Lone Surviving Remnant of a Vanished Michigan Lumber Town
Pere Cheney Road (Cheney Road), Roscommon, MI 48653
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public access during daylight hours. The site has been the target of vandalism for decades; visit respectfully and do not disturb headstones.
Access
Limited Access
Sandy two-track road through pine forest; small clearing with uneven ground
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1873 · Lone Surviving Element of a Vanished Michigan Lumber Town · Late Nineteenth-Century Diphtheria Epidemic Burials · Briefly the Seat of Crawford County, Michigan
The town of Pere Cheney was established in 1873 when George M. Cheney built a sawmill and rail stop on Michigan Central Railroad land in what is now western Crawford County, in the central Lower Peninsula. The town grew rapidly through the late 1870s, reaching approximately 1,500 residents at its peak. It had two sawmills, a hotel offering telegraph service, multiple stores, a post office, and briefly served as the seat of Crawford County before the seat was relocated to Grayling.
The town's collapse was driven by a combination of factors. A diphtheria epidemic in the late nineteenth century killed a substantial number of residents, particularly children. Fires destroyed structures repeatedly. The lumber economy on which Pere Cheney depended exhausted local pine stands by the early twentieth century. By 1917 only 18 residents were said to remain. The town was effectively abandoned over the following years.
Today only the cemetery remains. Approximately ninety burials are recorded, though few headstones survive. The site was vandalized repeatedly through the twentieth century, with headstones broken or removed. Local volunteers, including the Crawford County Historical Society, now maintain the cemetery and have replaced some markers. Access is via Pere Cheney Road off Michigan-93, north of Roscommon and southwest of Grayling.
Sources
Pere Cheney's most-cited paranormal tradition is the witch legend. The most common version describes a woman, sometimes a midwife and sometimes a community outcast, who was accused of witchcraft and blamed for the diphtheria epidemic that emptied the town. Variants of the legend hold that she was pregnant out of wedlock, was banished to the surrounding forest, and cursed the town before dying. Some versions describe her grave as marked by a red stone that glows at night.
No Michigan or Crawford County historical record corroborates the witch narrative. The diphtheria epidemic is documented in late-nineteenth-century county death records; the explanatory layer attributing it to a cursed woman is folk tradition rather than history. The legend has been documented and analyzed by Mysterious Michigan, Northern Michigan History, and Click On Detroit.
Reported phenomena collected by regional outlets include drifting lights in the pines visible from the road, the sound of children's laughter where no children are present, glowing orb photography results, and apparitions described as figures glimpsed at the edge of the small clearing. The cemetery's remoteness, the loss of most headstones to vandalism, and the haunted-Michigan tradition combine to make Pere Cheney one of the state's most-cited cemetery folk sites.
Visitors are reminded that the cemetery is maintained by local volunteers and that the site has suffered substantially from decades of vandalism. The folkloric weight should not extend to disrespect for the surviving markers or for the families whose children are buried here.
Notable Entities
Follow a sandy two-track road through the pine forest near Grayling, Michigan to a small forest clearing where approximately ninety people are buried in what remains of the lumber-era town of Pere Cheney. Few headstones remain; many were lost to neglect and vandalism through the twentieth century. Local volunteers now maintain the site.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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