it over when I was there had his sister die in a freak accident within a few months.
July 28, 2014 at 12:43 AM
jimmyleeahojr said…
i went there with a few football teammates in a 2 trucks and a few guys from school who drove a third truck. we drank a few budweisers standing on the dirt road, in the middle of the darkest chowchilla night i could remember. my teammates were like me, curious to see or hear anything that our parents had warned us about as kids. it was creepy quiet and we stood still waiting for anything to happen. after we drank a few beers, one of the guys from school said "Nothings going to happen!" and threw a bottle against the white grave, smashing it to pieces. this made me mad. my football buddies had too much respect to do something like that and the glass shattering made us look at each-other like "WTF did he do that for?" the idiots got in their truck, peeled out and left. we were parked on the grave side of the dirt road and my buddy who was driving, peeled out also. we felt like the back of the truck was sinking to the passenger side. he continued to gas it but we were stuck. then we hopped out to see what happened. we freaked out. his back tire was shredded to the rim. we were scared. we couldn't stay to fix it, even if we had the tools and spare tire, theres no way we could stay there anymore. my buddy pulled the truck foreward enough to get on the road. we checked to see what we hit. whoever takes care of the grave site had cut down the tree saplings that were where we parked. they were about an inch or two thick and all cut at 45-60 degree angles like dinosaur teeth in the mud. my buddy drove to the highway and called his dad. i havnt been there in almost 10 years. if you do go to the minturn graves, show respect, something may happen if you dont.
January 30, 2015 at 1:50 PM
Anonymous said…
I am a former Chowchilla resident, and during my family's last four years living in Chowchilla my father was the property manager of the ranch on which this cemetery was located. I do not know the current owners' names, but I can assure you this is completely on the other side of Chowchilla from where the Chowchilla Cemetery is located, and only these three graves are there. It is near the Minturn exit off the 99. I will not be more specific, even if I could remember the names of the other streets.
September 21, 2016 at 11:24 PM
Unknown said…
I visited the site in 1980, around Thanksgiving. Went to the graves, and walked thru the abandoned Minturn house, which was in shambles. Many odd things were seen and heard that night. I returned a year later, and parked near the graves. Was making out with my gal, and my battery, which was a month old, died. I flagged down a car at the road, sent my girl home, and waited for two hours for help. I read the gravestones. One was very creepy, with some words to the effect of "one day my children will rise...". I would need to write up a long story about the first night at the spot, if anyon wanted to read about it.
July 1, 2017 at 5:33 PM
Anonymous said…
I had moved to Chowchilla by way of San Diego, in 1980. I went to the sorry assed small high school. There was an odd heatwave that fall, so it would be hot in the day time, and cold at night. I was interested in two friendly local breezies, sisters, Annette the younger one, and Sandra the middle sister. That creepy fall night I was invited to go to Minturn to see "ghosts", by Sandra. Little did I know, but Sandra also invited Dave R., a friendly dude with a mean hair-lip(it is so Chowchilla). Sandra liked Dave too, and we all, Sandra, little sis Annette(double ddz), Dave, and yours truly embarked in Dave's truck(Camper shell and all) towards the Minturn house. I think we had a couple of beers, and it was close to Halloween. We parked, walked up to the grave's headstones, one was pushed over. But one said some shit like "And my children shall rise again", I remember that freaked me out a bit. It seemed out of place to have that on the headstone. We trolled around the dilapitated house, and at one point my foot went through the old floor of the messy beat up inside of the abode Then......email me at 3233tonyd@gmail.com, for the rest. HAHAHAHAHA!!!
March 15, 2018 at 9:21 AM
Anonymous said…
LOL. While I was interested in haunted places, last year, the wife was interested in "extra-curricular" relationships outside our partnership. That's what I get for having hobbies. LOL!
October 28, 2019 at 1:35 PM
Anonymous said…
The current property owner has installed a tall wrought iron fence around the 3 graves and filled the area with beautiful white pebbles. I first went there in 1986 with a group of friends from Merced. The house was still standing at that time and we walked around it scaring each other and drinking beer. Our weird experience happened a ways from the house on the dirt road (now paved) where it crosses the railroad racks at the main road (which would be Road 26 & Avenue 15 intersection) We had come in 3 vehicles, a car ahead of us goes over the tracks and heads home, we start to go over, we are in a lowered Chevy step-side truck, 4 of us inside. As we get on the tracks all of us see the bright single light of the train coming toward us, the truck stalls, we look to the other side, the signal light is green, not red, meaning the train is definitely coming! The truck sputters but we get across. There is a finale car behind us. Ave. 15 is the old highway right there now used as an offramp and is a divided road right there so we have to go one way then double back to get back on the freeway to head back to Merced. We looked and looked but none of us ever see the train pass, or any train at all for that matter. The tracks run along side of Hwy 99 so we would have seen it. When we get back to Merced we regroup and tell our story to the other 2 cars that were with us. Neither the car ahead of us nor the car which crossed to tracks right behind us had seen any train lights or green signal light. They said they wondered why we had stopped on the tracks like that for a minute. To this day all 4 of us can still remember that event. A few years later I would move to Chowchilla and spend the next 30 years living in that town. My husband worked for the road dept and on his first day of work he would be paving that exact intersection where we had this experience....
November 28, 2019 at 4:48 PM
Ellen Porter said…
I'm a former Chowchilla resident. For a time, my father was the administrator of the property where the graves are, but I'm not sure which farmer owns it now. I've done a bit of research, and some of it indicates Roland Minturn was the oldest child of Jonas and Abby. Anyhow, the other five Minturn children - two of whom didn't even move to California with their parents - didn't die until after their mother. However, any surviving members of the Minturn family live no closer than Fresno, about 40 miles away. Thomas Minturn's descendants are the only ones who would still possibly be named Minturn, since Roland Minturn and James Minturn had no children and the other three were girls. The one girl who lived in California with them also had no children. I know Jonas and Abigail's grandson Ward Minturn lived in Fresno at the time of his death. Ward's brothers lived even further away.
March 2, 2020 at 10:31 AM
Anonymous said…
I've NEVER heard of kid killing! But it's definitely haunted! I'll NEVER return there!
June 20, 2022 at 9:12 AM
Anonymous said…
If you are looking for haunting? Save Mart in chowchilla CA is it!!
June 20, 2022 at 9:13 AM
Anonymous said…
Interesting. We used to race trains right at that crossing. We would stupidly park there, I was in the back of a truck with Matt valizan and Freddy fagundes inside the truck. The train got so close once the conductor, whose face I saw, was screaming and threw on the brakes. The train stopped a lite a half mile away, I pissed my pants, and was screaming , the train missed the truck by less than 6 inches. 1980 chowchilla
September 12, 2024 at 10:28 AM
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