Rose Hill Cemetery

In 1974 I found myself living in Antioch, CA near Nortonville as I moved there for a corporate job with the local paper mill. I met a gal there who was also in town for a job and we became a couple.

She had three great kids and one night her two sons came home in tears saying they had been chased by the White Witch who they described further as an old hag with white or gray hair. They had been screwing around up in Nortonville which is a ghost town up in the hills where the area was originally settled by miners who mined the soft coal up in the hills. Pittsburg down the hill was originally called Black Diamond and where the coal from the mines in Nortonville was taken to be shipped down river.

Apparently they were messing around the cemetery at dusk and a old hag came after them. They put their car in reverse to ditch her then headed down the hill. I was told this old lantern with a flame in it kept chasing them down the hill until they were going something like 50 MPH which as reckless down the old road especially at night and managed to lose the light which was chasing them which was supposedly carried by the hag. She had to be pretty quick from what I was told.

Their fear was real and the story you posted and what they told us has been told by many kids from the area who visited Nortonville. Back in the mid 1970's the area was relatively small and rural. Both Pittsburg (no H) and Antioch are now major suburbs of San Francisco at the eastern end of the BART subway system with many commuters -- so the area is nothing like back then. But the stories persist...

I have no doubt the kids saw the Witch. In an ironic twist both of her sons died tragically in car accidents in the area following the interaction. I cannot say this was due to dealing with the witch but it is ironic both young men died in car accidents years apart and not too far from Nortonville.

It could have been they were just wild young adults but considering both of them died I have to wonder. This story is true with no BS on my part.

I have not seen my former partner in many years she married another guy and they moved to Oregon. Her sons encountered the Witch around 1974 with one dieing in the late 1970s and her second son in the early 1980s one in Pittsburg the other in Antioch nearby in car accidents.

I'm not saying it is unsafe to visit Nortonville but I would not screw around with the graveyard and I would not go at night.

March 2017