By Dave Mace
As we prepare to investigate a home in Pioneer California, I’ve been doing some research. I’ve spent hours scanning over uninteresting or unrelated articles, blogs and websites hoping to find something with a possible connection to our investigation location.
Our client is claiming a lot of odd occurrences, including the vision of a child, possibly a girl, peeking around the corner of a door. He was able to snap a photo with his Blackberry which seemed to show a head partially peeking out. The photo was dark and grainy but lightened up rather well and seemed to show facial features and curly long hair.
This grainy photo seems to show someone peeking out from the right side of the door.
Is this Rachel?
On my initial research I found that a five year old girl “Ilana Michelle Sargent” was murdered by her stepmother on November 21, 1980. Somewhere in the small town of Pioneer, Gina Sargent is said to have pushed the 5 years old down the stairs of their home. The child died several days later in a Sacramento Hospital. This seemed to be a possible match to our haunting spirit, but I kept thinking that the child seemed too young to be our ghost.
I continued to search for days finding nothing new. It seemed that Pioneer was a remote town of middle income people without a lot of crime or tragedies that involved children. In fact, Ilana was the only female child death I could find. Undaunted, I continued to search out the Internet for something.
Today, I found what I was looking for. While it still leaves some questions unanswered, it opens up a lot of possible scenarios for restless spirits. Let’s go back in history over 150 years when immigrants were coming to California in the thousands. The trek was extremely difficult and filled with disasters and tragedy for many, especially the young ones.
One family in particular was coming from Iowa with a wagon train. Somewhere along the Immigrant Trail, part of which is now Highway 88, a young girl named Rachel Melton began to get sick. Her family did everything they could to take care of her, even stopping and setting up camp. Despite their efforts, Rachel died on October 4th, 1850. With no other choice the family buried her and continued on to the West.
Years later, the mother returned in search of her daughter’s grave but was unable to find it. Some guests at a near by Inn heard about the mother’s plight and sought to help. They knew of a grave in the area and immediately set out to find it. Once they did, they pitched in a purchased a head stone. There it stood for decades to come and became known as “the Maiden’s Grave”. Eventually the site became one of California’s first Historic Landmarks. Unfortunately, this is not the end of the story.
In 1986 a land owner in the area discovered an old abandon and overgrown grave hidden in a remote area of the property. Many historians believe this to be the real grave of Rachel, but if that was true, who was buried in the grave known as “the Maiden’s Grave”. It turns out that a young man named “Allen Melton of Henry County” died on or near the spot ion October 4, 1850.
It seems the kindly guest of the Inn made a mistake. When they saw the grave it was marked with the last name Melton and the date October 4, 1850. They assumed it was Rachel’s but it had no relation to her. In fact Rachel’s last name is unknown and probably lost forever. There is no way to know if it is Rachel that is buried in the second grave, only that it is the remains of a young female.
This tragic story played out approximately 30 minutes from our investigation location. Perhaps our client is being visited by Rachel, looking for her family. Maybe there is another lost sole in our client’s home, some nameless immigrant who wasn’t able to complete their journey. Read what Paul Dale Roberts has to say once we complete our investigation.
http://sacramentoparanormalonline.com/Blog/?p=56
