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Emma Brown: You're listening to WCMU, I'm Emma Brown.
In the late 1800's, during the state's lumber boom, around 15,000 people lived in the northern Michigan town of Pere Cheney between Grayling and Roscocommon.
By 1901, the population plummeted and the area became a ghost town.
According to local lore, people believed a curse was placed on the town that lead to several people dying in the community.
WCMU's Tina Sawyer talked with Lilly Cooper from the Crawford County Historical Society to find out the town's origins and the lore surrounding it.
Lilly Cooper: They were a bustling little town. They had the sawmill as you know about. They also had a grand hotel. They had stores. They had a school. It was just a really busy little town up until the diphtheria spread through the town.
Tina Sawyer: Yeah, and that's the tragic demise from what I understand. So, I think a lot of people thought it was the fires that went through around that time, but it really was the diphtheria outbreaks?
LC: There were fires as well. So, a lot of people did die from that as well, but most of them did die from the diphtheria, yes.
TS: From a historical standpoint, how fast did the town collapse?
LC: Between like four and eight years, I want to say. It was left a ghost town in 1917 when there were only 18 residents left and everybody had to move out.
TS: Today, it is a true ghost town. What physical remnants would they actually see?
LC: Just foundations. Sometimes there'll be shingles or glass eroding from the ground from the buildings but there's a lot of like the, the holes where like the foundation of the building would have been.
TS: Mm-hmm, and then the cemetery of course.
LC: Yep, and that used to have 115 headstones accounted for, but over the years of vandalism and weather, there's not that many left in the cemetery, and any markers that are left are farther back in the woods, and there's no names, it's just a marker with a number on it.
TS: Cheney Cemetery has a reputation as one of those most haunted places in Michigan. I remember, I grew up north as well. So, as a kid in high school or even grade school, we heard, early 80s, those stories of the witch of Pere Cheney who supposedly cursed the town. Can you tell us what that story is and your thoughts on it?
LC: So, there was a woman who was pregnant out of wedlock, and at the time back in the day, being pregnant before marriage was considered shunned upon. So, they casted her out of the town and banished her into the woods, where she had survived. Her baby didn't survive the winter and supposedly, she came back to curse the town because of what happened to her and her baby.
I personally don't believe that she was the one that caused the diphtheria. I believe that it was somebody that was traveling and possibly got off the train and just spread it throughout the town, without even knowing they had it.
TS: When people go there now, visitors frequently report like hearing children laughing in the woods or handprints on their windows. Have you witnessed any of this?
LC: Yes, I have witnessed it.
TS: And there's nobody that lives around there that could play pranks on people?
LC: There is a Pere Cheney Road where people do still live on, but they don't live in or around the town and cemetery.
TS: I'd imagine going there in the daytime versus the nighttime is a very different experience.
LC: Yes, every time you go out to Pere Cheney there's always a new experience. So, there's still so much more to learn about that place.
EB: That was Lilly Cooper from the Crawford County Historical Society, speaking with WCMU's Tina Sawyer.
The historical society recently screened a documentary on Pere Cheney to raise funds for their museum.
