Pere Cheney, also called Cheney and Center Plains,John Fedynsky, ''Michigan's County Courthouses'' (2010), p. 43. was a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

located in

Crawford County, Michigan Crawford County is a county in the U.S. state of Michigan. Its population was 12,988 as of the 2020 census. The county seat of Crawford County is Grayling, the county's only incorporated community. Crawford County is located in the Northern ...

in the late 19th century. It is located in Beaver Creek Township and was once a small

lumbering Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks

town. Pere Cheney was the first community in

and was established by lumberjacks who trailed the Jackson, Lansing and Saginaw

Railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

north headed for

Mackinaw City Mackinaw City ( ) is a village at the northernmost point of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, United States. Divided between Cheboygan and Emmet counties, Mackinaw City is located at the southern end of the Mackinac Bridge, which carries Interst ...

. Established in 1874 around the sawmill of George M. Cheney,Walter Romig, ''Michigan Place Names'' (1973), p. 436. it served as the temporary county seat when Crawford County was officially organized in 1879, though it soon lost this distinction to the more heavily populated town of Grayling.Larry Wakefield, ''Ghost Towns of Michigan: Volume 2'' (1998), p. 32-36. It had a station on the

Michigan Central Railroad The Michigan Central Railroad (reporting mark MC) was originally chartered in 1832 to establish rail service between Detroit, Michigan, and St. Joseph, Michigan. The railroad later operated in the states of Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois in th ...

called the Cheney depot, and a post office. The post office closed in 1912, and the village was abandoned in the early Twentieth century. It has since taken on the reputation of a

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

History

Pere Cheney was established in 1873, as founder George Cheney received a land grant from the Michigan Central Railroad company to establish a stop along the railroad. A general store was established along with sawmills, carpenters, a doctor, hotel with a telegraph service and a post office. In the mid-1870s, the population was approximately 1,500 people. In 1893,

diphtheria Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacteria, bacterium ''Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild Course (medicine), clinical course, but in some outbreaks, the mortality rate approaches 10%. Signs a ...

spread through the town, wiping out a great deal of the town's population. Diphtheria recurred in 1897, by 1901 the town's population fell to only 25 people and in 1917 there were only 18 people left in this once booming town. At that time, the land was sold off in a public auction and the town was declared a ghost town. In more recent news about Pere Cheney, on Friday, October 16, 2009, a group of teens who had gathered at the Pere Cheney Cemetery were confronted by a white male in his 50s. The man brandished and fired a shotgun at the teens. "We have had a ton of complaints over the years," said Crawford County Sheriff Kirk Wakefield, who encouraged people to stay out of the cemetery. "There's always something going in the Pere Cheney Cemetery." In March 2015, it was announced that there are plans to restore the cemetery to its former glory. To this day, Pere Cheney remains Number 2 on the Top 10 Witch Graves in the Midwest, topped only by Bloody Mary of Indiana. The cemetery is owned by Beaver Creek Township, Michigan and is maintained by the township.

Reputation as 'ghost town'

There are many stories surrounding the ghost town of Pere Cheney as well as the cemetery itself.

Ghost In folklore, a ghost is the soul or Spirit (supernatural entity), spirit of a dead Human, person or non-human animal that is believed by some people to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely, from a ...

witches Witchcraft is the use of magic by a person called a witch. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic to inflict supernatural harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meaning. According to ''Enc ...

, strange figures, glowing orbs, and mysterious lights in the trees all feature. People have said to have heard children laughing while there and returning to their cars having handprints on them. Some say that Pere Cheney was a cursed town from the start as it was built on Native American land. The cemetery is down a two track road and runs along some railroad tracks, hidden in the woods. There is no sign indicating that the cemetery exists, but during the restoration process one was put up at its gates that detail the name, brief history, and rules of conduct. A little farther north was the town of Pere Cheney, which is to be considered a Ghost Town, but nothing of the town remains excepting for scattered, rare pieces of what could have been foundations. At least 90 people were buried in the Pere Cheney Cemetery, but, due to vandalism, very few headstones remain. Some sort of disease;

cholera Cholera () is an infection of the small intestine by some Strain (biology), strains of the Bacteria, bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea last ...

, or diphtheria was said to have wiped out the entire town in the early 20th century. According to local legends, a witch cursed the village of Pere Cheney after being banished to the woods, hence the reasoning behind the mass outbreaks of disease in the area. And according to some accounts, the entire town is haunted. According to other legends, the witch was buried in the cemetery, with people indicating the red headstone that once existed there was the witches. Most of the information about Pere Cheney states that people from nearby towns had tried to burn the town down to stop the disease from reaching them, but there is no information to support it. The disease came twice two years apart. The remaining people dragged their belongings to what we know now as Grayling. The cemetery has been vandalized and the town has a great deal of lichen amongst the natural foliage.

References

External links

* {{Crawford County, Michigan Ghost towns in Michigan Former populated places in Crawford County, Michigan Logging communities in the United States Populated places established in 1873 1873 establishments in Michigan